1 nap transition-Too early?

[ljearnshaw]

Hello there,

My LO just turned 13 months, always been a good eater and sleeper but recently had troubles going down for bedtime. Just wanting to keep crawling and stand and it was taking us up to an hour to settle him.

I should mention we've been on holiday in England visiting family for 5 weeks so he's been a little disrupted by all the moving around but we've done our best to stick with a routine and always gave him his morning nap at home (the long one) and a quick catnap of 20-30 mins often on the go.

What we noticed is that the days he didn't catnap were the days he went down to sleep with very little fuss. So is it too early to transition to one nap? It seems to be working and he's not getting grizzly at the end of the day although we have had some NW and EW so I'm thinking he may be OT and should possibly bring bedtime forward?

Our other issue is when to feed him now as we were trying to cram in all his feeds in the afternoon and it was getting ridiculous! Hubby and I are confused and would love to hear your thoughts. Below are the old and new EASY routines:

OLD EASY

7AM WAKE/BF
8:30AM Breakfast
10:30- Nap (1.5-2h)
12pm- Wake/BF
1:30PM- Lunch
4pm- CN (30 mins)
4:30- Milk 4oz
6pm-Dinner
7:30-Bedtime/BF
8pm- Crib (40min battle to sleep)

NEW EASY

6am Wake (on and off until 7)
7am BF
8:30am Breakfast
11am Nap (2-3hrs)
1:30- BF
3pm Lunch
4:30pm Milk 4oz
6pm Dinner
7pm Bedtime/BF
7:30 Sleep (Goes down easily)

As you can see theres not enough food in the morning and we overload the poor guy in the afternoon so today we tried giving him lunch right before the morning nap at 11am.

We've always had LO on a good routine thanks to Tracey and so now we're just a bit confused and would really appreciate some guidance particularly with the eating and NW's.

Thanks so much in advance!!!!!!

Laura

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

We split lunch into two big snacks before and after naptime at first when we went to one nap (gradually naptime was 12:30 then 1:00 so it wasn't for long). If he is waking closer to 6 am I would back bedtime up a bit for now but also work on getting the nap a bit later as it will reinforce the ew if the morning A is not long enough.

[sunflower321]

If you cut out the milk feeds in the middle of the day you'd fit in his meals easily.
He could have his lunch at 1.30  and dinner at 5 if the bf and 4.30 milk were gone. You could give him a cup of milk with these feeds if you wanted. But water is fine too.

[ljearnshaw]

Hello ladies

Thank you both so much for your input.

I'm only just seeing your responses now with all the traveling and trying to get back on track.

Anyway Here's what we ended up doing this last week...

7pm-wake up/BF (all over the place but this is the goal)
7:30-breakfast
10-snack
11:30- bottle milk (sometimes falls asleep)
11:45-nap
2pm- wake/BF
2:30-lunch
4pm-snack
6pm-dinner
7:15- BF and bed

The big problem right now is we're still getting at least 3 NW and the occasion EW. He does still sleep with a soother and 80% of the NWs are for us to fetch that for him. Other times he's just sat up crying. We've always gone to him right away but as he gets older I see this becoming a game.

What are your thoughts on the NW and EW??? I saw you suggested extending morning activity time. Do you think bedtime should be earlier now he's waking around 2pm? I'm wondering if he's OT and this is the reason for the EW and NW. I'm also thinking it may be time to give up the soother.

Hope this all reads ok as I'm on my phone.

Thanks so much in advance.

[KatyBee]

We did it at 13mo and I never looked back - it made an amazing difference after my son adjusted. The morning A needs to be extended and as others have said we did lunch in 2 halves... I still did that until recently when he napped, although he's basically dropped the nap totally now at 29mo. I found that often a key to the NW and EW was  A time from nap to bed being too long (I aimed for a 12hr day with a decent nap) if you keep a close eye on that and use EBT where you think you need to, then I think once the nap extends you'll get better sleep overall (we certainly did until the 18mo sleep regression - yuck!!)

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I chose to keep the soother and invested in a good half dozen glow in the dark ones lol! Agree with pp on the routine and ebt...we have never done ebt but it does work for a lot of lo's.

[ljearnshaw]

This is all such brilliant advice, thank you!

We have tried pushing morning activity time, EBT and there are soothers all over the crib right now but we're still having problems. I know we just haven't got his schedule quite right since coming back from England. My hubby is currently in the nursery as he can't seem to fall asleep without us in the room right now and I'm sure it's a case of OT

I've been really stretching out his mornings and putting him down around 11:30/12. He's usually pretty good with this if kept busy and falls asleep quite quickly however  he's only naping for about 1.5-2 hours waking around 1/1:30  He's getting cranky just a few hours after waking so we're really considering going back to two naps.

So not used to bring off track like this and hoping we can help the little guy soon.

As Always your ideas are appreciated.

[KatyBee]

Trust your instincts!  If you have given the new schedule a reasonable amount of time to settle and it is definitely not helping then go back to 2 naps. It took about 2 weeks for my son to properly adjust though.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Yes it can take some time to adjust! But some kids do need two naps longer than others or can benefit from alternating between one and two nap days.