Anyone want to talk about the 2-1 transition? Thread #24

[My little Liam]

Hi! I also have never posted here but we are also going through this annoying phase! Noa and Katherine have helped us tremendously! Still not perfect but MUCH better!
This was our night
BT 1855
NW 2040 (??)
EW 0415-0520 
WU 0700

I have decided to try dream meds tonight around 0300 to see if it help with the early waking. He tosses and turns like something is bothering him until he gives up and decides to play. I give him meds but it takes a while to start working so maybe dream meds would be best... If that doesn't work then I don't know why we are having this EW!

[lilasmum]

lilasmum - what's your routine at the moment?  Sounds like UT behaviour to me.....

Our routine is

615 - wake and stay in cot.  Up for the day at 7ish.
12pm - 230 (occasionally 3pm) - nap
6.30 - into bed
7.15 - asleep

I have persisted with the early bedtime as I found that by putting her down around 7pm, she would still do her cot acrobatics for 45 mins and be asleep around 8pm.  And would still wake up at 615, but would be grumpy as she had lost almost an hour's sleep.  The early bedtime means she is asleep not long after 7pm and still sleeps through til 615 generally.  What do you think?

[jessmum46]

It sounds like UT for sure if she is doing a 2.5-3h nap.  Most would do a 13h day on a nap that long.  Have you tried putting her down at 7.15?

[Tao]

Hi Ladies,

I hope you don't mind my jumping in! I remember I was on this nap board years ago with DD1, but of course I forgot everything now that DD2 is 12 months! I need help refreshing my memory

So, DD2 is almost a year old and up until two weeks or so she was doing this:

6:30 Wake
10:00-11:00 Nap (I would usually wake her from this a early to preserve Nap 2)
2:00-3:30 Nap
6:30/7 BT

This was working beautifully for a really long time; however she was having NWings 3-4 times a night which makes me think she was getting too much day sleep because...

With her teething being an issue and her having a hard time going down for naps, she was only getting 1 nap a day and then suddenly she started sleeping through the night! Last night was the first time she slept through the night since she was 5 months old (WHICH WAS AMAZING FOR MOM, lol!) Now, I know she can't keep getting very little day sleep on one nap for long before OT creeps in so I'm thinking that I need to try to push out her a.m. nap as much as possible to try to get a nice long a.m. nap and then I'll "try" for a p.m .nap if she'll take it. Here are some questions please:

1) This a.m. she woke at 7:30 as she was trying to make up for lost day sleep yesterday. Her "usual" nap time is 10/1030, should I try to push her out till 11:30/ even 12?

2) If this is the case and she does have a decent 1.5 hour nap, and wakes up at 1, what should I do in the p.m., maybe 4 hours of A and try for a cat nap? That would mean she would be cat napping at 4 p.m. How long should I cap the nap at? Is this dangerously close to BT and may affect night sleep?

3) For the past few days when her day sleep as been limited, I've noticed a huge difference in NWings so I'm almost positive that the day sleep she was getting before was making her perhaps not as tired at night so limiting her day sleep has allowed her to make up for her sleep at night. I remember seeing a chart that shows how much day/night sleep our LOs' need on average on the boards, but I couldn't find it. Does anyone know where it is please?

Thanks again mommies!! You helped me get LO 1 to one nap nicely so now I need help with #2!!

Hugs to all,

[Charjanemom]

I'm just wondering how you all are doing solids and bottles with the 2-1? We are still on 4 bottles a day and solids an hour after. We are approaching our nap being moved to 11 and don't know what to do as usually she has a bottle at 1145 and solids at 1245/1. I don't want her waking due to hunger.

[katiebee18]

DS is 13.5 months.

I have been doing a cap AM nap to try to get him to PM nap for a month or so. He usually does 30-40 mins, sometimes he wakes on his own but usually I wake him.  He is refusing more and more PM naps even as I push out the time. I tried 20m as that was a suggestion and that still caused nap refusal so I let him do the 10-20m longer. Thinking of making the jump to 1 nap a day. Worried he will only do an hour (we had a 1 nap day this week and that is what he did), but I guess today he may only do the 35m cap AM nap so an hour is better than that. Here is our somewhat typical EASY lately (average of 10-10.5 hours NT sleep):

WU 5:30-6
A 4h30m
S: 10/10:30-10:30/11
A: 3h15/30
S: anywhere from 30m - 1h20ish WHEN he does a PM nap...was consistently like 1h10-1h20m a week or two ago. Sometimes when he refuses and takes a shorter nap later like after 5-6 h A time I get like a PM nap of13m or something in the car, ugh...after driving for a half an hour!
BT 7-7:30

So I am thinking at first on 1 nap we may only get 11 hours of NT + DT sleep and will likely be OT, but not sure what else to do. Right now most often we get 11h30m of combined NT + DT.

