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

[Straffles]

Hi Cindy

It looks to me as though your LO is really OT. If you can only get a 35 minute nap in the afternoon after only a 30 min capped nap in the am, she has to be OT.

You are offering a capped nap in the am of 30 mins, but after a really long a time. On that basis, your LO probably needs a lot LESS a time to the next nap i.e. because of the a time. For instance, if your LO will nap after 3HRS a time, and do a 30 minute capped nap, typically the a time to pm nap would be 3 hours. Of course it's not the same for every LO, but with a 4 or 4.5 HR a before a 3 minute capped nap, she'd be sure to be seriously OT, hence the OT nap of 35 mins. What's she like when yo wake her from the capped nap? Most LOs would be REALLY grumpy after that long a time in the am and the capped nap, and might need something as short as 1.5 or 2HRs a to the next nap.

I wonder how you got to this arrangement? Were you on long am nap and short pm and she started refusing the pm catnap?

[Papaya]

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😊

Your routine for the past few days looks fantastic - if she's doing 12-13 hour nights she should be ok, but just keep an eye out for OT creeping in, and you can always try to offer a catnap if you need to. A little OT is to be expected in this transition though, until she gets used to the one nap routine

Cindy, I agree your LO must be getting pretty OT. How are her nights? If you're pushing out the am A time as much as 4.5 hours, I wouldn't cap - let her sleep as much as she likes, and try to AP a pm catnap if needed, otherwise do EBT. OR, what really worked for us with EWs (often 5.30ish,  but I'd try to leave her resting in cot til 6) was a 30-min capped nap at 9.30, and pm nap at 1, uncapped. Are you medicating for teeth before naps? Any new developmental stuff that could be making it hard for her to settle?

[Tao]

Thanks Papaya! I love the picture by the way! Can you remind me signs of OTness? So far she seems okay. I think she IS a bit OT around 11 a.m. but I try really hard to push her out till 12 p.m. So far she's been sleeping for 2.5 hours which has been really nice and BT at 6:30. Today she woke up a bit earlier at 6 rather than 7 so I wasn't sure if this was signs of OT. However, I just left her in crib and she seemed quiet but I'm not sure if she actually went back or not because I fell back asleep myself. Does OT usually creep in as signs of earlier and earlier wake ups?

Thanks again for your help! I really appreciate you!

[Papaya]

Signs of OT could be shorter naps, or shorter/disrupted nights. So the earlier waking could be a bit of OT - BUT, if she's still coping, I wouldn't worry just yet.  I did do a catnap day every 3 days at the start, but after a couple of weeks it just caused more trouble than it was worth!

[eva026]

aaahh, we have a mess:/
DD has had a cold for the last week and the first nights were bad so I let her nap as long as she wanted. We ended up with 3h naps and 12h nights with a few disruptions. She's slowly recovering but our great 2-1 routine has gone out the window. Not sure if it's UT or OT now:/
We were doing 4.15-30 am A, then nap, if the nap was 1.5h she got a 30min CN and we kept BT as usual but if the nap was 2h we skipped the CN and moved BT 30min earlier. This had been working like a dream.
The long naps started messing with our nights: BT took 1h, NWs, EWs, so I decided she was on the mend and it's time to cap her naps.
I'm aiming for 1.5h and  CN but somehow this hasn't fixed BT or the NWs. At BT she just can't get to sleep, cries as soon as we leave her side. She sits up, we put her down, she sits up, we put her down etc (this happens when she's had 1 nap and 2 naps that day). Then at night anywhere between 3am and 6am it starts again from 30min-1h. These are nothing like the cot parties we used to get when she was UT so that's why I'm a bit stumped here. I worked out the last 2 nights that she settles better with me out the room but I hope I'm not doing some form of CIO! She cries hard for 10s then goes quiet and maybe squeaks once or twice and is off to sleep.
Should I be pushing her A times and dropping the CN or has she gotten OT somehow and should be letting her nap longer??

