Questions about 2-1. Need advice since a.m. nap is our short nap.

[ericapt]

Hi all-  
Really this isn't so much a specific question about our current routine, but more general about how we will handle the 2-1 transition when it approaches.  DD is 10.5 months old and currently takes a short morning nap and a long afternoon nap.  I have made it this way because she tends to sleep better for both, it fits into our day better (I have a 3.5 y.o DS) and it seems to have helped somewhat with our very EW's.  She still isn't a super long night sleeper and wakes early, but not at 4 or 5 am these days.

How do I handle the transition from 2 naps to 1 nap when her morning nap is short?  With my DS it worked because he always took the longer nap in the morning, so we eventually just phased out the 2nd nap once he could stay away long enough.  With DD she currently takes a 1 hr 15 min morning nap around 10 am and then a 2 hour nap around 2:15 or 2:30 pm.  Any thoughts on how to adjust.  Plus, she is starting to tolerate longer A times, but is definitely not ready for just 1 nap.  So, do I shorten morning or afternoon nap now?  I don't want to push bedtime later by leaving her naps the same length, so I'm confused as to where to go.  Ok, so maybe this turned out to be more of a specific question than I had planned.  Just for kicks I'll post our routine in case it might help explain my situation.

wakes in the morning anywhere from 6 am to 6:45 am (I wake her at 6:45 if she isn't up, but this doesn't happen often.)
E    7 am  BF,  8 am  solids
A    varies from 3 hours 15 min to 4 hours depending on when she woke.  I've been sticking with a set morning nap to combat those evil EW's we had.
S   10-11:15 am (I wake her.)

E   11:15 am  BF,   12:15  solids
A
E   1:45 pm  BF
A   3 hours to 3 hours 15 minutes total since last nap
S   2:15 or 2:30 for 2 hours (I have to wake her most days.)

E  4:30 pm  BF,  5:30 pm  solids
A  3 hours to 3 hours 15 minutes and she seems pretty tired and ready for bed
E  7:15 pm  BF and she falls asleep within about 10 minutes
S  7:30pm until somewhere between 6 and 6:45 am most days.  She wakes earlier occasionally, but I don't go to her until 7 am.  Sometimes she will wake earlier and then babble/play for 30-60 minutes and fall back to sleep.

So, this is our day.  We've really come a long way since she didn't start STTN until almost 9 months old!!!  I was starting to think I might lose my mind, but then things started to improve.  Of course, now she's at that age when sleep gets kinda silly again.  Maybe she'll be easier because we dealt with such difficult times until just recently  (Wishful thinking!)

Anyway, I'd really love some help with tweaking our routine to help DD start down the slow road to 1 nap (I'm in NO hurry!) while still getting good sleep day and night.  You are all such wonderful resources and I'd love to hear what you've done or what you would recommend!  Thank you in advance.  

[~Karen~]

Just keep shortening the morning nap as and when you need to and keep the pm nap long.  I did it this way with ds1 and we got to 18 months in the end before he went to one nap.  Doing shorter am nap usually helps with ew as well as if they are prone to it then they don't get that chance to catch up on missed night sleep by having a long nap in the morning. 

So next time you have to do a routine tweak, cut the morning nap down to an hour and then 45 mins and so on until you end up with only a short 15/20 min nap and a long pm nap until she's ready to go to one nap.

[ericapt]

Karen-  Thanks for your reply.  How will I know when she's ready for another tweak?  As I mentioned, she wakes up anywhere from 6 am to 6:45 am, but I always do a 10 am nap.  There have been a few days where she was more difficult to get down for her afternoon nap, but usually she's asleep by 2:35 pm at the latest.  With you LO, did you push the morning nap later or just shorten it?  In other words, should the nap be at 10 am and just 1 hour (or 45 minutes or whatever) or should it be later & be shortened?  If I push the nap later then her pm nap would be later, right?  Or will she be more tired because she didn't have as long of a nap and still need the afternoon nap at the same time?  (Hope that makes sense.)  How will I increase A times when the nap is short?  I'm guessing they won't increase as much or as quickly since LO has less rest between A times.

Also, I currently limit the length of both of DD's naps so her night sleep doesn't suffer.  As the morning nap gets shorter should I let her afternoon nap go longer than 2 hours so her daytime sleep stays about the same?  Or do I just cap it at 2 hours? (I recall my DS took a 3-3.5 hour nap once he was on 1 nap/day, but can't remember how it happened.)

