Overtired? Sleep regression? Illness?

[chirojaz]

I seriously need some help    My DD is 18 months old and we transitioned to one nap per day just about 4 weeks ago. Everything went really smooth right off bat, she napped anywhere between 2-3 hours the first week then 3 hours pretty consistently the second week and then she got sick and I think it has thrown things off ever since.  Her routine prior to getting sick looked like this....

8am woke up for the day (used to be between 7-7:30 until the one nap switch)
12:45/1 nap
3:45 woke from nap
8pm bedtime

Then two weeks ago she got sick, congested and a cough. She would wake up coughing after like 1.5 hours during her nap and because I wanted her to sleep longer I was holding her in the rocking chair while she slept (keeping her upright allowed for her to sleep without coughing). This continued for many days and now we are going on two weeks, she still has the cough and will not nap longer than 1.5 hours, sometimes only 1hr20min.  Sometimes I hear her coughing and I think it is waking her up and causing her not to go back to sleep.  I have stopped going in and rocking her back to sleep because I am afraid I am now a crutch for her. So I will go in her room and tell her to go back to sleep but she will continue to babble away.  To make the sleeping matters worse we are on holiday and there is a two hour time difference so I'm sure that threw things off too. Her routine lately looks something like this....
6:45 wake up
12:45 nap
2 ish wake up, today was 2:20
7:30 bedtime.

I'm thinking it is overtired? If so, I'm curious how long of an A time I should be doing before her nap and after her nap if she only naps for 1.5 hours?!!!  Any help would be much appreciated, I am so exhausted with the whole sickness and lack of napping thing 

[*Becky*]

Def sounds like OT to me. I would pull the A time back to more like 12/12.15pm and see how that works. If she does a decent nap i..e 2 hours then I would aim for 7.15pm and if it is still more like 1.15/20 then I would PD for bed at more like 6.30pm.
What do you think?

[chirojaz]

Sounds like a good plan, my only concern is that if she does take another short nap and I put her to bed at 6:30, but she does a solid night and wakes at 6:30am should I still stick with putting her down for her nap at 12/12:15?
When do these little ones stop getting overtired?!!! I'm so overtired about all this overtired stuff! 

[*Becky*]

there are basically 2 approaches. You can either set a time for her nap or go by A time. I would aim for about 5.5 hours before her nap if she has done a decent night so 12pm would be fine. If she short naps then EBT is the way to go.

I totally am with you on the OT thing. DD is nearly 19 months and we have not yet managed to settle into a predictable routine as she is short napping most days.