short naps and OT

[twinmama2]

My boys just turned one and all of a sudden they are taking shorter naps.  They are still taking two naps a day, and the naps are usually 75-90 minutes.  In the last couple days, they have been waking up after 60 minutes on the dot, and are very very crabby when they get up.  I really think they need more sleep.  I was reading about the 2-1 nap transition and I'm not sure that's what's going on since they are so upset when they wake.  Today Jack woke after 60 minutes and I was able to get him out of the room before he bothered his brother, so Levi slept for another 45 minutes.  Jack was sooo crabby when I got him up, but when Levi finally woke he was very happy. 
I was thinking about trying wake to sleep but I'm not sure if that's a good strategy for older kids.  Any ideas?

Here's what our day usually looks like:
6:00 or 6:30 awake
9:30-10:30 nap
2:30-3:30 nap
6:30 bed
(ideally, when they nap longer, they go to bed at 7:00 or even a little after, but this is what the last couple days have been)

Thanks for any insight!

[jessmum46]

I do think this is 2-1 related actually, it's the right age and typical for LOs to start looking very tired on 2 suboptimal naps.  I would decide whether you'd prefer a longer morning nap or longer afternoon nap and then work towards that with a catnap for the other nap.  So for a long morning, start to push their morning nap start time later to 9.45/10am and hope for 1.5-2h.  Then around 3.5-4h later aim for a shorter nap of 30-45 mins, then 2.5-3h later BT.  For a long afternoon keep their morning nap where it is, but cap it at maybe 45 mins to start with (you may have to cut it even shorter) then try a longer nap at around 3-3.5h later (give or take, you may need to experiment) with BT around 3.5-4h after waking up.

What do you think?

[twinmama2]

We're going to start giving this a try.  But I'm a little nervous about it.  My boys have always been very prone to overtiredness.  We can't seem to go more than 3 hours before bedtime or else they get overtired and wake up 30 minutes after falling asleep.  Do you think I should still try to do BT 3.5-4 hours after waking up, or stick with our usual 3 hours?

[jessmum46]

It depends if you are doing a long afternoon nap or not really.....if they do a full nap in the afternoon I would expect they might handle a bit longer before bed, but if it's not a full nap they will likely need a shorter A time.  You know them best . In my example above with a long morning nap there would only be 2.5-3h after the second nap before BT, the 3.5-4h referred to doing a short morning nap and long afternoon nap

[twinmama2]

We are trying for a long afternoon nap.  Today we woke them from their morning nap after 45 minutes and put them down for afternoon nap about 3.5 hours later.  L had a 90 minute nap, but J only slept 45 minutes again!  L had a great evening then, much happier than he has been the last couple weeks with shorter naps.  Unfortunately, J was still very crabby and had to go to bed much earlier than his brother.  We'll keep trying and hopefully J will start sleeping longer as well.  How long should we be hoping they'll sleep during that afternoon nap?  Would you say 90 minutes is a good long nap while we're transitioning?  Or should we try to cut the morning nap even shorter in hopes of them sleeping longer in the afternoon?
Thank you so much for your suggestions.

[jessmum46]

I think 1.5-2h is a good aim, especially if they seem happy after a 1.5h nap.  It may be if you cut the morning nap more you may get a longer nap, but you'd probably also need a slightly shorter second A time to compensate.

[twinmama2]

We've been trying this for about a week now, and sometimes their naps go well, and other times they don't.  About half of the days that we've tried limiting their morning nap J has woken from his afternoon nap after only 45 minutes!  I can usually nurse him to get him back to sleep for a little longer.  (We don't usually nurse to sleep, but in the middle of a nap I've found that it's the quickest way to get him back to sleep and not wake up his brother.)  J has also not been sleeping well at night, so I guess there might something else going on that is making it hard for him to sleep. 
Their afternoon nap is usually 80-90 minutes lately.  Do I try to limit the morning nap even more?  They are already pretty unhappy when I wake them after 45 minutes so I'm not sure about cutting that nap any shorter. 
Thanks so much for helping me figure this out - I feel like we get a handle on their sleep and then something changes again!

[jessmum46]

45 mins in the morning then 80-90 in the afternoon sounds like plenty of sleep for this age.....what does the EASY look like with WU time/nap time etc?  Wondering if some of your NWs could be UT?

[twinmama2]

Our EASY usually looks like this, with minor adjustments based on what time they wake up.

6:30-7:00 wake up
     (3-3.5 hour A time)
10:00-10:45 nap
     (3.5-4 hour A time)
2:30-4:00 nap
     (3 hour A time)
7:00 bed

[jessmum46]

Has J historically been lower sleep needs than L do you think?  I wonder if perhaps you need to cut down his morning nap a touch more to see if that helps with the afternoon?

[twinmama2]

J is always the first one up in the morning, so he probably does need less sleep than L.  I will try to wake him a little earlier than L and see how it goes.
Do you think we're running into an UT problem at night? They've always been very sensitive to OT so I try to stay one step ahead of that, but maybe in doing that I've created a problem the other way. The last few weeks J has been up every 3 hours all night, an most of the time I have to nurse him to get him back to bed.  L has been slightly better at night, but still waking more than once.

[jessmum46]

I think probably yes, those every 3h or so wakings sound UT to me (my DS is much younger but has just gone through something very similar which has improved somewhat with pushing his A times).  They are probably ready for some longer A times somewhere in the day to help them be tired enough to sleep better at night x