Thanks again!

[~Karen~]

You'll know she's ready for a tweak when she needs more A time and isn't going to sleep when you put her down for her nap!  If she's starting to take longer to go to sleep for the afternoon nap then try cutting a bit off her morning nap so you can keep pm nap at the time you want which in turn should preserve bedtime.

With you LO, did you push the morning nap later or just shorten it?

I pretty much kept it around the same time as he was generally up quite earlier so would always go down for it.  You could always make it a bit later and shorter as well depending on your lo.  For now though I'd leave it at 10am and if she starts refusing it then you may want to rethink things.

[ericapt]

Thank you.  That's very helpful.  Seems so logical, but sometimes it's hard to "see the forest through the trees"...

[ericapt]

So, a few more things.  I feel like I've made things worse with DD.  The past few days she's done fine for her first nap, which I shortened by 15 minutes to only 1 hour long now.  But, when it comes time for the afternoon nap she is starting to play/fight it and just wants to keep standing up in bed.  Standing up is a new skill for her (she's been able to do it for about 3 weeks or so), but she was never doing it repeatedly in bed.  The past 3 days she's done this and then it's taken 20+ minutes to get her to finally go to sleep (usually she babbles/rolls in her bed for 5-10 minutes and then she's out).  Also, she's having more EW's.  Yesterday was 5:45 am, but she fell back to sleep at 6:40 am so I let her sleep until 7:15 am (I never do that!).  Today she woke at 3:15 am and was awake for 30 minutes babbling and then fell back asleep until 6:45 am.  I REALLY don't want to start dealing with this again!  We used to have horrible NW's that lasted 30 minutes to 2 hours most nights and it was AWFUL!!!  What do I need to do to avoid this horrid cycle from starting again?  Am I doing something wrong with the naps?  PLEASE help me with this!!!

I've read that A time following a shortened nap might need to be shorter, but she doesn't seem ready any sooner.  Her A time after her first nap was about 3 hours 15 minutes and I've been trying to get it a little shorter following only a 1 hour nap, but the past 3 days it's actually been a little longer than before.  Is it possible that she's having a big change in her A time or could this be OT?  She doesn't appear OT, but I never know anymore. 

Lastly, since I'm starting to shorten her first nap should I let her second nap go longer so she's getting the same amount of daytime sleep (usually 3 hours 15 minutes)?  Won't her daytime sleep stay about the same, but just gradually switch to 1 nap instead of 2?  I don't want to overdo it on daytime sleep to where she starts waking earlier or having NW's like in the past, but I don't want to deprive her of enough. 

Better go for now.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!  Thanks again!!!

[~Karen~]

How's she been getting on today?  The standing up is a developmental thing that will mess with naps/bedtime for a while until she gets bored of it!  You can either keep going in and laying her back down or if she can get herself back down then just leaving her.  Unfortunately while she's enjoying this new skill she will most likely take longer to go to sleep.  You could always try putting her down a little earlier if it may help so she can get her 20 mins of it out the way during some of her A time and then hopefully go to sleep closer to the right time.

I usually cut A time after a shorter nap to try and stop them getting OT.  Just try and judge it by the length of the nap to see how much you think you may need to cut off the next A time.

Yes you can let her have longer for second nap if you're cutting first.  You may just need to experiment a bit to see what amount of day sleep works to get decent nights.  It's worth thinking about cutting off the second nap to leave enough time for a proper A time before bed.  So if her last A time is 3h 15mins and you want bedtime to be 7pm then wake her by 345pm. 

[~Karen~]

I'm wondering if she's having too much day sleep now.  Check out the thread below to see 'averages' and have a read of the 10/11 month sleep gone wonky thread.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164031.0

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=145285.0

[ericapt]

DD is totally throwing me for a loop!  I can't figure out what she's doing.  The first few days of shortening the first nap to avoid fighting the afternoon nap seemed to work, but the past 2 days she has been VERY CRANKY around 6:30 pm which is not like her.  I guess it's possible that missing that 15 minutes of naps is leaving her OT(?), but what do you think?  She was getting 3.25 hours of daytime sleep and 10.5-11.25 hours of night sleep (she's never slept 12 hours at night, ever!) and now daytime is shortened to 3 hours.  Should I go back to our previous nap routine or try increasing her afternoon nap even more?  I don't want to put her to bed early because this leads to very EW's or NW's, which we dealt with for 2 months before we were able to adjust.  This is what we're doing now:

wake between 6-6:45 am (unfortunately EW's in the 5 am hour have been happening since the morning nap was shortened)
E  7  BF,  8 solids
A  varies depending on morning wake time, but average 3.5 hours
S  10-11 am (was letting her sleep until 11:15 before last week)

E  11:15  BF,  12:15  solids
A  3.25 hours (I have her in bed before this, but she won't settle immediately)
S  2:15-4:15  (I've been waking her to avoid too late of a bedtime)

E  4:30  BF,  5:30  solids
A  3-3.25 hours
E  7:15 BF and falls asleep
S  7:20 or 7:30 pm...

