Author Topic: quick question about nap length  (Read 19876 times)

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Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #30 on: January 12, 2015, 12:52:42 pm »
Makes sense. Thanks a lot



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #31 on: January 14, 2015, 05:05:03 am »
Hi there.

So the things weren't going too good since that amazing 12hr night. Two days in a row DD is having a 10hr nights. Maybe she is up even earlier only she is laying vary quiet and I'm sleeping myself and can't hear her. I kept waking her at 1.5hrs during the nap and she seems very tired and cranky, clingy to me, not a happy camper when I wake her. Yesterday she was extremely hyper before dinner so we thought she is OT for sure but she calmed down after dinner so maybe she was just hungry.  It is also hard for us to tell if she is OT or UT before bed but I've been puting her in the crib at 7/7:10pm instead of 7:20/7:30, and she's been taking 30m to fall asleep which is better then 40/50m.
When she wakes up in the morning she is just waiting patiently for me to come get her. We only had few days when she called for me and that was a while ago. I went in to her to tell her that the sun is not up and it's time to sleep but she never returned to sleep. Also she usually has a bowel movement when she wakes up so unless her routine was perfect for her on the previous day, and she is able to sleep longer, she will have a bowel movement and will not resettle. To change I need some kind of a light source and that for sure will signal a wake up time to her.

I'm not sure if her nap is too short or too long for her still, and I'm afraid to cut it even shorter because of how she is acting after the nap. I feel like OT is accumulating again. What do you ladies think? Thanks a lot.



Offline jessmum46

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #32 on: January 14, 2015, 09:05:57 am »
DD was always horrid to wake from her nap once we started to hit the nap capping/dropping stage.  But if I didn't do it it wrecked the nights.  My feeling would be try 15 mins shorter, maybe push start time 15 mins and wake at usual time so A to bed is the same to avoid too much OT there.  You can always go the other way if things get worse x

Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #33 on: January 14, 2015, 11:40:19 am »
Thank you Katherine, I will give that a try.



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #34 on: January 19, 2015, 12:18:59 pm »
So it went from bad to worse

we"ve been doing 1hr15m long nap for a few days, but then I wasn't home and DH didn't wake DD from her nap and she ended up sleeping for 3hrs!!! So I gave her a late BT that night 8pm crib and asleep at 8:30pm. To my surprise she slept for 10hr which is not bad considering she had such a long nap. Then we were back to 1hr15m nap but after few days I could see that she started to get OT so I decided to let her have another  long nap and a late BT in hope to get her caught up. But this time it backfired and she only had a 9hr night.
So yesterday she had 2.5hr nap
 8pm crib and asleep at 8:40pm.

This am she woke up at 5:45am. Before her nap she was just one big mess.
nap 1pm

any suggestions for today's nap and BT?

TIA




Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #35 on: January 20, 2015, 07:16:42 am »
P.S. I gave her an 1.5hr nap(cause she had a 9hrs night) and then really early BT at 6:50 in the crib, asleep at 7:20/25pm. To be honest that number was just random, She was acting OT hyper for the whole day and there was no way for me to tell what was the right time to put her to bed. Thanks God she had almost 11hrs of sleep and woke up at 6:10am.

Now I'm stressing out about how to keep up 11hrs night. At this age do you still look at how long their day was, and what was the morning A and evening A? Because of EWUs we always end up with a long 6-7hr morning A and then 5-5.5hr evening A but the length of her day varies.
Also I moved her nap from 12:40ish to 1pm.

So if she WU at 6:10am today
Nap at 1:00 pm
WU 2:15/2:30 (here I'm still not sure what is a good nap length for her. We tried 1hr15m and 1hr30m only a few times randomly and so far both gave us a 10hr night, but maybe her BT wasn't at an appropriate time and maybe she was UT or OT)

What BT would you offer?

 thanks a lot!!



Offline LovelyLilyandJack

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #36 on: January 20, 2015, 21:52:56 pm »
We do set naps so don't pay too much attention to day length or A times now, but I do find that jack does better on a routine which assumes 11hrs overnight sleep  (which is a good night for him), so his day is kind of built around that.  So he wakes between 6 & 6.30 am usually and naps 1-2ish most days and we do BT at 7 because a 13ish hour day fits for him.

I'd still be tempted to stick with a capped nap for a week or so (1.5hrs seemed to work for you recently?), otherwise you don't know if it'll result in her crashing and adding to her nights, since she's had a catch up nap when she seems to be getting tired. But you obviously know her best and if you're not comfortable with capping or you think it's making things worse you can always keep a long nap and do a later BT and accept the shorter night. Personally I'd give capping a week first to see if you can get her over that tiredness hump, but you've got to do what feels right for you both  x
« Last Edit: January 20, 2015, 21:56:06 pm by LovelyLilyandJack »



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #37 on: January 21, 2015, 05:22:14 am »
We were doing set nap/bedtime previously and when her nights got really short we went back to playing around with her BT.

