10 months old and resisting nap 2!

[ecwinters]

Hello

My DS is 10.5 months and since finally transitioning from 3 to 2 naps at around 8 months, he's been doing great!  However, I think his schedule now needs updating as he's resisting the 2nd nap quite a lot, even with a capped 1st nap.  This is what I do at the moment:

WU: 6:00 (I sometimes wake him up, but mostly he wakes about 5:30am and chats/dozes).
Milk: 6:15
Solids: 7:30
Sleep: 9:00-10:10 (I wake him up.  Sometimes he'll wake up before this anyway - he's started to do this more and more often recently too).
Milk: 11:00 ish (I offer it, but he doesn't always want much)
Solids: 12:15
Sleep: 13:40-15:00 (I don't wake him up but he normally wakes between 14:45-15:00 anyway).
Milk: 15:00
Solids: 16:30
Bed time: 18:00 (latest - he can really only manage a 3 hour A to bedtime so if he wakes early from nap 2 then I put him down earlier and it makes no difference to WU time).

I've been capping the 1st nap for ages as this is what seemed to work with nap 2.  However, today it took him 30 minutes to settle for his 2nd nap - he was jumping around in his cot and has started to resist his naps which is unlike him - he normally settles well and is asleep very quickly. 

Another issue (discussed on another thread) is that he gets very OT quite easily and is a terrible cat napper - so I had to really work at his schedule to get him to do 2 longer naps.  Even with over 2 hours of sleep during the day we still get wake ups 2 or 3 hours after he goes down unless we keep the A time in the afternoon to 3 hours tops.  And even then, if he's done rubbish naps, he may still wake.  He's usually very quick to resettle though, and will often then sleep through. 

I know there are things I need to probably do - move nap 1 later and possibly cap it further (even though he still goes down quite OK for nap 1 usually)?  But I'm just not sure of how to do this to allow a smooth transition to 1 nap when he eventually reaches.  I know many people cap nap 2 but I'm wary of this because of him getting very OT later in the day.  The other day, he just did a 45 min nap in the morning and (despite being a bit grumpy when he got up!) this turned out OK as he did nearly 1.5 hours in the afternoon which is rare for him. 

I've read that A time for 10 month olds is between 3.5-4.5 hours and his schedule at the moment is right at the bottom end of the A times, which is maybe why he's resisting the 2nd nap do you think?

Should I be trying something like:
WU: 6:00
Nap 1: 9:15-10:00 (capped and moved a bit later)
Nap 2: 13:30-14:50/15:00 (but not sure if he could do 3.5 hours on a 45 min nap)
BT: 18:00

Or
WU: 6:00
Nap 1: 9:00-10:00 (keep the same time in the morning as that does seem to work and then cap it a bit earlier)
Nap 2: 13:45-15:00 or a bit later possibly
BT: 18:00

If anyone has any suggestions then I'd be really grateful!  I can feel he's outgrown his current schedule and I don't want him to start getting miserable - I'd like to change it before that happens.  He's such a happy little boy normally. 
Thanks very much!

[lauradj]

Hi there!  I do agree with you, I think he needs an A time push.  My DS2 is almost 11 months and he's now down to 1 nap.  He is my second child so that's probably playing a factor but some babies are just ready earlier.  At your LO's age our schedule looked like this.

WU:6:30/6:45am
S:9:30 (regardless of wu time)
WU: 10:15am
S:1pm
WU: 3/3:30pm
BT:6:45pm

I tweaked his napping to match his brother's but it worked really well.  If he napped later in the morning or for longer than an hour it messed everything up.  Today he dropped the CN entirely and he's just onto 1 nap.  I hope that helps a bit!

[ecwinters]

Thanks!

That looks good...except that DS has never slept for 2 hours (since he was a newborn!).  1.5 hours is the most I can get from him and that is rare.  Mostly, it's 1 hour and 20 minutes or thereabouts - which is a good sleep for him. 

