I'm wondering whether my 8 month old is at the start of the 2-1 transition, or if it's a sleep regression. She never went through the 4 month sleep regression, although her naps were a mess from 2.5 months to 6 months, so maybe we just had a very long 4 month sleep regression. Haha! So I really don't know what a sleep regression looks like to compare.
To summarize, my daughter STTN from 3 months until 6.5 months, with only a 3 week stint around 5 months where she woke up 1-2x per night. At 6.5 months, we visited family for Thanksgiving, and since then, she's been waking every night. It used to be several times a night. Now its only 1x per night, and only about half the time. The other nights she either STTN or cries once and goes back to sleep on her own.
We transitioned to 2 naps when she was a little over 7 months. Prior to this, we had problems with the 45 minute nap monster for a long while. Looking back at my notes and knowing what I know now, I suspect we could have transitioned to 2 naps when she was around 6 months, maybe even earlier.
We've been solidly on 2 naps for about a month now. Here is what has happened so far:
Week 1: 4 days good naps, 2 days of the afternoon nap being short, held her to extend
Week 2: 1 day of good naps, 4 days of afternoon nap being short (held to extend), 2 days of car naps while traveling so don't count
Week 3: 2 days of good naps, but shorter than previous weeks, 5 days of afternoon nap being short (only held her for 3 of them), with one of those days having a short morning nap too
Week 4: All hell breaks loose and I can't figure out when to put her down, and she resists sleep much more. My friends are calling this a nap strike. Here is what has happened during the nap strike:
Day 1: WU 6:30, 3 naps of 30-45 minutes, BT 6:40
Day 2: WU 6:00, 1 nap of 70 minutes, BT 5:45
Day 3: WU 5:00 (hungry from going to bed so early night before), BF & back to sleep 6-7 (she fought going back to sleep), 2 naps - 1.5 hours and 45 min, but had to hold her for the 2nd nap as it was so late in the day and didn't want to sleep, BT 6:40
Day 4: WU 6:00, 2 naps - 30 min and 50 min, BT 6:25
Day 5: WU 6:20, 2 naps - both 30 min, BT 6:30
Day 6: WU 6:25, 3 naps - 30 min, 50 min, 30 minutes, had to hold her for the 3rd, BT 6:45
Day 7: WU 5:50, 2 naps - 35 min and 80 min, BT 6:35
Day 8: WU 7:05, 2 naps - 60 min and 30 min, BT 6:35
A few additional points:
- Even on the day when she did only 1 nap, she is mostly cheery. She gets a bit more agitated when something doesn't go her way, and her movements are a bit more jerky towards the end of the day than I'm used to, but otherwise fine
- She rubs her eyes and yawns throughout the day, and there have been many times that I've tried to put her down and have had to abandon because it's just not happening after 30 minutes or so. But she wakes from every nap screaming or crying, so she's definitely still tired
- I never sleep trained, because she's mostly put herself to sleep with just a binky and some lovies. Sometimes she is tired enough and I can just walk out of the room, other times, I have to persist and keep going in to put the binky in her mouth a few times over 15-30 minutes before she finally falls asleep. This is more often the case with afternoon naps, which are tending to happen quite late.
- She's not cutting any teeth right now
- Literally just today, she rolled over for the first time, multiple times, front to back
- There have been no changes to her night time sleep. She STTN about half the time, needing the binky the other half of the time. This is usually around 4 or 5am.
- Naps are a different times each day, as she seems to be tired at different times each day. I tried being consistent, as I always am, but most days no luck and I have to get her up for a bit longer.
I had ruled out a sleep regression, as I thought that impacted night sleep too. This *just* seems to be a nap problem. But maybe that assumption is wrong?
Do you think this is the 2-1 transition? How long should I wait this out until I try moving her to 1 nap?