Someone suggested he may need 1 nap awhile ago as he was talking like 30m to settle for both naps...not always the case now, this AM only 9m but I was too chicken to do it.

What to you think? I was thinking of doing 4h45m or 5h A time to start so as he is an early riser, that would likely be a nap start time of 10:30-11.

Thanks!

[Papaya]

Welcome Tao and Katiebee

Tao, if you get such a late WU, I would push nap to 11.30 and leave her to sleep as long as she wants. If she's up at 1, I'd probably offer a catnap around 5, but cap at 20 mins max and do bedtime around 7.15. If she sleeps longer, 2-2.5hrs, I'd be inclined to skip the catnap and just do EBT and see how she goes She may still generally need the two naps for a little while, but you could do one nap on days when she has a later WU and then does a decent nap. What do you think?

Here's the link on average day/night sleep needs: Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep

Katiebee, has your LO generally been low sleep needs? That's a pretty low amount of sleep he's getting atm - is he generally happy with it? I'm just wondering if he actually needs the pm nap offered EARLIER, rather than later, if he's maybe OT already by then, especially with the short nights...but if he doesn't even fall asleep in the car, it actually doesn't sound like it. I do think it might be worth pushing the am nap later and aiming for one nap, and you can always try to AP a pm catnap if you think you need to. My LO was an EWer too, and with her I started by setting her nap no earlier than 11am, no matter what the WU...which sometimes meant a looong morning A time, but I would try to keep her quiet in her cot until at least 6. If nap is at least 2 hours, I would do bt 5 hours later - it may be pretty early, but often LOs will tack and do lovely long nights when they go to one nap, even if they never have before. Mine was doing 12-13hour nights, even though she had never done more than 11 hours, so it's worth a try If it's a shorter nap, you can try for a catnap - and some LOs do well with a catnap every few days to start with anyway, to keep the OT at bay.
 
There's also a support thread for the 2-1 transition on the Sleeping for Toddlers thread, where you'll find more mamas with slightly older babies: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 5

Charjanemom, I would probably do bottle (and perhaps snack, if you do snacks) before nap and then a late lunch. My LO was happy with lunch after nap when nap was that early (we had already dropped to three feeds though, so didn't then have to fit in another milk feed before dinner!). When our nap moved to 11.30, I did lunch at 11.

[My little Liam]

Hi guys! We are also in the middle of the 2-1 and I have been working on pushing out A's and capping nap because we are having long chatty NW and EW. I am finally able to get an 11hr night out of my LO after a few months of 9-10.5hr nights so there is definite improvement but we are still having the EW and chatting. When our A times were lower and naps were not capped no matter what I did I could not apop a longer night. Now, we still have the NW and EW but I can apop and he will sleep 11hrs. So my question is, do you think I need to push the morning A another 15min or should I cap the morning nap at 1.5hrs since he does 2hr naps sometimes.

These were are last few days

WU 0610
A 4hr15
S 1025-1235
A 3hr30
S 1605-1620
A 2hr45
BT 1905
NW 0215-0245
EW 0420 apop
EW 0545 apop
WU 0710

02/03
WU 0710
A 4hr15
S 1125-1315 a noise woke him, he would probably sleep more
A 4hr
S 1715-1735
A 2hr20
BT 1955
NW 0315 bf
NW 0500-0545 apop
NW 0635-0645 apop
WU 0800

So today I think if he has a long nap I will just do an earlier BT because otherwise our day will end at 2100 
What do you think? He has always had high A's but I have always made the mistake of being afraid to push him because he always gives a good morning nap. I could get a good morning nap with a 3.5hr  A too but then we would have an 8hr night...
Or should I just always cap the morning nap to 1.5hrs? Yesterday his nap was 1hr50 because he was so woken by a noise and then a 20min CN but we still had EW's. Do you think capping would make the difference?


Would love some advice, he is a different baby when he sleeps 11hrs and I feel that we are finally so close to eating back on track!! Thank you!

[Straffles]

I definitely wouldn't cap that am nap or push the A time either. No need to push the A time since you're getting such a good nap (more than 1.5hours). At least one nap should remain uncapped so your LO knows how to sleep for a long time undisturbed, getting him ready for one nap.

However, I do remember when we were at this stage and Benji was doing a long am, short/capped pm nap, I would only give him 2Hrs A time to BT. This worked very well at the time. I did this when his second A time was 4 hours or more though - the longer A times tend to mean a shorter A to bedtime works well.

