Magic a times??

[Aishi]

Dd is 26 mo and very easily sucked into an ot mess. Nap capping, long a times to set nap/ bt lead to ot. We have tried set times for 3 months but its not working.

Has anyone used or is using a times rather than set times for their 2yo+. If so could you share your routine? do you wake in the morning and/ or cap nap?

Thank you!

[kaipooi]

I still haven't found the right A time yet but 2 weeks ago it was 5hour45min - 6hours... and then we got into a right big mess as there was an increase and I did not realise it until this Monday :X My boy has always been super slow to have his activity times increased.

Yesterday, on a well rested day, I tried 6hr15mins in the morning and got a 1.5hour nap. Then it was 5hr15min in the afternoon to bedtime. Thankfully he was not OT by bedtime!! It's a bit hit and miss with him with 1.5hour naps and 13hour days.

If he manages a solid 11 hour night now (still sleeping now and it's been 10.5hours), I'm going to try for 6.5hours in the morning to see if I can get a 2 hour nap. The afternoon A time will depend on how his nap goes... will play by ear...

My final goal is still to get a 2 hour nap and an 11 hour night. However, I may be asking too much as he is now 26 months old and only sleeps around 12.5-13hours in 24.  I don't like capping naps as he gets OT really quickly. But he is a different boy when he sleeps longer at night so who knows, I may have to cap soon at 1.5hours. He is a total nightmare when his nights are bad.

[Aishi]

Thanks kaipooi. If he does sttn and have an 11+ hour night IIWM i would stick to the 6h15 min am a to see if he settles into it. I think general rule of thumb is to give los a few days to settle into an a time increase...

Dd has been on 6.5h am a time for a while now...she also takes ages to change a times....i havent figured out the pm a time....thats what got us into an ot mess before i decided.to try set naps :-/ but yesterday she did

Wu 5.50
am a 6.5h
Nap 12.20-2.35 (i capped as it was over 2hrs but could have been a cu nap so will stick to this a time for a while)
Pm a 4h45
bt 7.20

day was a bit too long imo but will see how night is and prob cap nap at 2h to have a shorter day and earlier bt. I dont like capping either but i think its ok to cap at 2h cos its a restorative nap

[Aishi]

Well night was rubbish. I woke her by accident when giving dm at 2.30 and she was unsettled for rest of night. Think she was ot cos she was trying really hard to sleep. I ended waking her this morning at 7. I think the plan today is to keep to a 12.5h day

Wu 7
nap 1.30-3.30 capped
Bt 7.30

wdyt?

[kaipooi]

How did your night go? How I wish DS would do 2 hour naps!

DS ended up STTN for 11hours last night. I put him down again after 6hr15min A time and again he did 1.5hour nap. I guess I will do bedtime the same as yesterday and hope for another 11hours STTN tonight.

Oh, I forgot to mention that sometimes when DS goes into an OT spiral that he just can't recover from, i.e. short nights, leading to OT by nap time and hence, short naps, leading to more OT by bedtime and hence, short nights, etc. I would just totally annihilate him by just going out till super late and way past his bedtime. He will then do a super short night (like 8.5 hours) and then crash for his nap (3 hours) and then we do a short day. It kinda "re-boots" his system and we get back on track. I kinda discovered this when we flew from Europe to Asia and he only slept 3 hours on the plane. Prior to the travel, he was stuck in his OT loop for 2 whole months, and never took more than a 1hour20min nap! The day we arrived in Asia, he started taking 2-3hour nap until regression hit 2 weeks ago, and now we are back to 1.5hour naps

Guess what? Just as I was going to post this, DS fell back asleep.. LOL! Looks like Gymboree did well today and it's gonna be a longer nap! Now I don't know when to do bedtime.. sighs... damned if you do and damned if you don't...

[kaipooi]

Ah, you posted just as I did That is the exact reason why I never do DM. I did it one time when DS was 17 months and ended up waking him up at 10pm. Thankfully he was tired enough to just sit up, say "Mama?", and roll back to sleep. I never dared do it again after

I think the plan for today looks good. Ideally it would be a 12 hour day but she would be UT if she was to be asleep at 700pm after a 2 hour nap ending at 330pm, I think. So yeah, 730pm it is.

I guess that's the hard part... guessing the afternoon A time...

[Aishi]

Totally! guessing game with pm a time....thats brave, letting ds crash like that with ot. I wouldnt dare do that! im glad you had a goodnight.

I wouldnt let ds nap longer than 2.5h and keep to 13h day max if you can. If u put him down ut for bt will he settle wo getting ot??

Good luck for today x

[kaipooi]

And so here I am, paying the price for letting him sleep this afternoon. Sighs... he is still playing in bed I guess he will sleep when he will sleep. No use crying over spilled milk now.

