Support for dropping the nap part 11

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I would probably interpret that as doing a shorter night from UT after a longer night and then shorter day. Or your LO learning to regulate.  Does it cause early starts for you? Do you think he'd do a slightly later BT after a long night followed by a short day?

[rachsk8]

Yes, I tend to be leaning to the UT direction, I mean he's not overly emotional in the evenings/falling apart... He GENERALLY goes to bed easily enough and is asleep anywhere from 15-30mins after a bit of chatting.  He's not yawning his head off the whole day... But last night was another classic example of a short night (early wake).  He did a 12hr night followed by a 12hr day, showed some signs of wearing out, but still in pretty good spirits on the whole.  In bed at 7.15pm, bit restless but asleep by 7.45pm, sttn until 6.15am then had a meltdown because I told him it wasn't morning.  (Morning has been set for 7am which is usually no problem, he has been sleeping til after 7am most days).  So a 10.5hr ONS last night... Now I'm stuck as to when to make BT because after a short night I tend to think the most he can handle is a 12hr day... but that makes a pretty EBT... BT was "set" for 7.30pm when we were getting on average 11.5hr nights.

Would you go with an EBT tonight in the hope he will catch up tonight and try and ease towards a slightly later BT after a long night?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Tbh, I'd probably stick with a set BT minus 15-30 minutes and if he did another short night, consider a catch up nap or EBT after that to catch up.  Jack handles OT very well though, so I don't mind pushing him and fixing it later if need be

[haribo89]

Has some people found their LOs just can not do catch up naps? Any nap at all now makes BT super late. This week she refused naps 5 days of the 7 (previous to this she was having NNDs 2-3 times a week so quite an increase) I hoped that these 2 naps would be catch up ones, we tried one long nap (1hr) and one short (20min) to see how it effected BT and PD 45 min after we would on a NND and got a lot of messing and a 9.30-10 sleep time on both naps.
NNDs are great now
WU 7.30
BT 7
but the longer between nap days the more NWs we have and she starts getting touchy. When this happens wwud?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yes, I found that for a long time with lily.  Then at some point after she'd been firmly on no nap for a while, they started working again.  She hasn't napped regularly for almost 3 years, but since she started school has needed roughly one car nap a month to keep on top of the tiredness.  I'm sure that won't last,  but the point is she can do it without it messing up her night now

[Buttonbobs]

^^^ We found exactly the same with E, she can have a short nap now and it's not a problem for BT but to begin with she wouldn't be in bed before 9.30pm if she's even so much as dozed off in the car.

[haribo89]

It's nice to hear it may get better.
Part of me feels like I should just cold turkey the nap, with a nap her total days sleep is usually 1 1/2 hrs less than a NND. She is only 27 months though and knowing so many her age are still taking decent naps puts me off.
When your LOs did nap and had BT shenanigans, when were you putting them down for bed?

[rachsk8]

Yes the occasional catch up car nap now doesn't play too much havoc with BT or ONS these days. It used to rob us of ONS...

Well my DH persuaded me to not do a SEBT so he wasn't asleep til 7.10pm and we had a bit of a shocker of a night again. Trying to keep calm, as you say LLAJ he's handling OT waaaay better on the whole these days and he eventually does self regulate. At a birthday party this morning so I am quietly hoping he might drop off in the car on the way home but if not I will do a SEBT tonight and hope for the best.

Anyone else long for the day when all of these sleep 'issues' are a thing of the past?! But then feel like I shouldn't be wishing the time away. But an OT toddler is no fun for anyone.

Hugs all of you.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Haribo - Lily was almost exactly that age when I stopped trying to get her to nap and pretty much went cold turkey to one nap cos we had the same where nap days resulted in so much less sleep.  It's not what others are doing,  but what your LO needs. Having a very lsn one who's into the 1-0 already has taught me that!

If I remember correctly, we let lily have the odd nap in the car on holiday when she was 31 months old, to help adjust to the time change,  and she slept really well that week, so a short nap obviously wasn't affecting nights then.  So that was about 4 months after finishing the transition cold turkey.  How many nnds is your LO doing a week now?

[haribo89]

It's so nice to know we aren't alone. I think it's choosing the right time to stop I'm struggling with, it's so hard when you can see her so tired some days to not want to give her a nice nap but then its all in vein due to BT becoming so late.
Did you give lilly any quiet time or anything instead of her nap?
My DD was only doing 2 NNDs a week for the last few weeks but it jumped to 5 NNDs this week, unsure if that's the new pattern or just a odd week. It has become a lot wetter and colder this week so she's not getting out which might be why she's refusing naps more.
Racksk8 I know exactly what you mean, if it's not transitions its teeth or illness effecting sleep, it's always something, at least here it is. One day we will miss these times though.

