2-1 with a lsn baby - anyone BTDT?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

So it looks like we MAY be having our first one nap day with my little boy who's just turned 8 months  Basically his A times are so high now that I can't fit his naps into a 12 hour day and since he woke late today instead of capping his morning nap I'm going to let him sleep and do a cn or ebt depending on how he does. I've seen this coming for a while and I think he's starting to get UT night wakings again so I guess I need to start thinking about how I'm going to handle this. I have been through it all with my daughter (who is slightly lsn), and I've re-read the FAQs but going through it with a baby so young is new to me! Don't get me wrong,  I'm clinging onto 2 naps for as long as I can,  but I think J is running ahead of me...

Anyway, my actual question is - how long should I let him sleep if he does have the odd one nap day now?  Normally anything more than 2ish hours sleep in the day interferes with nights.  I can maybe get away with the odd day of 2.5 hours but not routinely. So when I think he's only going to fit in one nap,  should I cap it at all,  or not at first? I can't remember what I did with my daughter.

In case it helps,  here is his normal day,  though like I say,  we're starting to get 2 hour cot parties at 3am on this,  and it's getting harder and harder to AP that morning cat nap....

WU: 5.45
A: 4hrs - 4 hrs 15 (he will go down at home at 4 hrs and do an UT nap if left,  but he often stays awake til 4hrs 15/20 if I AP it)
S: 30 minutes capped at around 10-10.30
A: 3hrs 15-25 depending on how tired he seems.
S: 1.5 hrs around 2.15-3.45.  Always wake him by 3.45 which used to mean this nap was sometimes a little over 1.5 hrs,  but recently he's been waking by himself very happy after 1.5 hrs anyway.
A: 3hrs 15 is the minimum I can get away with here without him fighting it so I usually stick to that.
BT @ 7 / 7.15. Usually settles fine and was STTN most nights. If we get nws it's usually around 3am.

TIA!

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Ha!  Well today won't be our first one nap day after all - I put him down at 4 hrs 25, he went straight to sleep but only slept 1hr 25.  But I'd still like to hear from others who have BTDT with regard to nap capping on one nap. Thank you!

Also,  if I think we could end up with the odd one nap day,  should I aim for as close to the middle of the day as I dare,  or just pd 15/20 minutes later than usual and hope for the best (but risk pm nap refusal and a long second A time?).

[goldmom]

DD isn't old enough to realize that if she wants to only take one nap then she must sleep more than 1.5 hours during that "first" nap! I would also love to hear how babies start to take these long 3 hour naps during the day .

This past Saturday, the day we changed our clocks, we actually let her take a long first nap (2.5 hours!!) and she still took a 1 hour 15 m second nap (we let her so that she would go to sleep an hour later, which did work out pretty nicely)

A couple of days ago she only slept 1.5 hours in the AM and refused her second nap, but she didn't seem that shattered later in the day, I just brought BT up by 20 minutes or so. (Could be why 2 days later she took that really long AM nap)

We've been capping the AM nap at 1 hour 15 m which seems to get her to actually go to sleep nicely in the PM, but she usually only does 1 h 15 m for the PM nap also.

Our schedule lately has been:
5:45/6:30 - WU (somewhere during this time she starts moaning and then wakes up and plays till she starts calling for me to come and get her)
9:45-11 - AM nap (will vary a little sometimes based on actual wakeup, but only by 5-10 min or so in either direction)
2:15-3:30 - PM nap
7 - BT (may take her 10 min or so to fall asleep some nights)

We do still get an early part of the night NF (somewhere between 10-11:30), but last night we had multiple wakeups where she wouldn't resettle nicely even after a feed, which I'm puttin down to the possibility that her next tooth is about to pop through (looks like it's getting ready to show). I'm not sure but I think pain (tooth and ear infection, as well as fussy week 36) was really impacting her naps, but we were able to bring her A times back down a little after that and she's usually sleeping a little better now.