Yesterday: 3.30-4.00am NW - slept till 7.15am, A 4.30H, Nap 1.40, A 3.45, CN 20min, BT 8pm (took 30min)
Today:        3.00-3.30am NW -slept till 7.45am, will put her down for a nap at around 11.45

[Mum2Sprigglet]

Christine - what was your DD's A time like when she was 10/11 month? We were away this weekend and her routine was totally off track. So I'll have to work hard this week to get her back on track again.  To be honest, I don't know what to think of DD's sleeping behaviour any more.  Yesterday I put her down at 11am (she woke about 6.15am) because we were out visiting friends and let her sleep as long as she wanted to, and she only gave me 1hr45min

Straffles - DD used to do 1hr15mins x 2 naps a day up to 9 month, and when she turned 10 month, she started fighting AM nap when I tried to put her down after 3.5h A, and then I tried 3h45min, she was still fighting, and until we tried 4h A, I did finally get a no-fighting nap from her, and she could sleep for 1hr15min if I didn't cap it.  She then refuses her PM nap if she has a good nap in the morning.   That's why I came to this capped morning nap arrangement to see if I could get her to sleep in the PM.   I can see your point about her being OT, so I've been putting her to bed very early at 5.30pm. 

Thanks ladies for offering your advice - I shall come back again to let you know how we go!

Cindy

[Mum2Sprigglet]

Papaya - DD's four top teeth just came out, and when I put her down for her nap, she often set up and played (she even set up in her sleep sometimes, and cried for me to lay her down). I did give her teeting gel before her nap, so I do suspect it's her developmental stuff that's playing up.  We are doing EBT at 5.30pm at the moment try to save her from OT, but I guess it's already creeped in, so this week I am going to be extra vigilant to curb it. 

[Tao]

Cindy, We were doing between 3.5/4 hours of A time at 10/11 months. Then she started taking forever to go down so I think she had a major jump in A.

Papaya, I think OT is creeping in. Yesterday was her birthday party so her nap was really short, 45 minutes and then she refused p.m. nap so it was a nightmare of a day. Her night sleep was actually pretty good amazingly. Today, she was awake at 6:30 but was quietly rolling around/playing in her crib until 7:30 so I just left her at it. I still put her down at 12 though and I'm thinking maybe I should have put her down a bit earlier due to previous day's OT. She just woke at 1.5 hour nap which is unlike her. Usually she takes at least 2-2.5 hour nap since starting this  1 nap deal. Do you think this means she's really OT? Should I try to cat nap her this evening or do a super early BT at 5?

Usually when you try to CN and they won't take it then you do a super early BT right? Will they tack on the extra sleep or will they wake after a 12 hour night as usual and wake even earlier? This 2-1 nap transition is definitely a hard one! Thanks Dear!

[Papaya]

Sorry Tao, I've been without internet for a few days so only just seeing this now! How are things going? EBT was what got us through the 2-1, but my LO did tend to tack pretty well IF bedtime was early enough - ie, super early, before she was OT, generally got us a really long night but if it was just a little bit early, and she was already OT, we might have a short night and early start

Some LOs don't tack as well though - in which case you can be better off going for more of a set bedtime. But I'd give the EBT a go as my first option.

[lilasmum]

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?

Hi there.  Sorry for the delay in getting back to you as we went overseas on holidays.  I don't know what happened, but the travel seemed to reset her clock and she is back sleeping wonderfully again? 

She wakes at 7am pretty much on the dot every day (hooray) and is asleep by 7.30pm.  She is napping for pretty close to three hours each day as well.  I hope she isn't just catching up on missed holiday sleep and am enjoying this while it lasts.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Tao]

Hi Papaya,

Thanks for getting back to me . The good thing is her night wakings have been SO much better. She was waking 2 to 3 times a night prior to going to 1 nap cold turkey, but since 1 nap, she only wakes once a night and goes for 6 or 7 hour stretches.

This is currently what we've been doing:

7:00 a.m. Wake
12:00 -1:30 Nap
6/6:30 BT

It's been going well SO far, although some days she'll nap a bit less than 1.5 hours for me and oddly enough I notice when I put her down earlier, let's say at 11:30 she'll wake after 45 minutes or only an hour so i'm wondering if she's UT on those days. It's just amazing to me because 5 hours of A time is a really big jump since doing only 3.5 to 4 hours A prior. When we first started the 1 nap shift, she was napping 2.5 to 2 hours a day but now she'll only nap 1.5 hours or so or less. Is this even enough day sleep? She DOES sleep 13 hours at night so I feel like she has been making it up at night by not waking up as much?