What do I need to do?  Shorten final A time?  Bring first nap earlier? (It's been at 10 am for a few months now though).  Shorten 2nd A time?  (She seems to resist this.)  I don't want to get into this horrible cycle of EW's and extended NW's, but I'm not sure what to do to help fix it.  From what I've read of other routines 3+ hours of naps is not unusual at her age.  Also, she doesn't sleep 12 hours at night and I have never been able to figure out how to increase this.  I don't want to change everything for fear that it will become a downward spiral.  Ok, better stop typing now so I don't bore you to tears.  Have a nice evening.  Thank you again.

[~Karen~]

What happens if you let her nap as long as she wants in the mornings?  Do you get pm nap refusal?  The problem with the long am nap is that it can lead to ew and then have lo catching up on night sleep by having a nice long morning nap.  However this way worked best for my ds2 but he would have a long night if he went to bed early so I didn't mind if he slept the morning away.  That could be something you could consider.  Or go back to the longer morning nap and try and do something like 2 naps of 1.5 hours each. 

Yes, you may need to do more daytime sleep if she sleeps less as night.  Again though you've got to be careful as if she sleeps too much in the day it can lead to ew or UT nw's.  You'll have to try and find the right balance.

[ericapt]

Karen-  Thanks again.  Ughh!  The problem with adjusting sleep to avoid OT and UT is I can never tell which one we're dealing with!  Today I decided to go back to our old routine of 1 h 15 minute morning nap and 2 hour afternoon nap.  She didn't fight it at all!  She really did seem like she was extra tired for some reason.  Maybe it was the few days of missing that 15 minutes or maybe she's hit a GS?  I'm not sure; I never am. 
The reason we had originally gone to short morning nap/long afternoon nap was because she would want to sleep 2+ hours in the morning and then barely took an afternoon nap, but was way too tired to make it until the needed bedtime.  And as I said, I couldn't do really early bedtime because she didn't sleep 12 hours let alone longer.  The advice on here was to try shorter morning nap and longer afternoon nap.  She took to it so easily, and honestly, it made life easier because then she and DS would have some overlapping of their naps which meant I got a little me time!  Maybe I'll try going back to 1.5 hours at each nap like you mentioned.  So, if we did that would our schedule be something like this?:

6 or 6:45 am wake
E   7 am, solids 8 am
A   
S   10-11:30

E   11:30,  solids 12:30
A
S   2:45-4:15 pm (I'm just concerned that having the longer morning nap will make her 2nd A time too long and make it difficult to get her down for a nap at this time.)

E   4:30,  solids 5:30
A
E   7/7:15 BF
S   7:15/7:30

If this routine works do I then just work on increasing her first A time as she tolerates?  Once her morning nap is falling later and her A times are increasing do I just keep the first nap the same length and shorten the second to preserve bedtime?  When would I allow the 1st nap to go as long as she wants? (Little worried about doing this since DS has camp now and starts preschool in the fall.)

I really appreciate all of the time you've spent helping me out.  It's nice to have such wonderful support here and great advice!!!  Thanks a million.  I look forward to hearing from you when you can!   

[~Karen~]

I personally think the cutting am nap is much better but just trying to give you a different option as well.  I did it this way with ds1 and managed to keep him on two naps until 18 months.  With ds2 I had to work around the three school runs a day I have to do with the other two so that's why I had to do long am nap and then hope for a pm nap or do early bedtime.

You can try that routine you've posted and if she's not going down for second nap then cut a bit off first nap or put her down a little later for second nap but then that one would end up likely being a bit shorter. 

When would I allow the 1st nap to go as long as she wants?

The aim with cutting the am nap is to keep cutting it until she's literally having a 15 min catnap in the morning and then a long afternoon nap.  That's what I ended up with with ds1 and when he hit 18 months I just put him down later for the one nap and he could handle it fine at that age.