Lol. I HAD a 7 month old who went on a nap strike
But as I said -- it was over stimulation leading to a second wind. Can you think back to the situation before nap time - anything out of the ordinary? Anything that suddenly piqued her interest? WRT this morning, I guess she was just done with NS at that point. And then after the 35 minute nap, she is probably up for a normal A to naptime. Developmental milestones like crawling do mess with sleep. Does she practice in her crib? Sometimes they are so keen to practice that they don't want to stop to sleep even! I remember Katherine saying to me - You can only give her the opportunity to sleep. You cannot make her sleep.' (Unfortunately)
I think Fleur found that with the pm catnap, even 2h was too long to BT - is that right, Fleur? So by bringing BT earlier you end up with more sleep overall and not so OT. The UT am nap scenario can be prone to EW if you allow that nap to be too long but if 4h is getting a good first nap then I'd stick with it and just pull back on subsequent A times. Be aware that tiredness will build up throughout the day so as Fleur said, if the combined A times are approaching 10h then you'll need to bring BT forward, perhaps by shortening the 2nd nap, but I can't advise whether to make that UT as no experience with long am, short pm.
I hadn't seen this post before so commenting now -- At 7 months, I found that we could get a long am nap but only a short pm nap. DD needed 2.5 hours of day sleep for a 12 hour day, so I would tweak the day accordingly on days when it wasn't adding up by bringing bedtime forward.
I'm just going to write down a few things that have worked with us
- With EWs -- With DD, she rarely needs a NF and I found around 7 months that feeding was not even getting her back to sleep - and then she wouldn't nurse well with me in the morning. So, if I couldn't RS in the crib, I would hold her till as close to normal WU as possible. If I couldn't get her to sleep in my arms either, I would get her up, do normal A time and then put down for her nap.
- I think around this age, you have to be very flexible and just go with the flow. So plan your day based on WU and then tweak and cap as you go along.
- Regarding this nap refusal, I honestly feel it is because she is UT going down and so is fighting sleep. But I may be completely off base! When they start working on skills, if they are not tired out enough, they just power on and get OT in the process. I feel that your NWs and EWs might be due to this OT buildup, especially if there is a long gap between pm nap and BT. We have found that NWs soon after BT mean OT.
- Can you APOP (accidentally parent on purpose) a CN on nap refusal days? For instance, we had a similar scenario to what you described. The reason I didn't opt for EBT and waited to get the CN was that she had already been up WAY too long and in trying to get her to sleep, I had wasted even more time. EBT works well as a counter to OT but pointless if she is already madly OT to begin with, right? So, on both days, after trying everything possible, FINALLY around 2 hours later she started showing sleep cues and I popped her in the sling for a quick CN. Then immediately on to BT routine and in bed asap. We had good nights on all those days.
- WWs definitely lead to short naps. But strangely enough, during these times they seem to get by very comfortably on less sleep. Just so much going on, I guess. Just accept the short nap and if RS isn't possible, move on and PD again after reducing A by 10-15 minutes. I have also found A times increase after a WW.
I know this is tough, hun. Went through and keep going through the same thing with my DD. This sleep thing isn't easy at all! I think with your DD it is very important not to put down too early as she does not seem to do the UT sleeps. I do feel she is getting a second wind but not sure about how/where - you would have to observe her to figure out. Please stay hopeful - this will work out. Here to support you through this.