Today, I tried this:
WU (he was already awake I think): 6:00
Nap: 9:00-10:00 (I woke him up and he was a bit grumpy but not too bad - he hates being woken up!).  I tried capping at 1 hour - I'm reluctant to cap to 45 minutes at the moment as he seems to be quite grumpy if woken up when he's slept for less than an hour, but I might have to try!

I tried to then put him down at 13:45 (so, an A time of 3 hours and 45 minutes) and he was asleep by 13:50.  There was a bit of playing around but nowhere near as bad as it has been.  I will see what happens!  It may be that this A time is too much for him though as it was 3 hours and 45 minutes.  All I know is that 3.5 hours A is now too short after a 1 hour and 10 minute nap!

Was your DS2 HSN?  I would love DS to get 3 hours sleep during the day but the last time that happened was probably when he was about 5 months old   He's a weird mixture - he likes a fair amount of sleep but is not a natural long napper - and can get very OT by the end of the day as a result. 

I know a lot of people stretch the A time between WU and nap 1 - what are your thoughts on doing this if I'm going to cap the first nap anyway?  Should I just keep it at 3 hours if he's happy going down then and then he may be less grumpy when I wake him up? 

Thanks so much!

[lauradj]

I think both my boys were HSN until they suddenly weren't.  What both DH and I noticed was that they needed lots of sleep and then all of a sudden, they were ready for one nap.  When DS2 was 9.5/10 months, I had him awake for 3.5 hrs, so he would have a nap at around 10:30am but even capping that at 45mins made things all messy for day care pick up.  He also seemed tired around 9:30am so I just moved the CN to then and it worked much better.  Now I get both boys napping at the same time in the afternoon which is very much appreciated!  DS did not like being woken up at the 45 mins mark but I just gave him extra cuddles and moved slowly and he always pulled through nicely.
As of yesterday we are down to one nap from 12:30-3/3:30. 
With my older son I ended up giving him free reign on his morning nap, as that was always the longer one for him.  His CN was in the afternoon around 4pm.  I just kept pushing that one later until he made it to 11:30am and then he happily stayed up until 12:30.  I give them full credit.  You just have to figure out which nap is more likely their better nap and go with that I think.

[ecwinters]

Wow!  Well, I won't hold my breath for a 3 hour nap from DS...

I am planning on holding onto 2 naps for a while.  I'm not sure that he's HSN exactly but he does get OT very easily and likes a short A time to bed.

Anyway, I think capping the AM nap at 1 hour is working as he's gone down OK for his PM naps after about 3 hours 45/50 mins A time.   However even after a 1.5 hour nap he's still going down in under 3 hours at bed time so the day is still around 12 hours long. 

His AM nap has always been shorter that the PM one (except on days when it isn't!) so I'm going to keep the PM nap as the long one.  Plus, it might help him get less OT at bed time.  We still struggle with wake ups in the early evening (although he's slowly improving). 

Thanks very much!

[lauradj]

You're welcome!

[ecwinters]

Hi again.
Could I just ask another quick question please?

DS is doing well with the capped 1st nap at 1 hour and going down much better for nap 2.  However, I've had to wake him up after 1.5 hours now for 2 or 3 days to keep bedtime at the time we usually do it (6-6:15pm).  He's always tired by then even if he wakes up from a 1.5 hour nap at 3:20pm.  However, do you think it would be better just to let him carry on sleeping and then do a later bedtime?  He's getting 2.5 hours of day sleep and is in bed for nearly a 12 hour night - but probably only sleeps for about 11.5 hours of this realistically. 

DS has always liked earlier bedtimes but I just hate waking him up from a sleep!  He doesn't seem to mind too much but just wondered what you thought?  At what point do they stop doing 12 hour nights?  Sometimes he wakes early (i.e. about 5:30am) and dozes on and off until 6am when we get him up but I'm not too worried as the clocks change here next month and so that will become 6:30am. 

Thanks.

[lauradj]

Waking my babies has always been a hurdle for me.  You could try letting him sleep for another 30 minutes and see what happens but if the longer afternoon nap is working at the moment I'd be hesitant to mess around with it.  I'd rather my baby be a little groggy when waking from a nap rather than sleep poorly at night.