Support for dropping the nap part 12

[Mcdonald76]

Thanks Jessmum46

 I've noticed over the last week or two that as long as I'm consistent with 1hr 15 in the day he goes to sleep in the evening within 20mins but if I let him sleep slightly longer (10-15 mins)in the day it can take over an hour for him to fall asleep. So kinda answered my own question....thanks

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Yeah probably. Just they're so grumpy being woken. I think we might start with 40mins as I think that's their normal sleep cycle. Then perhaps we'll just go to on the go napping?

I think that sounds like a good plan! Fx for you that it does the trick.

[Lindsay27]

Ladies, need some suggestions!

On NND Ben seems to hit a wall at about 5pm. He gets SUPER tired and I normally just have him veg on the couch with a show or something while I cook dinner for 30 mins. So this this fine, no issues.  The problem is on the other side of this when he perks back up, he gets that crazy tired energy and this lasts until bedtime. It makes bedtime a massive battle because he is literally bouncing off the walls...literally jumping around like a maniac.  I try to keep his NND to 12 hrs but he's still so OT by bedtime.  Any suggestions?  Getting him to be before 7pm would be a struggle with our work schedules/getting home/dinner in etc.

[Lindsay27]

Ugh.  The other thing is...on NND he is still only doing a 10hr night. On a nap day this is fine, but not so much on a NND. He woke up this morning and the look of him!  His eyes were all red and puffy, poor guy just looks exhausted.

[jessmum46]

Have you tried just putting him to bed at 5pm?

[Haribo2012]

I'd try really hard with a SEBT maybe give him a different dinner and you eat after he's down? We did this to start with and still eat dinner after DS in bed on a work day.

How long has he been on NND? I found I had to stick with no nap or he was all over the place...since getting used to it DS (3.5yrs)  reliably does 7.15-6.15/6.30 never did get those 13 hour nights lol!xx

[Lindsay27]

Sorry, I kind of gave the impression that I was regularly home at 5pm but when I wrote that post it was on the weekend.  Mon - Fri I'm home at about 5:15pm and DH isn't home until 6pm.  SEBT scares the life out of me...DS has always been prone to EWs.  He woke at 5:30am for the first 2 years of his life, no matter what - I tweaked to death and finally just resigned myself to the fact that it was just his internal clock.  It finally went away on his own.  The other thing is, he's pretty well never extended a night.  He is pretty consistent with having 10-11hr nights, no matter what, so I fear a SEBT would just result in a SEW!

The other thing is, our routine is not consistent.  He's at preschool Mon-Fri and they have mandatory rest time (min 1hr) so I've asked them to cap it at that 1hr.  So he's doing naps during the week but no naps on the weekends. 

[babybarr]

He's on the older side to still be having a 'proper' nap so yk he might surprise you now and do a much longer night. Maybe not the first night but I reckon if you stuck to it it'd come good. With ds1 we also couldn't chop and change between nap and no nap. Just caused too much confusion. What time does he wake in the morning? I'd put him back to bed asleep 12hrs later. Has he always been hsn?

So my two now kicking up big time about going down for a nap or going to bed... I fear the end is near! Today they have a bday party over nap time so I expect will have a car nap on the way home which won't be long!

[Lindsay27]

Ya the problem is he is at preschool Mon-Fri and they have a mandatory nap there, so it's impossible for me to be consistent and just scrap it altogether.  I certainly can on the weekend, but then come Monday he's back to preschool where they do nap, which makes BT during the week later too.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

So glad our daycare & preschool do not do mandatory naps, we would be having a toddler up until 10 pm!

Hope the no nap or car nap day goes well Laura and that they are so pooped from partying they go off to bed like a dream! We have been getting the odd ew but I cannot get E to even do a catnap or a car nap anymore. And ebt around here is 7:30 lol any earlier and she would protest hard!