Hah, I am not THAT brave to voluntarily let him crash like that. Usually it is when we get invited to a family dinner, party, wedding. Occasions that you just can't say no to. And he ALWAYS chooses those weeks to mess up his naps. It is like he knows just when mommy needs him to sleep his best to last the weekend, and he will choose that week to sleep his absolute worst. So by weekend, he is a total disaster and might as well get "re-booted"

How is your day coming along?

[Aishi]

Whats his day been like eas? Maybe frsh eyes will help. Tbh i was like that yesterday. I woke dd after a 2h15 min nap and she took loknger than i hoped to fall asleep at bt

She slept like clockwork for nap so  1.25-3.25 i think she was going to go back to sleep but i went and got her. Maybe if we get the right nap length then pm a and bt wont be such a battle.

But i agree once you pd for bt if hes not upset and needing you then yup just let it go and see how the night pans out. I have found that even after a 1.5h nap dd needs 4h a in pm too if that helps...

[Aishi]

Im prob gonna jinx myself but today was perfect im just going to post here so i can keep track of things. Feel free to do the same…looks like we're the only ones whose los cant handle set times!

Thurs

Unsettled night
wu 7.05 (i woke)
am a 6h20
Nap 1.25-3.25
Pm a 4h
Bt 7.20 (pd 7.05)

Im really hoping she can sttn and get back on track. She used to be this easy to pd for sleeps before all the shenanigans following 18mo SR!

[kaipooi]

Oh yes, that looks like a perfect day indeed! Hopefully she STTN!

My day yesterday was like this,

wu 8:00
am A 6h15
nap 2:15-5:30 (solid sleep till 3:45 then light sleep with a few wake ups as there was a thunderstorm after. I finally woke him at 5:30)
pm A 4h45 (took him out for a mad run around the super market)
bt 10:15 (pd 9:20)

It's a really long day due to the long nap. I didin't want to wake him as he's been soo OT for the last 2 weeks with huge bags under his eyes. I was hoping he would catch up on some sleep. But still sleeping at 5:30pm just became a bit ridiculous! I just know it will end up being a short night. Sighs... it's only 7:45am now (only 9.5hour night) and he's started rolling around in bed already... I think I really need to cap his naps at 2hours. Was hoping he could get back to his 8:30-9:00am wake up time before all this mess started 2 weeks ago. I might even pull his am A time to 6hr today if he's going to be waking now...

[Aishi]

Ouch that was a long day. I dont think a cu nap makes up for a short night. If you look at his ts he got  12h45min inc napso thats alot of sleep just spaced.out the wrong way. Night sleep is more restorative so youre better off capping nap at two hours (this is a good nap length at this age) and ebt if you think he needs a cu. Does he tack onto night sleep? i would stick to the 6h15 am a if its been working for you. Chopping and changing can be disruptive for them too. So i would do something like this if he woke at 7.45

Wu 7.45
nap 2-4
Bt 8

so our night was rubbish. Nw at 1.30 gave meds, crying nws 3, 5 self settled and wu 6.15. idk whats causing nws so i give up!

[Aishi]

Oh just realised you said in previous posts that at 6h15 a ds gives 1.5h nap, i think anything under 2hrs is ot so perhaps you could pull back to 6 h am a but stick with it for a week to give ds time to settle. Wdyt?

[kaipooi]

Urgh... rough night for you! At least she self settled.. usually when DS cries at night it is all about teeth. His upper molars have not appeared yet so I am not surprised if his rubbish sleep started because of them. Are you giving ibuprofen? Or just paracetamol? I find that ibuprofen works better but I never when to give and when not to cos you can never be sure if it's teeth or not! I am sure that, many times, by the time I am sure and give, the worse of it is already over...

Yeah, I put DS down at 2pm (6h15 A time) instead. Decided to stick with the 6hr15 time and be consistent and he looked quite chirpy. He woke at 745am this morning. Gonna let him sleep 2h15 max (if he would sleep this much!) as it's Friday and I probably can only get him into bed earliest at 845pm. He was surprisingly in a pretty good mood this morning. Like you said, his total sleep was not too bad so that's probably his saving grace. However, if it happens like yesterday everyday then we would get into serious trouble. Overnight sleep is still the better bet.

Ah, 1hr45 into his nap now... many times I have tried to put him down after 4hr A time in the afternoon and he ends up rolling in bed for another hour. I think he needs at least 5 hours if he naps anywhere more than 1.5hours... this is where it gets tricky to keep a 13hour day max. Especially now he is getting older and morning A time is stretching and he needs 2 hour naps to not slowly become OT It's all a mathematical equation...

[Aishi]

And impossible to get right two days in a row

So today

Wu 6.15
Nap 12.45-2.45 uncapped
Bt 7.35 (pd 6.30 and clearly ot by the time she slept)

Why do I keep getting it wrong? This routine worked yesterday!