This has only been for a few days so far, but I'm hoping that it works out well for us for at least a few weeks. (That may be too much to ask for knowing DD )

[TB9]

We have about one 1nap day per week   I just let dd2 sleep for as long as she wants, try for a cn, and if she refuses do ebt.  My plan is to just let her refuse that cn whenever she wants and go with it!

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Glad we're not the only ones then!  If jack wasn't waking so hideously early I think we'd have had a one nap day by now but he does like to start the day at 5.45.  I'm pretty sure an A time push would improve things and if these nws continue I might just try it.  Tink - what A time are you doing before your DD2's nap? Do you find she can do quite a long nap without it affecting nights if it's just a one off?

Goldmom - your routine actually looks very similar to ours,  except we have the long nap in the afternoon instead of the morning.  I've been considering swapping them round but he really resisted his PM nap today and we only just got it in. My daughter always refused to go to sleep after a certain point in the day and I think jack might be the same...

[Miraclelim]

Hi mummy LLAJ, your routine is super similar to ours.
Wu 0610/630
Nap1 1030-1150
Nap2 1530-1600
BT 1930
Unfortunately we have moved house this few days, we start having EW n not sleeping in the pm results me aping pm nap.
Now is
Wu 0545/0555 (stay in bed till 0640)
Nap1 1030-1145
Nap2 not wanting to sleep if I put her down at 1530. Happily lying in bed cooing.
So I extend it to almost 1545/1600 then if not asleep I AP the nap, sleep for 20min then I wake her up. This has been happening for 4-5 days!!!
BT 1930 won't sleep before.
She is now 10.5 mth I m thinking maybe she needs to extend her awake time for am nsp again!!!!
Because I always don't pick her up till 0640 may be I can extend another 15 min more. Tempted to push to 11am n see what I get. Maybe she is ready for 1 nap??

[goldmom]

...and since he woke late today...

he really resisted his PM nap today and we only just got it in. My daughter always refused to go to sleep after a certain point in the day and I think jack might be the same...

We once had a much later wake-up (7:30 instead of the normal 6:45 at that time) and so the AM nap was later than usual (don't remember how long, but likely 1.5 hours or so) and forget it, the second nap I would've made short, but there was no way she was willing to go to sleep for a nap when I tried. It was a few weeks ago (probably close to you LO's age now), and we ended up doing one nap and a super early BT, and only had a moderately early WU the next morning (not super early as the super early BT would've indicated). Since then I've been determined not to let her sleep in past 6:45 b/c she totally didn't make it on that one nap then and it messed up our entire day. (Now, she's not so bad anymore with one nap on those off days, but we don't get late wake-ups anymore). The consistent wake-ups did help for a while.

[Layla]

I actually read a really good post recently, where a mum mentioned waking her LO every morning to ensure she could fit both naps in. At the moment, if mine sleeps in, we can still manage to fit 2 naps in but I take her for a walk in the morning on those days and her morning nap is nice and short (like 20-30mins) and that way her afternoon nap is nice and long (1.5-2hrs)

[TB9]

Tink - what A time are you doing before your DD2's nap? Do you find she can do quite a long nap without it affecting nights

I go by cues every day right now...today she did cn in the am, so I didnt have to worry about her refusing her pm nap.  I may try to keep it that way to keep the two naps around longer, but not sure... So today our day was
7:30 Wakeup
A 3hr
Nap 1 10:30-11:10
A 3.5hr
Nap 2 2:40-4:50
A 3hr40min
8:30 Bedtime

If she sleeps in and does a one nap day I dont wake her from her nap, and do bedtime 4-4.5hrs after she wakes from nap.  I tried waking her in the am if she didnt wake on her own, and she didnt like it so much...when she wants to sleep in, she is just like dh and really wants to just stay asleep, lol.  Both girls are spirited like me, but got dhs sleeping in gene which I am very thankful for! 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind my two having my DH's sleeping genes but sadly they have mine

I remember having to wake lily in the morning at around this age to fit 2 naps in, so would happily do it for jack.  To be honest, 6.45 would feel like a major lie in!  But yesterday I let him sleep partly cos i was comatose after being up for 2.5 hours in the night and partly cos he'd only gone back to sleep at 5.10 so if I'd woken him around 6 as usual he'd have missed out on a lot of night sleep. We just about fit in 2 naps,  but got a 5.30am start this morning.  I'm pretty sure that's cos he had a nap very close to bedtime.

