sleep cycles for 2.5 yo

[MamaLiz]

Hello there,

2.5 yo dd1 seems to be having trouble falling asleep at night - there are MANY factors to this, but I'm hoping to get some help sorting it. I think she's OT at night and that her naps are too long or too late. BT got really long when dd2 came along - DH would read her stories until I got dd2 down - sometimes 10 min, sometimes 45m, of course getting out of the 2 book routine was/is a disaster and we will work on getting back to a concise BT routine now that things are leveling off with dd2. I'm sure this is part of it. The other part is that she falls asleep so well and so fast for her nap that I know she needs it - neither of us is ready for the 1-0, but she wakes terribly - I've been capping at 1h45 or more often 1h30. She is naturally a bit slow to wake, but sometimes even after a wonderful, fun, playful AM, it seems that she can't shake whatever the deal is when she wakes from nap (or rather is woke up from nap) and can be a bear the rest of the PM, or sometimes just for an hour or two! We do snuggle upon waking and read stories - I don't take her out of the crib but rather allow her to lay there and snuggle her lovey until she is ready to get out - sometimes I have to watch her as she will drift back off, and recently I've sat in the chair in her room for 20-30m saying her name and telling her it is time to wake up with the shades open and everything and she just keeps on snoozing...  Here's a pretty typical day:

WU 7:00-7:30
Nap 1:00-2:30 or 1:30-3:00 (I don't notice much of a difference and just try to shoot for earlier on the days she wakes closer to 7:00)
BT starts at 8:00, leaving the room (hopefully!) 8:30, but she isn't sleeping until 9:00 or later many nights.

We've also had random earlier WUs - 6:30-6:45 - she will snuggle with me in the chair for a while but never closes her eyes and absolutely will not go back in crib, and later WUs - yesterday I woke her at 8:15 

As I'm going back to work, BT has to become more efficient and earlier - we are going to work back to leaving her room at 8:00 (or earlier) - her WU for day care is 6:45 most days, so I feel this might be a bit short, but I have to have a couple hours with her in the evenings as does DH.

I won't be able to do anything about naps during the week, and she will be extra tired and OS, esp at first, but we are prepared for that, and actually there are only about 6 weeks of the school year left (I teach) and then we will be back home all the time again. She's always managed to stay on whatever our routine was at home on weekends and holidays though (ie: she did 2-1 at daycare much earlier and has always taken less/shorter naps at daycare than she does at home), so I do want to figure out something that will work better for her.

Does anyone know about the sleep cycle at this age?  Is there a better nap length - maybe I am waking her at a deep sleep point in her nap and that's why it seems so awful? Would 1h15 or just an hour be better?  Maybe she actually needs longer naps and I am reading this all wrong?  Any ideas?

[MamaLiz]

OR is the fix a shorter A to nap?  That would mean she would need less rest in that nap and have a longer A to BT - would that solve both issues? - I really can't see nap coming much more than about a half hour earlier though - 12:30 - would that even make a difference?

[clazzat]

Has she been low or high sleep needs up till now?

[ZacsMumme]

Has she been low or high sleep needs up till now?

Good question.
I also think you may need to push the nap closer to 2-3.30 and you may find she settles better with the usual BT.
Ther thing is you can try an earlier BT. At a similar age were doing
WU 7
Nap 1.30/2-3/3.30
BT 7.30

Z was always LSN as a baby but now I think he is average.

[MamaLiz]

I think average - when we were on two naps she would do 1.5-2h for both and more or less same BT/WU.

Do you think it's OT or UT making it hard for her settle at BT? I figured she wasn't tired enough and so then not falling asleep, then not getting enough sleep, ready to crash by nap, but not ready for bed - OT/UT loop - kwim?

She would sleep that nap forever if I let her - 2h easily - should I not cap?

It's so hard - I feel like there has been such upheaval with our wonderful dd2, which we expected, as much as one can "imagine" what it will be like before it happens... There are so many things that are different I'm not even sure where we came from or what the last thing that worked was or even when this started not working... We've had NW too - no big deal, she goes right back down, but needs a pat or hug or retuck or to go potty - this seems to indicate she's coming all the way out if sleep throughout the night which typically wasn't a problem before - we've also been cooped up for what seems like the longest winter in history - it snowed today! Isn't it almost may??!! Sorry - I'm probably making more questions than I'm answering...

