Anyone want to talk about 3:2 nap transition? Part 3

[creations]

Hello welcome to BW forums
If your DS is adaptable to the different routines on different days (he does seem to be based on your two different routines) then I'd suggest a home routine where the CN is dropped - and if possible move the two naps a bit later so that it is not a very long A time to BT or do a slightly earlier BT. And a not-home routine where you keep the 4.30pm CN - and if possible drop one of the morning CNs instead so that the day becomes CN, long nap, CN.  With one of the morning CNs dropped he might be more willing to go down for the late afternoon CN to make that easier but each A time wouldn't get overly long. It's just that if you reduce the late afternoon one and then drop it there is a very long A time between nap and BT and I assume you have the school run to fit in.
Many people have non-standard routines to fit around school etc, if you find something that suits you and your LO and the family then that's ideal even if it isn't two long naps every day.
hope this helps

[IsabelaTsuji]

(I apologize for the english, I'm trying my best)

Hello, I'm from Brazil and me and my husband have applied Tracy Hogg's methods since our LO was 5 days old.

Now he is 5 1/2 mo, sleeps independently and is only breast fed.

For the past 10 days he has early waking ( by 5:20 am), I read about it here in the forum, so I'm trying the 3-2 transition naps for the last 3 days.
The problem is it doesn't seem to be working.

Our routine yesterday:

5:20 am woke up (not crying); I waited 10 min, I gave him his pacifier
6:15 am woke up, BF
8:30 am nap (I tried to stretch the longest he supported, but he had all signs of tiredness)
10:00 am BF + A
13:00 pm nap
14:20 pm BF + A
17:00 pm CN 20 min (was so tired) --> BF
19:20 bath + BF (a little, almost nothing)
20:00 pm overtired, BT (easily)
04:15 am noises, slept by himself ( by this moment I thought this would work as "wake to sleep")
05:20 am woke up, 10 min hearing, I gave his pacifier, slept
06:15 am BF
08:15 am nap (very tired)

I feel it's hard pushing his first A time by the morning.
I mean, am I doing anything wrong ? Bath time too late ?
Should I not give him the pacifier by 5 am ??

I'd appreciate if anyone could help us. Thank you.

[MamaBergs]

Hello wise helpful reader!

My little miss is almost 6 months. She is mostly a great nighttime sleeper but her daytimes have become troublesome. She wakes from her day naps after 30-45mins. I have tried the PU/PD and the wake to sleep methods but they really haven't worked. When she does wake up shes mostly happy, like she is ready to play. She isnt crying - just being vocal/ chatting thats shes awake and ready for some company. Shes on the 4 hour EASY and if after the 1st nap (9am) i try to keep her up til the next 1pm nap (kind of hoping she will sleep longer). Sometimes this will result in a 1hr+ish nap or just another 40min nap. Her evening catnap (5.15pm) she easily sleeps 45mins then we wake her. As i said night times aren't an issue she may wake once around 5am but easily goes back to sleep til 7am. She falls asleep easily enough and we have a quiet wind down so she isn't overstimulated, just having trouble extending her nap lengths.

Currently:
7am Awake (BF)
9am Nap (duration up to 40mins - try to resettle til 11am)
11am Feed (BF)
1pm Nap (duration 40mins - 1hour - try to resettle til 3pm)
3pm Feed (bottle)
5.15pm Catnap
7pm feed (bottle)
8pm Bedtime (have tried to bring it back but she just wakes earlier in the morning)


So im wondering if i should be increasing her Awake time to 3hours and dropping the CN? Also what would the Feeding times look like? As shes mix fed i just want to make sure she doesn't get hungry.

My only other thought is at nighttime we still swaddle her but during the day she is arms out in a sleeping bag. I'm half tempted to start swaddling her again during the day but i dont want to go backwards as i like that she has her freedom. She's also started sitting up on her own this last week so not sure if thats adding to the sleep issue .. but the issues been going on atleast 1 month now.

I would love any thoughts and suggestions please as im running out of ideas!!!!

Thank you for taking the time

[Ilijansmum]

Hello! I was wondering if I need to transition my LO from 3-2 naps and whether that would be a solution to our sleeping issues. He's 4.5 months (20 wks) and quite a big baby. He has been on a 3.5 EASY (sometimes going even 4h) and dropped the 4th CN since 2.5 months without any problems. Until a few weeks ago his naps were 2, 1.5h and 40 min.and he was sleeping good stretches of 6-7 and 3-4h per night, waking once to feed and once around 5. In the past few weeks he started to wake up at 3h max during the night, sometimes even every half hour especially after 4 a.m. His naps have become shorter - 1.5h and 2×40 min.and it takes him a lot of time and fussing to fall asleep. He used to be asleep within 5 min.after I would put him into his crib! And he also won't eat as much as he used to, seems to be distracted and more interested in the world around him, even when I'm bf in a quiet dim room. I thought that's the reason why his naps are shorter - waking up hungry at 3h, but I'm not sure. I would really appreciate your advice!

