Anyone Want To Talk About The 2-1 Transition? Thread #22

[RebekahDSC]

Hi Ladies!  We are smack dab in the middle of the 2-1 and it is not fun! DD is 12 months and almost 2 weeks.  Her first nap is about 4.5 hours from wake up and she usually sleeps for about 1.5 hour and her second nap is about 4 hours after that and, assuming she got at least 1.5 hour for the first nap, I usually cap the second one at 30-35 min.  That's going okay. But we are having atrociously early wake-ups!  This morning it was 5:05am and I was happy it was that late!!!!  The last couple of days it has been 4-something!!! Granted her BT is really early now (usually between 6:00 and 6:30. We started that though because we started getting early-wakings and wanted to make sure she was getting enough sleep at night. I was given the advice to try an EBT in hopes that her EWs would still allow at least an 11 hour night but mostly she still sleeps less than 11 hours.  DH thinks maybe we are trying to get her to sleep too much which I think is possible but that would make her REALLY low sleep needs so I want to make sure we rule out other stuff before we assume its that.  DD didn't sleep through the night EVER until almost 11 months old so I am thrilled she now sttn most nights, but this EW thing, especially since it is getting earlier and earlier, really scares me!  What should we do? Thank you!!!!!!!

[willywinki]

Rebekah....ouch those are early, i feel for you  I'm no expert at all but what does your EASY look like, i can't figure out you fit it all in. Do you mean the seond A time is 4 hours from when she goes down for her first nap, or from when she wakes up from her first nap?

Papaya, thanks for that info re. OT wake times on one nap, i wasn't aware of that so it's really useful info. Couldn't get catnap, so had him in bed for 5.45, tried for 5.30 but we have workmen here today and we went a bit over. DP is currently upstairs now trying to resettle a VERY upset Jake after waking after 45 mins....very OT  Will give him 2 naps tomorrow to let him catch up a bit. Should i let him have the usual 45 mins i give him on a 2 nap day, then sleep as long he likes in pm? Might be a rough night, plus he's got two top teeth that are so almost through it's annoying

[RebekahDSC]

Thanks for clarifying, Willywinki.  It's about 4 hours from wake-up.  The way we fit it in is with a long day/short night.  That's not my preference (or what's probably best for her) but she just won't sleep until a normal hour so it ends up that way!   It looks something like this:

5:05 Wake-up
9:35-11:05 Nap
3:05-3:40 Nap
6:00 BT

Although to be honest, often the day gets even longer than that because she wakes up super early and I try to get her back to sleep for awhile and then start counting the A time from when I take her out of the crib instead of when she actually woke because I am scared to make the first A time too short.

So it sometimes looks like this:

4:30 Wake up
Try to get back to sleep until 5:15
5:15 Get out of bed
9:40-11:25 Nap
3:25-4:00 Nap
6:00 BT

Hope that makes sense!  Thanks for the sympathy and help!

[willywinki]

Oh bugger, accidentally pressed report to mod on your post when trying to press reply, touch screen not-so-smart phones have a lot to answer for!!!!!!!

Those are long days for all of you. Have you tried letting her sleep in the pm so you can get later bt and catch up on of the OT at same time? Papaya will be able to advise better but that would have been my gut instinct

[amom526]

Rebekah-
I came her to post my own question, but your daughter reminds me a lot of my DS, so I can't not chime in. DS is also a super early riser. Honestly, the only think that worked for us, or at least made it a little better, was to have a short morning nap. A longer morning nap, is letting your DD catch up on night time sleep, and just reinforcing the night wakings. What I did for DS, was no matter what time he woke up, I did not put him in for his first nap until 930. I see you are already there basically. But then I woke him up at 10 no matter what. If he was really really overtired, I let him go maybe an extra 10 minutes. Then He had a 3 hour A time, and his second nap was 1-3 on good days. He still went to bed early, because he wakes up early for the day, usually around 7pm. I know this will not work for all kids, but it might be worth a shot.




Now for all of you with DC who are already on one nap...DS is solidly on one nap now. Most nights he is sleeping 630-6/630. With some occasional days of very early wake ups. He only transitioned solidly to one nap around a month ago. He has not had any two nap days since then. The issue is that I cannot seem to find the right time for this nap. It used to be a struggle to keep him up until noon, so I was putting him down around 1130, and he would do a nice 2 hours. Now, no matter what time he wakes up in the morning, he is getting extremely hyper when I put him in his crib, and taking up to an hour to fall asleep. At first i thought overtired, because the first day this happened his A time was 520 am - 1130 am. But now it has happened repeatedly over a few days, and I think it might be UT. Or something developmental? He is doing well at night, which makes me think it's not OT, but then again who knows...DS is a late walker, and he has sort of just discovered that he can stand up in his crib and jump and make trouble. I thought this might be it, but I thought if he was tired, he would go to sleep.