[KatyBee]

My almost 27mo hasn't napped in 3 days... he is pretty LSN so I guess I shouldn't be too shocked, but I still felt he needed the 30 mins nap he was taking up to a few days ago. The car was always our safe bet & that's stopped working, so I know it's serious

The first NND he did an 11.5 hour night - a VERY rare occurrence here, as with the nap my son only slept 10.5hrs in 24hrs (often less)... Last night he slept 11hr with a 20 min NW at 3:30am.... so he seems to be heading back towards his shorter nights - I presume this is OT related as there was a NW though? He was up at 6:15am so is going to need an early bedtime tonight... so I'm obviously worried we are heading back to the 5am wake ups we finally escaped a couple of months ago!

I could have got him to nap late afternoon today I think, but even after a v brief catnap he needs 6hr45-7hrs A time... so the nap has to happen early or not at all or his day becomes ridiculously long & we get really early waking. He has been really cheerful in the last couple of hours too, so I think early bedtime will be better than the catnap would have been.

Have been aiming to keep his day to 12.5/13hrs on NNDs but as nights are not consistent this means wake ups are getting earlier! I can't tell if this is too long or too short though? He took a while to fall asleep last night but didn't 'seem' OT in his behaviour - which confused me (he obvs was as he has a NW though!)

Any tips for getting through this with a LSN child?

[Truly Blessed]

Hi KatyBee,

I think the best you can do is to give him as much quiet/down time as you can in order to 'fire fight' the situation YK? It sucks, it's so hard. It depends how well he sits still but cosy time on the sofa with lots of soft furnishings and favourite soft toys can work well, with low key TV/movie or story time. If he definitely won't nap right now, then doing this as the time he used to nap will hopefully help him to get through the day better. Gosh, there's so much to this (I remember it well!  ) so here's a sticky I put together back then, maybe take a good look at this first if you haven't seen it yet 

The 1-0 transition...Advice and Tips to help you through.

I will say though, although our DS is ASN in general he dropped the nap at this age for a few weeks and then went right back to it, so there's always hope

(HUGS) Honey. Hope this helps.x.

[KatyBee]

Thank you for the hugs Truly Blessed and for the link - I had a good read of that a few days ago actually, I just find that often the advice given on sleep & transitions just doesn't always apply to my LSN little one, he likes to keep me on my toes!

Funnily enough he seems to have settled on a 12.5 hour day and an 11.5 hour night, I think the 10.5hr night was just because his day had been too long. I brought bedtime forward a bit and his night extended. He doesn't even need to seem down time in the day - he copes just fine, so the LSN has been pretty helpful there

One thing I wondered though is that as he is waking at 6:15am bedtime is now 6:45pm.... ideally i'd like to shift that slightly so bedtime was 7pm - without causing earlier waking from OT. What is the best way to do that do you think? Just very gradual increments?

[Truly Blessed]

ideally i'd like to shift that slightly so bedtime was 7pm - without causing earlier waking from OT. What is the best way to do that do you think? Just very gradual increments?

Eeek, honestly Honey, if this is as good as it has been for a while with the 1-0 my BTDT advise would be to leave it be, sorry!  for the sake of 15 minutes, things could really go to hell in a hand cart if you try and tweak 

x.

[KatyBee]

Hehe! You might have a point there Truly Blessed!

Our schedule got tweaked accidentally last night & he didn't fall asleep until 7:05pm.... and he still woke at exactly 6:15am.... He slept right through though, so not too much OT, but I think we'll just roll with what seems to be his natural pattern.

One thing I will add in case anyone is reading this, looking for positives about dropping the nap! Bizarrely my son's general mood has changed quite noticeably! I almost came on here a few weeks ago to find out if anyone else's toddler cried every single morning when they woke up... My son has done this almost every day of his life whereas my nephews & other babies from our group wake up chatty & occupy themselves in their bed/cot, which I couldn't imagine! But now he's getting a really decent stretch at night he is a different boy in the mornings.... We hear him singing & chatting away and this morning he got out of bed & went off to play with his toys for a few minutes before coming into my room and giving me a cuddle. I'm sure it won't last forever, but he is such a happy boy - it's lovely! So those dreading the loss of that cherished 'Y' time, there may be other lovely unexpected consequences, so don't panic!