[jessmum46]

It does sound like it's time for more A time, if not for 2 naps just yet.  What is his A time right now?  I would probably push it 10 mins or so and hold for a few days to assess, then push a bit more if needed.  That might mean you need to have a shorter catnap and/or slightly later bedtime for a time until he gets to the point where 2 naps will get him through the day (at which point you will probably need an EBT for a bit).  Have you seen the 3-2 information in the FAQs?

[Ilijansmum]

Thank you for your reply! I read it, that's how I found this thread I try to put him to bed at 1h40-1h50 A time - depending when he starts to be sleepy and cranky, so that he's asleep by 2h. We have been spending more time at home lately so maybe I'm missreading his cues and crankiness means he's bored and needs a change of scene? Today was the worst day ever. He had 1h20 morning nap - I had to extend at 40 min.which is his cycle, then at 2h A time it took him 25 min.fussing and crying to fall asleep. He woke up after 40 min and I thought I needed to put him for his 3 nap earlier, fearing he might get OT, but wouldn't sleep until 16.50, 3h40 min after he woke up. He slept for 40 min.again, woke up all cranky and fussy, had a bath, he wouldn't BF and I struggled to give him a bottle of EBM so he wouldn't be hungry and finally went to fell asleep just now after I tried to put him to bed for 40 min. He's not my perfect textbook LO anymore I'll try extending A time starting tomorrow morning and see what happens. Will I need to somehow adjust his feeds since he hasn't started solids yet, doesn't eat much and becomes hungry at 3-3.5h tops?

[jessmum46]

I found that as we extended A time we could just stick with a eat, activity, sleep pattern and actually LO would go a bit longer between feeds than I expected as they were having a good nap.  You may be surprised   But if he genuinely does start waking early from naps from hunger, you could always give a bit of a top-up pre-nap and then feed properly on waking.  From what you've said above I do think extending a bit may help - that first mid-nap WU at 40 mins makes me wonder if he's just not quite tired enough to connect cycles together properly.  After a short nap I never found reducing the A time by much very helpful actually.  I would go for a near-normal A time and hopefully you'll at least get a resettle x

[Ilijansmum]

Here's my update hoping it may help someone: I started increasing A time to deal with NW but nothing changed until one day we had only 2 naps - that night he slept much better. Since I was not quite sure whether that was the reason, after that night I tried putting him for a 3rd nap twice in 4 days and each time he would have a 3rd nap, no matter how short (once I even woke him up after 5 min!) he would wake up every 1-2h during the night. With 2 naps we got progressively from 8 NW to 3 in 3 days (hopefully we'll get to just 1 and STTN ). So now I'm pretty sure that the need for 3-2 transition (despite the fact that he's only 21 wks) was the reason for the NW in our case.

[Olga_W]

Hello! I am looking for some guidance/advice regarding my LO 3:2 transition. It has been four weeks since he started refusing the CN. The issue is that either I am having hard time extending his awake time to 3 hr or extending the two naps that he currently has. The reason that I am saying either or is that one day he will have longer activity time (without pushing him) but will cut his naps short and the next day I will have problem keeping him up longer than 2 hr 30 min,he will take longer morning nap but cut short his afternoon nap. Both ways we are ending up with way to long AT before BT and I have to put him to bed early but he is overtired, cranky and drifts off to during BF.  I am not having issues with putting him down for naps or for BT (at BT he may cry a little bit but goes back to sleep without issues). It is just feel like we are stuck in this transition and I do not know how to complete it. He used to sleep little over 11 hr at night but now it feels like instead of extending his naps he actually extended his nigh sleep (sometimes he even sleeps until 8 ). Are we going in right direction and it will just take time before he adjusts?

