Set naps? Anyone?

[babybarr]

I'm tagging along cos I'm pretty sure I'll be doing set naps with my two soon. Did it with ds1 at 7mths and it took a few wks for naps to lengthen but then we got nws but he had a lot going on at that time health wise so maybe unrelated.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I'd rather stay on 2 naps but he's LSN and we're getting nap and bedtime resistance, 14 hour days,  short nights and 2 hr night wakings on 2 naps but 11 - 11.5 hour nights on one nap.  We've been alternating 2 and 1 nap days for a while now and he has a much worse night on 2 nap days He does his best naps on 4.5 - 4.75 hrs A time which is awkward in terms of keeping 2 naps.  Even doing 3 x 1 nap days and then 1 x 2 nap days I'm struggling to fit in a 1.5 hour nap and 30 minute cat nap without nws. If he sleeps past 3pm, even as a cat nap we get nws.  I just can't think of anything else to try!

I have a thread open about it on the naps board but open to trying anything!  Happy to start a new thread if there's anything else I can try?

[Skadiver13]

You can always try 1 nap for a week or so and see how he does with OT and do a few catch up days of 2 naps? Not sure. We went to one nap at 11.5 months.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yeah, I think I'm going to try and give it a week just to try it out.  I'm happy to go back to alternating one and two nap days for a bit longer if it doesn't work but am not into the 2 hour night wakings so would like to give one nap a good go first! If he's ill then 2 naps work well for us, so I'm pretty sure we'd get back on track ok with a couple of 2 nap days if need be. I'm sure we're not fully on one nap yet but not miles off I don't think. The first OT EW will be the thing that tests my resolve to stick to one nap for a week! Or if we get multiple night wakings I'm outta here!

Oh, and I forgot to say thank you for the advice on dealing with the night wakings. I tend to only go in if his cry is starting to escalate but sometimes I do wonder if I'm jumping in too soon.  Sometimes they escalate and then stop pretty quickly (like,  seconds later), iykwim? And I'm currently setting a nap at 11.15 and bedtime at 6.30,  assuming a 6.15 - 6.30 WU.  I'll put him down at 11 though if he's up earlier.... He will tack on with EBT to a certain extent but only if he's properly tired and the longest night he's ever done is 11.5 hours so I haven't done bedtime earlier than 6 before.

[clazzat]

Mine all had a phase (really can't remember what age it was, though!) where they would wake and cry hysterically for about 10 seconds and then go straight back to sleep.  The first few times I would leap to my feet and run upstairs because it sounded like someone was cutting their legs off, but I worked out that they settled best if I left it alone.  No idea what it was, but it passed.