Ooh I typed a reply to you earlier & thought I'd hit post but clearly I hadn't! KDee seems to have said pretty much what I had typed anyway but here it is:
When you start to trim the nap you don't want the A time to BT to increase really, as a shorter nap AND a longer A time will probably cause more OT. And of course her day is already on the long side.
So....if you are happy to go with an earlier BT short term & would prefer to try & sort the EW before pushing things on any later, you could try capping the nap where it currently is i.e. 12.15-2 & then aim for a slightly earlier BT perhaps 7-7.15pm & hope she sleeps in til after 6 - that way you aren't stretching her day any longer. Of course if you ultimately want to get to a later wakeup & BT in the end, at some point you will have to push her nap & BT out later again.
The other way to tackle it would be to push out the nap an extra 15mins first, and then start to cap, or you could push out & cap at the same time, so it starts 15mins later at 12.30 but ends at 2.15. Then aim for 7.15pm BT (7.30 absolute latest). If this doesn't help then you could push it all another 15mins later & do a 7.30pm BT, or you could cut the nap back further to 1.5hrs as KDee suggests.
I keep thinking how does giving her less sleep help with OT? In terms of that she must be tired, having such a long day?
I know it seems like cutting out a bit of day sleep is crazy if they are OT, but if the OT is from too long a day, which is caused by a short night through being undertired at BT, then cutting the day sleep will hopefully help her settle better at BT and sleep for longer at night, which will get rid of the OT. By keeping a longer nap, she will keep resisting BT & sleep a shorter night, therefore getting less sleep overall.
Take my LO for example. Til a couple of weeks ago he was doing 5.5hr A / 2hr nap / 5hr A and 11.5hr night. All of a sudden we are getting 10.5hr nights if we have a 2hr nap. We've cut 15mins off the nap & its put his nights back to 11.25-11.5hrs. So 15mins less day sleep = 45mins-1hr MORE night sleep. In my mind its definitely worth it. Of course I am basing this all on my LO & what he's doing, & they are all different & I can't see your LO & see how tired she is, so don't feel under any pressure to do what I suggest! Have you noticed all the other similar threads from mums of 18 month olds atm though? All with EW or nap resistance/refusal or BT resistance or all 3? Its pretty common at this age & partly related to 18 month sleep regression & partly related to a drop in sleep needs. At the end of the day our wee ones are getting older, and as they get older they need to sleep less. Sad but true!
