9.5 MO and the 2-1 transition?

[m.ned]

My DS is 9.5 months old and is beginning to exhibit signs of what I think might be the 2-1 transition. He is FINALLY (after 5-6 months of trying) taking naps longer than 1 hour, but every other day or so he is avoiding his afternoon nap. This is the third time he's done it in the past week, and it's the only sign I can find of him being ready for the 2-1 transition. I'm not so sure how to go about this. He is an independent sleeper. Here is his EASY on a typical day (when the nap is not refused, when the nap is refused, we usually do EBT @6/6:30):

W/U 6:30am
E 6:30-B/F both sides
A solids, finger foods, yogurts, baby food about 1 cup @8:30
S 10:30-12
E 12-B/F both sides (I usually wake him from the nap after 1.5 or so)
A solids @ 2, finger foods, baby food about 1 cup
E 3:30-B/F both sides
S 4/4:15-5/5:30 (if I can get him to go down for his nap, he will sleep for 1hr-1.5hrs, but I usually cut it at 1hr bc of BT)
A baby food and 3tbsp of rice cereal, about 1-1.5cups @5:45
W/D routine 6:45: bath, brush teeth, lotion, pajamas, story, B/F both sides - put down in crib awake and puts self to sleep
S 7:15 (or sometimes as late as 7:30/8pm now-he is standing in his crib and has not yet figured out how to get down!)
**1 NW around 4:00am - nurse on one side

Some things to note:
-does not have a lovey
-currently working on the nursing as a MOTN prop issue (have found that he is waking and putting him back to sleep at other times besides the 4am feeding, which is HUGE progress!)
-eats solids and breastfeeds very well
-very active during awake times - crawling, climbing, running around in the walker, pulling himself up
-currently has 5 teeth and is working on another

Here are my concerns:
-I feel like he might be kind of young to be dropping the second nap (but how should I know, I'm a FTM haha)
-I have a hard time getting a full 4hrs of awake time in the morning and feel slowly pushing that nap out would be very difficult at this time
-He is standing in his crib and does not know how to get down - when he stands, he plays, so I'm not sure if that's what's keeping him from falling asleep in the afternoon
-I'm wondering if cutting the first nap to 1hr would make a difference (he does really well after a 1 hr nap)
-sometimes he gets super cranky after 4hrs of A time in the afternoon, other times he acts like he could play all day!
-in 2 weeks we are going to begin weaning him from the 1 night feeding and I am afraid the transition may affect his night time sleep and I'm not sure which I should try to accomplish first!

Baby whisperer has been a lifesaver for us! I have many friends that are amazed at how much he thrives on routine and how easily he goes down to sleep (they don't know all of the hard work DH and I put into that rountine, haha!) I couldn't have done it without your help here at BW!

As always, thank you for your help!

[Layla]

I feel like he might be kind of young to be dropping the second nap (but how should I know, I'm a FTM haha)

I agree, he's probably too young for the transition but it sounds like he's heading that way . I would think at 9.5months he would still need 2 naps as he really needs to be able to stay awake around 5hrs either side of nap to be on just 1 nap.

I have a hard time getting a full 4hrs of awake time in the morning and feel slowly pushing that nap out would be very difficult at this time

I wouldn't recommend you push him anymore just yet. I would leave it at 4hrs and actually at 9.5months we were doing around 3/3.25-3.5/3.5-4hrs as the day progressed

He is standing in his crib and does not know how to get down - when he stands, he plays, so I'm not sure if that's what's keeping him from falling asleep in the afternoon

Could be - when they learn a new skill, they want to practice it in the cot too! Isabella did this more than Jasmine and this is what I did to teach her how to get down - this may or may not work for you. I would practice in the cot/playpen (with had bars just like the cot) and get a toy/or a shiny chocolate wrapper (the one that makes a crinkly noise lol) and jiggle it to encourage her to get down. I would then place her right hand on the bar and lead her other hand lower on the bar, bend her knees, until she would spread her legs and get down. And we would practice and practice over and over again and it only took 1/2 a day and she got it!!! and from then on she would get down herself .

I'm wondering if cutting the first nap to 1hr would make a difference (he does really well after a 1 hr nap)

This was going to be my suggestion . At this age, I would have to limit J's nap to around 1hr (if not 45mins) in order to get a longer afternoon nap out of her. IF he's going down well in the afternoon and taking a good nap (1.5hrs), I would go down the path of limiting morning nap to 1 hr to start with. Once Isabella or J would fight the pm nap again (on just 45mins), we cut her morning nap down to 30mins ... but you are probably a long way away from doing that just yet.

sometimes he gets super cranky after 4hrs of A time in the afternoon, other times he acts like he could play all day!

4 hrs may be too long for him?

in 2 weeks we are going to begin weaning him from the 1 night feeding and I am afraid the transition may affect his night time sleep and I'm not sure which I should try to accomplish first!

Gradually working on the transition hopefully won't affect his night sleep - but like with any transitions you just don't know. Sure we did have some EWs and OT issues when we were transitioning from 2-1 naps... but I think as long as you do things slowly it should be ok. Do something for 3-4 days before you assess whether its working or not. How are you planning to wean the NF? Jasmine had a NF around that age too and I remember watering down the feed helped... she just stopped waking up for it and started sleeping through.

You could always go down the long morning/short afternoon nap path but I found with my DDs that they would skip the pm nap too often and I decided to go down the other path.
Here is a link for you to look at: From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older) and 10/ 11mo sleep gone wonky? Read this first! (2-1 switch)

Let me know what you think

[m.ned]

Thank you so much for your advice! He's still hovering around a morning A time of 3hr45min-4hrs (any shorter and he won't sleep for more than 40 minutes) and I have cut his first nap at 1hr. Then his afternoon A is 4hr-4hr15 min and the past two days he has gone down for that nap easily. I also wake him from this nap at the 1hr mark. I find that any longer and bedtime gets pushed too late and he seems to follow the next morning with a 5am early waking. Two days ago when he slept for 1.5, bedtime was pushed to 8pm and he was up at 5am the next morning. There is something that I have noticed. He turns into an absolute bear after 6pm. No matter what time his last nap was or how long it lasted. I don't know if he is overtired from the day or that is just his grumpy part of the day. I've tried putting him to bed at 6:30 (which I don't like doing b/c usually his second nap ends 4:30/5pm and I feel like that's not enough A time before bed, but maybe I'm wrong), and he's definitely less grumpy, but he will play in his crib until 8pm. So I'm not sure what to do.

I took your advice and have been trying to practice getting down from standing with him. He hasn't gotten it yet, but I'm sure we'll be there soon!

I would like to keep him on two naps for as long as possible because so he doesn't turn into an overtired monster! We'll see how the two 1hr naps work, and if he starts refusing the 2nd nap again or if he starts early waking, then we'll start the transition! I will try shortening the morning nap and keeping the afternoon nap when that happens.

As far as the night feeding goes, I just shortened the amount of time I fed him each night and then when we were down to zero minutes, I stayed in the room with him while he fussed. We tried PU/PD and rubbing his back, but it seems to make him more upset. I will try the same approach with the next feeding and we'll see how it goes! I've heard watering down the feeding works, but because I'm nursing (and don't usually get alot when I pump), I don't think I could do it!

Thank you so much for your help!