Yesterday we had church so I couldn't put her down until 12:30 and she did sleep longer when I did that, so maybe she just needs more A? The thing I do notice is that since going to 1 nap she's been a lot more fussy/clingy etc. It's hard for me to tell if it's OTness or teeth (as she has just gotten her first tooth) vs. Separation Anxiety which I know is common at this age too. She wants me to carry her constantly and is just whiney most of the time. I'm thinking this won't last forever...as she gets older, this A time will suit her better and hopefully the OT will be less?

I hope I'm not pushing her too hard. I DO know, howver, that she wont take that afternoon CN anymore. Even on the day when she only had a 45 minute nap, I tried to give her 3 hour A and nap her for 30 minutes. She wouldn't have it and just cried and cried so I just waited an hour more and put her for bed.

Thanks so much for your time Papaya! I truly appreciate you!

[Lindsay27]

Ladies, looking for some advice!

Through the 2 - 1 transition we are doing a short AM/long PM nap.  I tried the other way around and it really wasn't working for us at all, no matter what his morning A time was he wasn't napping longer than 1.20hr and in the afternoons it was hit and miss whether he would nap at all.  We switched to the short AM/long PM and it worked the first day we tried - we were doing 45mins in the morning and 2-2.5hrs in the afternoon and 11-12hr nights. 

This worked for about a week or so, but now his PM nap is getting shorter and shorter (1.20 - 1.5hr) and we are starting to get NWs and EWs.  So, do I need to reduce his morning nap further? Today he woke after 1.20hr into his PM nap but I was able to settle him quickly for another 40mins, so 2hrs total.  When he does a long PM nap he has a 7:45pm BT but if he has a shorter PM nap we go for a 7pm BT (because in this case he's usually been awake since 3pm).

[Tao]

I noticed with my daughter, the longer the p.m. naps went, the more NWings we got. I got some advice from other mommies that would limit a.m. nap down to even thirty or twenty minutes. Then, when it had to go below 20 minutes they would just drop the first nap altogether. That's nice that he is still taking two naps for you though. Hold onto that for as long as you can. My daughter started fighting her a.m. naps so I just had to push it out and go to one nap, cold turkey. I'm looking at your ticker and he seems to still be a bit on the young side for one nap too so maybe I would try shortening his a.m. nap even more, maybe down to 30 minutes and see if you can move up his p.m. nap slightly so he doesn't become OT. This should shift everything forward just a tad too so that BT won't be too late in the day to where you start getting NWings like my DD.

I hope this helps...although, I'm still trying to figure out my little one at the moment! Ha!

[Papaya]

I think shorten the am nap a little too - sounds like he's a bit UT for the PM nap now, and you don't want to push it any later or it will interfere with bedtime. So I'd cap the morning nap to 30 mins and reduce the next A time - around 2hrs will probably be enough after a 30 min nap

[Skadiver13]

Hi all, so I'm posting here just to see if you have some thoughts. I'm working on a NW/EW not sure if OT UT and have been for a few months so I'm not sure what is what. BUT I am trying to figure out my lo's day we're in this 2-1 thing. We pushed his A to 4hrs and he's doing great. But he's very hard to get down for an UT nap in the PM. Last night for instance he had a CN from 4:30-5 sleep at 7:55 (not on purpose we were shooting for 7:30 but he vomited so I had to refeed him.)
Slept from 7:55-6:15 bit of a short night so I apopd and he woke at 7:25. BUT now I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the day? He slept from 11:25 on the button to 1:25 on the button (he's got a serious internal clock) But his BT is usually 7:30. Do I skip CN and put down early. My concern is he's not a tacker so he's likely to wake at 4:00 if I put down at say 6? But If I try and apop a CN at say 4:30  that's only an A of 3hrs. it may well be very hard? He wont sleep in the car nor the stroller on a walk so it's rock him or try valiantly to get him to sleep in his crib. If I do it at 5-5:15 I'm not sure if that will do any good?  I'm trying to figure out this 2-1 thing. He's way too young for one nap but given he's been waking early and I've been apoping it's been pushing our morning later and our nights later. Should I just deal with the 10hr nights we've been getting and stop apoping? Just trying to keep him from getting OT that's all.