[ZacsMumme]

I'd say OT rather than UT as the day is over 13 hrs on a 1.5 hr nap YK? Can you do earlier BT for a bit? - I know it's hard with two!

[MamaLiz]

Yes. I think we are aiming for 8 and will likely find that with daycare 7:30 on non bath nights will be best - she gets really OS from the activity and the kids and noise and no way to get away from it all (not that she even realizes that she wants to.

Do you think I should just let her nap longer on weekends?

[ZacsMumme]

If she is teething those molars too she may need more sleep as well, or be getting OT from a little bit of pain.
Maybe if you can do it try the earlier BT and if it doesn't work try the longer nap? What do you think?

[clazzat]

I think Sara is giving you some good advice, but I thought I would chip in with what my girls were doing at that age - they are both fairly high sleep needs, though, so sometimes my suggestions aren't that useful!

Wu - 7am
Nap - 12.15/12.30-2.15
Bed - 6.15/6.30

When mine were having trouble going to sleep in the evening it was always because of ot - when that happened I used to bring the nap forward a bit and let them sleep a bit longer (so maybe down at 12 for 2.15 wu) so that the a time to bed was the same but they got more sleep.

Another thing that I did go through with them both was a time when they just needed some time in bed to wind down before they went to sleep - it didn't seem to be that linked to how long they napped and I just had to let them chatter away in bed for a bit. I would give them 20-30 minutes and then I would go up and remind them that it was time to go to sleep as they could end up keeping themselves awake until they were ot.

[MamaLiz]

Thanks ladies!

Sorry if I am being dense, but I don't want to make BT any earlier than I have to as when I go back to work, I'll only have evenings 

Don't give advice based on that ^^^ or tell me what you think I want to hear, but can this be remedied with a longer nap or one that falls at a different time?

Is there a substantial difference between more overall sleep coming from night sleep vs nap - meaning, if her day is long with only 1.5h nap can I not shorten it by lengthening the nap?  I only capped it in the first place to preserve BT, but may have done so preemptively IYKWIM - I honestly can't remember, but I think I just figured it was time and didn't want to start having BT troubles.

I know they are all different, so just asking more generally, is it better to have a longer A before nap or BT at this age? With the way she often wakes from her nap, my gut is telling me there does need to be a change there, be it that I let it go a bit longer, or that it comes earlier so it doesn't need to be longer...

Wait - that's it isn't it - if I move it up, she may wake better and not be so touchy and, well, difficult, but then I'm likely to run into OT before BT as she wouldn't be getting anymore sleep.

Okay - one last question - do you think I can be pretty confident that she isn't UT at BT? You know, when I think about it, before all these changes happened at our house, she would often have a long A in the AM (7/8-2/2:30) then a 2h nap and then a shorter A to BT - so like a 6-7h A in the AM and only a 3-4 A in the PM - it always worked for us, at least until potty training and other changes came along - is that common for LOs this age? For some reason at some point I think I got it in my head that her As should be the same - probably re-reading BWSAYP in prep for dd2 and my mind got fixated on A times! Did I "fix" something that wasn't really broken with capping and moving the nap forward? I was always worried that the short A to BT would cause an issue, but I don't know that it actually did... Ay ay ay ay ay...
 

[clazzat]

By this age I found that looking at the a time for the whole day was much more useful - so if the day is meant to be 12 hours and the night is supposed to be 12 hours and the nap is supposed to be 1.5 hours then they should be awake for 10.5 hours in total during the day. I always found that mine did better with a short a to bed, never more than 4 hours even when they were 4, and therefore the morning was always longer 6-6.5 hours. There are plenty of los who are the exact opposite, though, and need to have longer to bed so an early nap works for them - this is something you will have to figure out based on your own lo.

If you don't want to move bedtime, then she probably does need a longer nap. I would put her down for her nap earlier and wake at the same time to preserve the a time to bed but end up with more sleep overall. I *think* that night sleep is meant to be more important than nap, but you do have to be able to spend some time with your lo and overall sleep is more important than how it is distributed, iyswim.

[ZacsMumme]

ITA with clazzat - for suit was. About overall A time too. 10.5 total A for the day was about the right amount for Z too and still is.

If you want Bt to stay put I'd try a longer nap. you may find once she catches up WU gets a bit later too so e day shifts and you can then look at capping the nap back a little if she starts to fight it in a few months YK?