[trimbler]

Hi again, anyone found their LOs needed an earlier than expected BT on nap days when transitioning to fewer of them? Previously DS would have WU at 7am, nap 2-3 and BT 8pm, only he wouldn't nap all that time, started regularly getting up before the 'sun' (as we were up anyway) and taking ages to get to sleep at BT, but he'd do a good 11h night on a nap day after a 7-7 NND. During last week's holidays we thought we'd try dropping the nap ct but he managed 3 days really well, then was really tired on day 4 but unfortunately we couldn't give him a nap that day due to other commitments. He didn't want a nap day 5 but we regretted not insisting on it, then he napped the next day, had a terrible night with sore throat so napped the next day too. Based on this we decided to offer 2 naps a week, so 2-3 NNDs in between. After 2 NNDs this week he napped but was way more tired than usual by BT and had a really hard time waking this morning. Coped absolutely fine with NND today though. So what do you think? Offer BT at 7.30 on nap days instead, treating it as a catch up from having had more NNDs than he's used to?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Haribo - I used to offer quiet time instead of a nap, yes.  In fact I found I had to do that for a long time (like 1.5 - 2 years! ) to get lily to sit downsand have a break in the day. For a while, when she was alternating nnds and nap days we'd do it in her cot,  and if she hadn't fallen asleep by 2pm, she'd just had quiet time.  But when it got to the point where I didn't *want* her to fall asleep,  I switched to TV for 30-45 minutes instead. And we carried that on after lunch for ages.

IIWM, I'd probably see where I was in another week or two, just to be sure it wasn't a blip, but if you stay on 5 NNDs a week, and nap days continue to be a problem, then I'd ditch offering a nap regularly and only offer it when my LO really seemed to need it.  But lily also handled OT well....

trimbler - your approach sounds good to me! If you find ONS on nap days starts going wrong then you can always increase the number of NNDs again.

[Haribo2012]

Hi not posted in a while as honestly can't decide if I need to cut nap or not. We had a couple of weeks of having to apop a sleep but now DS happily goes for a nap and would sleep hours if I let him. Thurs we had an EW 5.30am then let him nap 1.5 hours because basically he was in a vile mood and I needed time alone. He often is a bit cranky on a thurs as first day home after nursery and it's either boredom or payback lol. BT no messing and did a 11 hr night. Yesterday made mistake of letting him nap 1.5 and well took until 8.30pm to get him to sleep as had call backs for all sorts of reason, then 1hr NW at 4am chatty then slept 5am-6.50am.
Can't decide if EW/nw are sleep or because we're potty training and it's bladder awareness 

He's best after a pushchair nap of about an hour wakes up happier than if I've woke him from bed...but I'm not walking in the pouring rain lol xx

[Buttonbobs]

Haribo89, we too had E dropping her nap properly around 26/27 months. We did go for a period when we realised she did not cope well with naps being capped and she preferred a later nap, so we had naps going from 2.30/3pm for 1.30/2 hours and BT was getting later and later. We were shattered as we weren't getting any evening to ourselves and eventually DD got OT from the 10 hour nights (I think she was sleeping 9.30/10 - 7am at the end).

We had had to mix nap days and no nap days for a while, but eventually she hit a point when even on NNDs her nights were getting too late so we had to cut the nap completely. I can't remember exactly when this was but I do know that by late May this year when we went on holiday (E was 30/31 months) and we could let her nap in the car in the afternoon to catch up and she'd still sleep at normal time at night. BT nowadays is ideally before 7pm.

So yes I agree with  lovely lily and hack on the approach.

Haribo2012 - if you get a good BT after a one hour nap could you try regularly waking him from a cot nap after 1hr consistently for a week to let him get used to it? I know some LOs need this period of adjustment to get used to capped naps. But I say this as one who never had an LO who could cope with it so we chose to push BT back as described above. It didn't last too long and thankfully coincided with lengthening spring evenings so was not dark and awful for us keeping her occupied in the evenings. But we followed her and it did work for a while, until it didn't and then we changed.

[Haribo2012]

Gets confusing with 2 haribos lol!!

Going to try the 1 nap and take the vile mood on WU. Maybe we will get a 7.30pm bedtime  x