Author Topic: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6  (Read 67951 times)

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Offline awinkza

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #345 on: October 06, 2015, 03:33:35 am »
Hi - I hope I am doing this right by hitting "reply" instead of doing a new post.  Also, I am not sure which area to post in, but I think our challenges right now mostly boil down to the nap transition!

So, my daughter is 14.5 months and even before 1 year she was showing some signs of the 2 to 1 nap transition but it was inconsistent and everything I read seemed to say hold off as long as you can, but now in the last couple weeks, it has gotten ridiculous! I have been all over the map trying different timing and such. We may hit the target one day but mostly we seem to be missing it!

Here is her schedule:

~7 a.m. WU
7:30 Breastfeed
8:30 Solid Breakfast
10:30 Snack (sometimes just solids, sometimes breastfeed too)
11/11:30/Noon Nap (if it gets too late, I try to get lunch ready before her nap instead of the snack, but then it is usually at 11 a.m. or so)
Wake up is all over the place, usually anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours but lately it has been closer to the lower end of things
12:30 pm (Or when she wakes up) Breastfeed
2 p.m. Lunch (if not done earlier) or Snack
3:30/4:00/4:30 Try to do another nap but lately she has only taken it once
5:30 Breastfeed
6:15 dinner
7 p.m. bedtime
Then she has been waking up through the night to BF again! There had been a few weeks where there were no wake ups after dropping the DF really late in the game, probably around 10 months. Then they started back up again. I realized I had to make some changes because she was nursing to sleep at bedtime, I believed partly because I had been getting her to bed at 8 p,.m. but really it was a habit long before that started.  I had to fix all that, which I did, and we had one night with no wake ups, and then they started again! :( Of course in the night, I always think she must be hungry so I go pretty quickly to the breast and over the last couple weeks there was at least one wake up, but usually more like two and sometimes even three. The first wake up started to get consistent at around midnight and so the other night when I realized it must just be habit I broke that pattern and she didn't wake up again that night so i figured it really was just habit. Then last night she woke but resettled at midnight, but then woke again at 2 and again at 5:45 :(  Tonight I am pretty sure she has some teeth coming through and I am hoping she can rest more but I am doubtful that will be the case especially since she just woke up at 8 pm after going to sleep at 7 pm.  I gave her some medicine and she went right back to sleep though.

I was doing bedtime at 7:30 p.m. before so 7 is on the earlier end, but I have a really hard time getting everything done to get her to bed any sooner! Thus, I am pretty sure we are on an OT roller coaster ride right now.  There were a few times when she took a 2 hour nap at around 11:30 a.m. but it has been a while. We were getting about 1 hour 15 minutes or up to 1.5 hours pretty consistently for a while but lately it has only been 45 minutes. The one time I tried to wake her up early in hopes that she would take a second nap, it didn't work at all so she just seemed even more tired. I am reluctant to try that especially since now she is only sleeping for 45 minutes during the day, but if someone has some ideas of what would work best, I would be willing to give it a go.  Thank you!


Offline jessmum46

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #346 on: October 06, 2015, 06:30:33 am »
Could you skip the 5.30 breastfeed, give her dinner then and get her down to bed (with breastfeed if needed) a bit earlier?  6.30pm?  It's only a short time you'd need to do it for before hopefully her nap will lengthen and you can push things back out again x

Offline awinkza

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #347 on: October 06, 2015, 19:44:53 pm »
Thank you for such a quick response JessMum46! I will try that today and see what happens - great idea by the way :)  Sometimes it is hard to see a possible solution when you are stuck in the daily grind of it  :D

Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #348 on: October 07, 2015, 05:55:10 am »
Hey girls how are you all getting on ?
Awinkza my dd would bf once sometimes twice through the night, I think she was teething so was using me for comfort. Over the last month I've only been offering water, and if she does wake in the night I give her 10 mins and usually she self settles. She's stopped waking so much. Maybe because she realises she doesn't get milk now. Hope that helps !

So for the last two weeks we've been having great success, with a 20-25 min nap (25 if her night was broken or she seems extra tired in the mornings) after a 3hr WT..I do have to APOP this! She's a bit reluctant ! Then 2.5/2.75 hours later a 2-2.5hr afternoon nap. Usually waking up around 2.30/3. Then a 4.5hr A to bed.
We've had a couple of long NW's but they only lasted two nights then another a couple of nights ago.
Anyway the issue now is that she's waking up at 5.30/5.45... Not too bad but we'd prefer 6/6.30.. She's getting 10.5-11.5 hours of night time sleep.

What do you suggest? Do I need to do the MN at 3.5hours WT and for only 15 mins now do you think?

Offline First mum

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #349 on: October 07, 2015, 06:17:01 am »
Hi Lauraims glad you are getting a nice long lunch nap!!  Yip I'd reduce that morning nap right down to 15mins and see if it helps.  How old is your LO now, do you think the cn is still needed?

The other thing you could try is capping her long nap at 2 hours.  I thought I was going to have months of a really long nap but we noticed pretty quickly that if I let her sleep more than 2 hours bedtime was still easy but we had less overnight sleep which resulted in ew.

We are now looking like this

wu  6:15-6:45
nap 11:30-1:30
bt 6:30-6:45

Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #350 on: October 07, 2015, 19:09:36 pm »
Thanks hun. She's 14months 1 week.
Will try 15 and see what happens. A 6.30pm bedtime lastnight, and another 5.30am wakeup 😁

Offline First mum

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #351 on: October 07, 2015, 22:42:17 pm »
I think my LO was about 16.5 when it dropped completely.  I think we have only had 1 in the last month and we had had a rough night so figured she needed it!!