[My little Liam]

I understand what you mean when you say that I have such a long good nap, but I was having the same kind of nap (over 1.5hrs) on a 4hr A and I was getting 10-10.5hr nights that's why I pushed the A time and now I am starting to get 11hr nights even if I have to apop. That wasn't possible before. I think he has a tendency to give me long morning naps when he hasn't had enough night sleep so he catches up that way and with the constant EW and 10 hr nights he was using that morning nap for the extra sleep. Today I had a 1.5hr nap and he is certainly in a better mood so I think he is less tired from having 2 11hr nights and that is why the nap was back to a normal 1.5hr one. Yesterday we had a 2hr20 A before BT and there was no crying out or NW at the early part of the night so I don't think he was OT.
What should I do? Any one else have any ideas?

[katiebee18]

Thanks Papaya! Good to know about sticking to the nap time regardless of WU. I think 11 am makes sense for us and I will keep in mind not to do it earlier even when he gets up between 5-6 which is pretty much everyday! We did get 1 nap yesterday (not intentional), would not do PM and he did add an extra hour plus to his regular NT sleep so I am thinking he will be able to tack on at times through this rocky transition. Hopefully things will improve with time as yesterday he did a 36m nap (only nap of the day) and today a 46m nap (only nap of the day besides falling asleep in the car this AM for a few mins). I will move to the toddler board.

[Charjanemom]

We finally had a 7 am wu. So I'm going to try an 11 am nap and let her sleep as long as possible with early lunch. We are now on 3 bottles.

If we get 1 long nap I'm wondering if there are some rules or guidelines for 1 nap days. Ot or ut time lengths how early to do Ebt etc?

Thanks!

[Tao]

Hi Papaya,

Thank you for the response! So I took the plunge and started doing one nap days. She was fighting am nap even after 4 hours of A time so I just pushed her out and have been getting really nice long 2-2.5 hour naps. This is what her schedule has looked like for the past 3 days:

Wake: 7/7:30
Nap: 12/1230-2/2:30 I was worried about pushing A time out this much but she had good naps
BT: 630

This has worked for the past three days and actually her nwings have lessened because I think her lots of day sleep before was robbing night sleep?

The thing is she just turned a yr and I remember reading that we want to keep two naps as much as possible but if she is sleeping in until 7 do u think this schedule will continue well or do you think OT will start to creep in because she is still young? I'm afraid all this will backfire😊

[Mum2Sprigglet]

Hi ladies,

DD will be 11 month on Monday, and she is going through 2-1 transition and fighting both naps at the moment.  We've had about a month of EWs (5.30am), and I thought it was her teeth playing up. Up until two weeks ago, she was still doing two naps of 1 hour each.  When the naps started going wonky, I came to this forum, read the 10/11 month sleeps go wonky post and this thread.  However, I had no success and am at my wits end, so here I am asking for help to see if I did anything wrong.

Her routine for the past tow day looks like this:

Monday
WU 5.40am (tried to APOP her back to sleep, but no luck)
A 4h
S: 9.40 - 10.30 (capped at 45 mins)
A:5h (tried to put her down after 3h A, but she fought so hard and wouldn't go, so I had to APOP)
S:3.15 - 3.45pm
BT: 6.30pm

Tuesday
WU: 5.50am
A:4hr30min (tried at 4 hr, but again she played then cried)
S:10.30 - 11.00am (capped at 30 mins, after reading some of the posts on this thread)
A: try to cut A time to 2 - 2.5 hours, but she wouldn't go down at all.  Just played in her cot. APOP didn't work either
S: no nap at all
BT: 5.45pm

Today I've had the same day as Tuesday. I saw someone suggested that we could just stick with a set nap time everyday and let them sleep as long as they want.  My question is if DD ends up only having 1 nap for the day, is it too early to have just one nap for 11 month old? I would like to keep two naps still, but I don't seem to be able to get it right.  So frustrated!

Thanks!

Cindy

[Tao]

Hi Cindy,

Just read your post and my DD did that too and I realized that she needed MORE A time. I'm wondering what would happen if you pushed morning A to 4.5 which I think you did on Tuesday and you go her to nap. When my daughter refuses I notice that she usually tends to be UT. A mommy on here told me that my daughter was trying to jump in A times but I wasn't helping her out with that. What if you let her sleep as long as she wants in the morning and then if she has to much A before BT, try to fit a short cat nap in there? that way you will have at least 1 nice long nap and not have to worry about no naps or not enough naps which will lead to OT?

On our side, my DD is a year now and I pushed out her A time quite a bit actually to 5 hours (which I'm hoping won't backfire). Thus far she's doing really nice 2 to 2.5 hour naps in the afternoon from 12-2:30 and then I put her to bed at 6:30. I'm praying OT doesn't set in as well. Waiting to see others thoughts...