So not quite ready for one nap yet I don't reckon,  but getting very long days and short nights on 2 naps

[goldmom]

Not sure if this is recommended or not, but how about keeping both naps short. Say 1 h to 1 h 15 m max for each nap, or a very short nap and a 1 hr 15 m second nap. So no more long nap, but at least 2 breaks in the day.

DS had a long AM and short PM, but at a certain point we were capping his AM nap under 1.5 hours so that he would still take his short PM nap (45 min). I think we capped it at around 1 h 15 m, and that helped. I think when he got a little older (say 12 months or so) we were able to start letting his AM nap go a little longer and still keep the PM nap most days (till 16 months or so).

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I have thought about 2 medium sized naps but any time he has more than 35ish minutes for that first nap he does an UT second nap and ends up in an UT/OT loop.  He's the KING of the UT/OT loop in fact.  We've had a lot of that .  In fact we let him have 45 minutes this morning (on slightly less A time than usual as he seemed tired) and he's just done an UT nap this afternoon.  He might do better on us still capping the AM nap at 30 minutes but waking him at 1hr 20 or so for his afternoon nap if he's sleeping past 3.30 though.  I think his A before bed might be a bit low....

In a way though,  I think the early starts are just something you get at the start of a transition (and throughout!). Also, he always did a 11 - 11.5 hr night with a night feed,  so now that's gone maybe 10.75 hrs is enough for him?  I hope not - I'd love to get past 6am one day,  but he hasn't done it really since he started STTN.  It just makes trying a one nap day tricky cos it's a long day even with an ebt. I remember posting about this with the 3-2 though and we got there!

Well,  it's my daughters birthday next week and we've got to do a long AM nap so we can go out for her birthday so I might find out then how he does on one nap if he refuses a PM nap!

[goldmom]

As DS got older we did move out his BT from 6:45 to 7:00 to 7:15 to 7:30, as needed. We never really had EW's (maybe just occassionally, but not consistently that we were trying to fix), and changing BT didn't really effect wake up time significantly (I'm assuming that since it doesn' t jump out in my mind that he ever started sleeping "late" i.e. past 6:30, until we switched to 1 nap). We just adjusted as his A needs increased.

Not sure about A times before bed, but I was wondering, since I thought you'd need a long A after a long nap. That's why I liked the long AM/short PM, since the second nap typically wasn't really restorative enough to effect BT too much. Don't know much about that.

He might do better on us still capping the AM nap at 30 minutes but waking him at 1hr 20 or so for his afternoon nap if he's sleeping past 3.30 though. 

I think I would try this to see if that makes a difference. Having 2 naps for a long time was so nice! (But then we never did do the super long 3 hour afternoon naps)

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yeah, will try waking him by 3.30 no matter what,  I think.... Otherwise I might increase his morning A to get a decent AM nap,  see when he's then needing a cn which I can AP most days and if he refuses it then so be it. Going on past experience,  he's more likely to sleep longer in the morning with a decent first A time anyway so that might help in itself. And I guess if I do that I should let him sleep 2-2.5 hours on days I think a second nap is unlikely?

[Mandy.kamal]

Looks like we are right on cue with my DS following Jack again
We always seem to go through the same dilemma, just a little behind!

I'm at a loss and with loosing an hour from DST, it's been even worse. I'm going to follow along to see what advice you get and copy you as usual, ha!

For us, each day is completely different and naps are never the same time or length. I try to follow his sleepy cues the best I possibly can. I know we are beginning the 2-1 as well but there is NO possible way DS can make it on one nap. Right now he's doing 2, shorter naps (1 hour) and neither seems to be restorative enough. I've played around with capping and extending and nothing has worked so I'm trying to relax and just go with it for now.

I'm hoping you get some good tips from these ladies and keep updating what you're doing with Jacks routine