I actually found it quite good as she woke in a happier mood  :D

Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #352 on: October 08, 2015, 00:17:02 am »
Good to know! Thank you. How did you know she was ready to drop the morning cn?

Offline First mum

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #353 on: October 08, 2015, 01:11:57 am »
Because she was in daycare 2 days a week and it didn't happen there and I had a few really busy days with her at home and found she was lasting fine.  I think I dropped to like 3 days a week and I would do it just to make sure she wasn't getting too ot.  Then as she was more active I found she needed less.

She also started to resist her 11:30 nap, it was more towards 12-12:30 and because I wanted to keep bedtime at the latest 6:30 I didn't really want her sleeping past 2 in the afternoon, so that was my big queue to drop the cn completely.  For a couple of weeks I needed to keep her really busy around the 9am time and I also started offering a snack.

I always did her cn in the car going to something.  It never worked in the cot or the pram.  Even now I do my best to avoid car trips at that time of the morning as I am sure she would still nod off!!  Today I needed to be in town for 9:30 so gave her a muslie bar and we sang really loud songs all the way into town :-)

Offline awinkza

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #354 on: October 08, 2015, 04:21:18 am »
Ok, I'm back with a report. Yesterday seemed to work brilliantly other than the still short nap.  It looked like this:

7:15 a.m. Wake Up/BF
8 a.m. Solid Breakfast
10:45 Snack
12:10 BF
12:30 Nap
1:40 woke up
2:00 BF
3:00 "Lunch" (Didn't plan to put her down so late for her nap, otherwise would have done lunch before that!)
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Bath/BF
6:30 Bed (fell asleep within 15 minutes)

Then she woke up 2x to BF through the night, once at 11:15 p.m. then again around 3 a.m.

Today was more challenging for me, but I wasn't as prepared as I was yesterday and that made it harder. Here is what it looked like:

7:15 a.m. wake up
7:30 BF
8:30 Solid Breakfast
10:15 BF
10:30 Snack
11:15 a.m. in Bed, fell asleep within 15 minutes
12:20 Woke up
12:40 BF
1:30 p.m. Lunch
3:20 Snack
5:50 Dinner
6:30 BF and she fell asleep
6:45 Bed

I was aiming for a 6 p.m. bedtime since she didn't sleep very long and seemed pretty tired, but I wasn't able to make that happen. 

Anyone have any suggestions on timing the nap for optimal sleep length? Will it just get longer naturally or are there other things I can do to extend it? W2S? Something like that?
Maybe I should just keep aiming for close to 12:30 pm since she actually seemed to do ok that day and then if it is a short nap she won't have to make it as long till BT?  I'm open to ideas.

Questions for Lauraims: Thank you for your note. When you say you have only been offering water, do you mean if she wakes in the night? Or during the day? Or when you said you give her 10 minutes did you mean BF?  TIA!

Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #355 on: October 08, 2015, 05:37:43 am »
Thanks first mum. Argh we've been getting bedtime meltdowns all week 😩 put down at 4hrs15mins after a 2-2.5hour nap. She's definitely tired. The meltdown only lasts max 30mins. But she gets so upset and I have to go in and out 3 or so times.
She used to be the best self settler. No crying. But not in the last 4 months 😞

Awinkza...yup water if she wakes at night. Even if she wakes at 5.30. We don't offer milk all morning now. I give her 10 mins to whinge, call out if she wakes through the night. Usually she's actually still half asleep.

Offline First mum

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #356 on: October 08, 2015, 06:02:24 am »
Hi Awinkza I got advice from someone on here that around this age most lo respond really well to set nap times rather than awake times and it has been very true for us.  My lo has never been very good with tired signs when she was younger so set naps have always really worked for us.

We started the transition about 14 months and regardless of wu my aim was for 11:30, in the beginning if we had a really early wu it was a struggle but after a few weeks she got the hang of it and 3 months on her nap is still at 11:30.  We get anywhere between 1h15m to 2 hours, which is the max I let her sleep as we also have a set bedtime of 6:30. 

Maybe you could try the 11:30 time for a week and see what happens?  I found timings for lunch quite difficult in the beginning so sometimes she would get half before and half when she woke up.

Lauraims I feel your pain.  My lo started daycare at 12.5 months and stopped self settling with the first illness  >:( we are now finally at a point where I am not rubbing or shushing to sleep at lunch but I do stay until she is asleep.  Its taken me awhile but that is now only a couple of minutes.  BT I am lucky that she is super sleepy if not asleep following her bf.

Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #357 on: October 10, 2015, 19:49:05 pm »
Argh still getting 5.30 am WU's! Makes it so hard to keep my schedule.
Should I Stick to a catnap no earlier than 9 for 15 mins ?
Do you think her sleeping 15 mins in am and 2.5 over midday, usually about 12-2.30 is too much dts?

Offline trimbler

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #358 on: October 10, 2015, 21:23:47 pm »
Just a thought Laura, do you think she may need a shorter A to BT now she's doing 15mins morning CN, as she's more tired? I just say this as I remember DS needing BT a little earlier each time his morning nap was reduced, or he'd be OT, which could result in EW. Actually we've recently cut down DD's am nap consistently to 20mins and beginning to think we need BT earlier, since this seems to be working better for her, she had BT meltdowns when we tried to keep BT the same. Or do you think she's actually UT at BT and needs a push?



Offline lauraims

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Re: Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 6
« Reply #359 on: October 11, 2015, 00:27:55 am »
Good idea hun. How much earlier ?
What's your easy at the moment ?
She seems to often cry out at about 4/4.30 then 5.30. She tries to go back to sleep for ages but just can't. She could be OT at BT and thTs the reason for the meltdowns. I was always calculating total wake time though. ??