Today he had:

620 WU (a little under 12 hour night)
PD at 1150
He only fell asleep 1220 or 1230 and woke up at 150
It is now about 620, and DH is starting his bedtime routine now

We'll see what happens tonight. He was generally in a good mood this afternoon, but his OT generally manifests as super early wake-ups. Do you think he's UT at nap time? Should I bump the nap to 1215? Is this a stage? Any advice is welcome, sorry for the LONG post!

[jingmommy]

Erh...A time is so tricky...DD did not follow mommy's plan as expected and changed her day like this.
WU 6:30am
Nap 1 9:50am~10:30am (woke herself up. A=3h20mins)
Nap 2 2pm~3:30pm (woke up at 3:10pm but slept for another 20 mins with my help).
BT 6:50pm, refused and fussed although she yawns and robbing her eyes a lot.  Fell asleep at 7:20pm.
NWs: twice.  The first one was caused by me while I walked in to check the temperature and wipe the sweat for her.  Oops...  The 2nd one only last for a couple of seconds and soothed by herself.
So that was the best night in the past two weeks, and today she woke up at 7am!!! Great!!!  I guess she recovered a little bit from OT accumulated from the past weeks and had a good night.  So today I told nanny to cap her nap1 further to 30  mins, hoping that she can sleep longer for nap 2 (she woke up at 1h10mins yesterday so I think it's UT).  So mommy's plan for today is -
WU 7am
Nap 1 10:15am~10:45am
Nap 2 2:10/2:15pm ~ 3:40 or 4ish (finger crossed)
BT 7:20pm (looks like she can handle longer last A)

Not sure if it'll cause OT to still keep 2nd A for 3.5hrs when nap 1 is cut to 30mins.  But I'm also not sure if DD will be UT if I cut the 2nd A to 3hrs as suggested in the FAQ.  Guess I can only give it a try.  So confused.

Any advice will be appreciated.

[jingmommy]

What I did for DS, was no matter what time he woke up, I did not put him in for his first nap until 930. I see you are already there basically. But then I woke him up at 10 no matter what. If he was really really overtired, I let him go maybe an extra 10 minutes. Then He had a 3 hour A time, and his second nap was 1-3 on good days. He still went to bed early, because he wakes up early for the day, usually around 7pm. I know this will not work for all kids, but it might be worth a shot.

Amom, I think this is a good reference for my DD as we're at this stage now.  So you put DS down at 9:30am no matter how early he woke up and how tired he was?  How early was his WU time like?  When you gave him the extra 10mins, how long the 2nd A time you gave him? Still 3hrs?  Sorry that I have so many questions but can't contribute any to yours as we haven't reach that point yet.  However, I can expect where we're heading to after I read all your posts.  This is a great advance class for me and just like to say thank you all for sharing your experiences!

[trinity33]

Hi jingmommy, what amom suggested also worked well for us for a couple of months. We started off capping his am nap at 1 hour, then 45 mins, then 30 mins. All to preserve the longer pm nap.  This got us out of the 4.30 wu for a couple of months and pushed it more to 5.30/45. Not great but better.

So dd didn't follow the plan at nursery yesterday. He fell asleep in high chair for 5 mins at 10, then refused to sleep at 11. So

went down for nap at 12.50 and slept til 3.30.
Bt 7.30

Wu today at 4.30 

Chatted for 1 hour , then complained for 30 mins but didn't go back to sleep, grrr

So I guess try again today

[Papaya]

Rebekah, I agree that the short am nap is probably the way to go. Her night isn't actually that short for when you're in a nap transition (10.5hr, even with the earliest WU of 4.30), it's just that it's all too early! So I would do exactly what amom suggests - am nap at 9.30, capped at either 30 or 40 mins. It'll be a big change for her so you might want to start the capping at 40 mins, and reduce down to 30 if you need to. I would then aim for a 3hr next A, although for the first few days, she may need to go down earlier because she will have had a very long first A and won't be refreshed the short nap. Let her sleep as long as she likes for the second nap

Jingmommy, yes aim for 9.30 no matter what. But if it's a super early start, you could give 5-10 mins more there and/or put down for the second nap earlier. If you get a good pm nap so LO is not OT at bt, this should push your WU later so the first A won't be so long.