Here is our usual routine:
WU & E: 7:30  (he used to wake up at 7 but I think because it is still dark in the morning it kind of helped pushed it later)
A:
S: 10:00
E: 11:15-11:30
A:
S: 14:00
E: 14:45 -15:00
A:    (including bath and feeding)
S 6:45

Ps. He is not crawling yet but he is very eager to move around (he has a sit, stride and ride toy that he somehow mastered to scoot and ride). I do have a feeling that if he knew how to crawl we would just naturally and without hustle extend A time and get better naps. I just do not see it coming any time soon   

[creations]

Hi there Olga_W
You haven't mentioned how old he is now - but I looked at your previous thread and I'm guessing he is almost 9 months old now, is that right?
I think if your LO is almost 9 months he is trying to regulate his own sleep by doing the mixture of shorter and longer naps.  Most LOs this age will have been on 2 naps for a while and can need one of the naps to be shorter and one longer because the A times are so long that it is no longer possible to fit in two long naps (guidance A time for 9 months is around 3hr 30 but some do much longer).
I think it's great he can do the longer night, that must be nice for you.
If it was me I'd look at which nap is usually the most consistently long one - either morning or afternoon - and plan a regular routine around that making that nap long and the other a CN (45 min). The A time before the CN can be shorter if he agrees to go down for it but I probably wouldn't make it any less than 2hr 30.  The A time before the long nap will likely need to be longer.
Do you have a feel for which nap you think would be most suitable as the longer nap and which the shorter?  Once you have decided I might be able to suggest a routine you could try.

[Olga_W]

Hello creations
Yes, that is correct. I forgot to mention that he is 8.5 months. I can not complain about his nigh sleep . He goes to bed easily and sleeps through without a problem. I just want him to enjoy the evening more instead of being OT.  He is very cranky when we get ready for bath and when I take him to his room for feeding. I also miss reading him a book after last feeding (since he drifts off I just do not want to keep him up any longer and put him to bed right away).
I think the longer nap would be the morning one. If he has at least 1h 15 min nap in the morning the rest of the day seems to go more smoothly. However, in the morning I am having harder time keeping his A time longer, especially if he wakes up bit earlier that usual. I would say the maximum that he can stay up in the morning would be 3 hr (usually is less than that). So it is like he wants shorter A time in the morning and longer nap and longer A time in the afternoon but shorter nap. Today he was up for 3 hr without an issue but he just took 45 min nap in the morning and woke up happy. He will more likely have short nap in the afternoon as well so again he will be OT in the evening.  Does that make any sens

[creations]

Yes it makes sense.
I'm afraid this is one of the times when listening to what LO wants, or following sleepy signs, isn't all that helpful.  Instead you can really help him to become better rested with a more predictable routine where he consistently gets a long first nap and a short second nap.  Although you might feel a bit mean making him stay awake longer than 3hrs for his first A time I think if you give it a go you will be surprised and ultimately the reason for keeping him up is not meanness but to help him be better rested.
I suggest you increase the first A time to 3hr 15 mins for 2-3 days and then increase again to 3hr 30 mins and hold it there for a week to see how he settles into it.
Here's how your routine might look when you increase to 3hr 30 first A time:
WU 7.30
A 3hr 30
S 11.00 - 12.30
A 3hr
S 3.30 - 4.15
A 2hr 30
BT 6.45
This is only a suggested routine to try. I've based it on what you've said, that he wants a bit longer A in the afternoon, but is grouchy before BT so have given those A times 3hr before the CN and 2.5hr before BT.  He's likely to feel better with at least one good nap, this may have the effect of reducing that long night sleep so be aware of that, but shifting some of that sleep to the day time could be what he needs to be more rested as 2 45 min naps are not really suitable.

Maybe you can do book reading at another time of day?  My DS always loved books and we read piles of them but never at BT, he was just too focused on getting to sleep to want or need a BT book.  Morning books right after milk might be an alternative for the routine? My DS also liked being read a story whilst he was in the bath.

[Olga_W]

Thank you, I will definitely try it.  I do not mind keeping him up longer if in the long run it will improve his day overall.
Yes, I can probably read it to him in the morning. It will also help keep him up but not overly stimulated. I will probably fit it in after feeding or maybe before that first nap. I can also fit in a walk if needed. I always took him out in the late afternoon. It helped me keep him occupied until his BT. He likes it and is always calm while on the walk so if needed we can do it in the morning as well.
Thank you again for your suggestions. I will report back in a week or so to share our progress 

[Olga_W]

Hello, so I want to give an update on our progress. Extending morning activity time worked like a charm. At the beginning he required extra attention and some work to keep him occupied but he got used to it within few days. I run into extra challenge with time change  . I took almost a whole week for him to adjust but once he did we were much better. So in order to keep him up in the morning we started reading books before the nap and before that we also fit in a snack time which I think works perfect because gives him chance to practice self feeding and with 5 hr time between meals it also keeps him full. He still gets cranky before bed and gets tantrums during the day; however, I think I would associate it to his mental development.
Thank you for the help! I am glad that this forum exists and you can get such a great support 

[creations]

Sounds like you've done really well