1.5hr nap gave us a 10hr night only. Yesterday I gave her 1hr15m nap put her in the crib at 7pm and she was asleep at 7:30pm. Today WU is at 5:50am so 10hr20m night. So I guess I'll stick with this for a week like you said and go from there.

I wouldn't mind letting DD sleep as long as she wants during her nap and I would be ok with short nights but she seems to struggle with that routine. she doesn't seem properly rested that way.

Thank you LL&J



Offline LovelyLilyandJack

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #38 on: January 21, 2015, 12:52:27 pm »
Ok, yeah, I'd try the 1hr 15 naps for a week then, and resist the temptation to let her have a catch up nap til after that. If she does get OT it's fixable later  :) If she doesn't do well on a short night and long nap then you probably need to see capping through to it's conclusion  - bearing in mind that it might be a 1hr nap she needs to lengthen her nights.

Apologies if I've already asked this (I'm on my phone and can't look back though the thread easily), but how much sleep in a 24 hour period would you say she generally gets? Did you say she's generally lower sleep needs than average?



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #39 on: January 21, 2015, 13:04:48 pm »
TBH we only tried 1hr 30m for a few days and maybe I didn't give it long enought and now I'm thinking if I should go back to that first before I do 1hr15m? Or just stick with 1hr15m , gosh I'm doubting everything.

No worries about asking again, yes she is a lower sleep needs kid. Before the winter holidays she was having about 12.5hrs in a 24hr period and I considered it pretty good for her.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2015, 13:15:25 pm by AMJ »



Offline LovelyLilyandJack

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #40 on: January 21, 2015, 21:41:11 pm »
If she's lower sleep needs I'd have thought you could stick with 1hr 15 and be ok. That's still a pretty good nap for a slightly lsn LO.  I think I've already mentioned that lily could only have 1hr max at this age without it affecting nights, and she did a similar amount of sleep in 24 hrs and was also slightly lsn. If it doesn't work you can always catch up any OT and try something else  :)



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #41 on: January 22, 2015, 04:30:48 am »
I'll give it a try though it's not going to be fun. She is really OT by now and last night took 45m to fall asleep and only 9.5hr night and up at 5:15am :0. I don't know how she is going to last till 1pm nap. She is really strugling before the nap with 7hrs of A and today she will have 7hrs45m
« Last Edit: January 22, 2015, 04:33:36 am by AMJ »



Offline LovelyLilyandJack

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #42 on: January 22, 2015, 11:26:32 am »
You could always bring it a bit earlier if you think that will help? Maybe make it 12.45 or a touch earlier?



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #43 on: January 22, 2015, 13:43:05 pm »
Yes got her into the crib a bit earlier and she was so ready for it, almost fell asleep in the stroller.

Thanks you



Offline AMJ

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Re: quick question about nap length
« Reply #44 on: February 01, 2015, 11:45:49 am »
Hello ladies. Hope you are doing well. Here is what been happening with DDs sleep since last time we spoke. 2 weeks ago we started to cut her nap to 1hr15m but I couldn't pull through more then few days and went back to giving a long nap/short night a chance. Few days after that I realized it is still not working. To be honest DDs behaviour is kind of similar when she has short nights/ long nap to when she is very OT from cutting her nap short and trying to increase the nights. She is screaming, kicking, hitting etc and she is just hyper/ crazy before the nap and before BT.

Anyways a week ago I decided to give the 1hr15m nap another chance. Since then her nights are still short, 10hrs. One night she woke up at 5am but was able to resettle(which took her about 30-40m of tossing and turning) and then she slept till 6:30am( BT was at 7:30pm).
Last night she had a NWU at 3am and fell back asleep at 3:45am. Then up at 6:40 crying (it looked like she tried to resettle). So the amount of actual sleep is still the same about 10hrs.

Looking at the past week I don't know if 1hr15m nap is working well. Maybe I need to give it another week? Her night got a bit better increasing from 9.5hrs to 10hrs but her behaviour is not a happy one. My heart breaks seeing her like this. What are your though on this? Do you think she needs 1hr nap instead but I'm just scared to cut it even shorter since she is so very OT by now already. DH calls her "possessed" as a joke because this is how she is acting from OT.

Few notes:
- now she takes longer to fall asleep at nap time. Used to be few mins to 10m and now 15m
- at BT she takes 40/45m to fall asleep.
- on two days when she woke up later, at 6:30/40am ( when she had a NWU) I kept her nap at the same time(12:30ish in the crib) but she took a long time to fall asleep. I think she was asleep at around 1:15pm. So I'm not sure if her nap is too early and could be causing EWUs too but she seems very tired at that time.
 
Thank you!

Also in 2 weeks we are going on a vacation for 7days. The flight is at 6am  and is 3hrs long but we need to drive over 1hr to get to the airport. So  there is going to be not much sleep at night. Then there is going to be 1hr time difference at our destination so I'm just gonna keep her at her regular times. I really wanted to get her on a good schedule before we go so it is easier to get her back to normal when we are there and when we come back home but now is seems that this vacation is just not at a good time.

Thanks again.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2015, 12:01:54 pm by AMJ »