Trinity, those 5 min catnaps can really throw a spanner in the works! He probably would have gone down a bit later, maybe 11.45 or so, but of course it's hard for nursery to judge and they can't be trying to put him down all morning. Hope today goes better. I would be tempted to ask nursery to do a 20 min catnap today at 9.30 otherwise even if he does a good 2hr nap it's going to be a looong day for him.

 

[jingmommy]

Totally los.  Cutting the am nap did not encourage D to sleep longer for pm nap and it's as short as 55 mins. Expecting lots of NWs tonight.
So for tomorrow should I still cap am nap to 30mins or back to 40mis and leave the pm nap to DD's decision? Any advice?
 

[trinity33]

Sending hugs jingmommy. Hope you don't have too many nw.

for my LO he would sometimes go back to sleep for his pm nap if I left him for 5-15 mins if he woke early from a pm nap after a capped am nap.  I know everyone has their own thoughts on this and you know your LO best. But for me, if I went in, he definitely wanted to get up, but if I gave him a little time to resettle at either the 55 or 1.30 mark he would go back to sleep and we would all have a better night as a result. I just used to judge it by the kind of noises he was making, as to whether I went straight in or not. DS often has a grumble & complain right before going to sleep!

I'm sure Papaya will be able to offer more advice though.

[Papaya]

No no, you guys are doing great! I've only got the one LO as well remember, so I'm no expert

Definitely agree about giving a chance to resettle if LO isn't really upset. If it's that sort of "I'm trying to go back to sleep" grizzle rather than an "I need you" cry, I'd wait a few minutes. What A time did you do after the capped nap Jingmommy?

[jingmommy]

Tks Trinity and Papaya.  Nanny told me it's the "I need you" cry and I confirmed tis yesterday when I took a day off from work.  She could resettle with nanny's help but could sleep for another 20 mins at most.  When you think she falls asleep and start moving toward the door, she wakes up again.  
Today's second A was 3.5h same as yesterday.  I did not cut the A time because she seemed UT at nap2 yesterday with 3.5h A.  (She used to have 4hr A befor nap2 when she still took a decent 1.5hr for both am/pm naps a month ago.)
She did not pass the 1 hour mark and now I am stuck in her room now dealing with the NWs.
Today is -
WU 7am 1st A 3h20mins
Nap1 10:20-10:50 
2nd A 3.5hrs
Nap2. 2:20-3:15pm 55mins
BT 7:05pm, went down well, asleep by 7:15

[willywinki]

Oh well it all seems to have gone out the window at our place for a bit. After a very OT day yesterday we had 2 NW's bang on 1hr marks. First one he was very upset and took an hour to settle, the second i managed to run and sooth him just before he started screaming for us and he settled after 5/10 minutes.

Yesterday looked like this

WU 6/6.30
Nap 11.05 - 12.30 (OT)
BT 5.45 with 2 NW's

Papaya, i generally don't know what time he wakes up! 9/10 he'll happily play in his cot and we don't hear him. I would say though that is nearly always awake by 6.30, so i think he wakes somewhere between 6 and 6.30 most days.

Workmen are still at the house making a racket so i've come to my mums for some good naps, i figured i'd give him 2 today to avoid OT.

WU 6/6.30
Nap 1 9.30 - 10.10 in car. Ambulances flying by woke him up
Nap 2 Tried putting him down at 1.30 but it now 2.15 and he is still messing in his cot. He's used to sleeping at my mums so it's not that. Think he's UT??

Could it be he just doesn't want 2 naps now? He's been on 1 nap for about 1 week now and when he's transitioned 4-3 and 3-2, once he's had a solid few days dropping a nap he's never gone back. I know i need to avoid OT, so would it be best to put him down a bit earlier every 3/4 days or if he's showing signs of OT and then an earlier BT?

Papaya, we love you  for helping us 


 

[Papaya]

Jingmommy, sorry I missed your post earlier about the second A time after a 30 min nap.  For my LO, there was a big difference in how long an A she could manage after a 30 min nap as compared to a 40/45 min one - it's not even one sleep cycle so is not very restorative. I would try the 3hr second A tomorrow. Hope she has settled now and will sttn for you!

Could it be he just doesn't want 2 naps now?

I think the catnap was too long, even though he's OT - one sleep cycle would have refreshed him enough to make him *think* that he was good to go for another 4 hours or so You might be ok giving just a 15/20 min cn (maybe AP one in the car or stroller if that works for you), and nap about 2 hours later.

I will say though that with my LO, once we'd been on one nap for about 2 weeks I had to stop giving the occasional cn - it just made the pm nap too hard. Unless she was teething and SUPER tired - then a short cn would still work.