Author Topic: Capping nap 1  (Read 3518 times)

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Offline ecwinters

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Capping nap 1
« on: February 26, 2016, 15:10:57 pm »
Sorry I feel like I'm constantly posting about my DS and his sleep!  I will try and be brief!

I suspect we are at the beginnings of the 2-1 (DS is just 11 months).  I've read about it and am going with shortening nap 1 gradually.  This worked AMAZINGLY about 3 weeks ago when I cut nap 1 to about an hour (previously I let him have 10-15 minutes more).  Until this week, we were doing this:

Wake up: 6:00am
Nap 1: 9:00-10:00am (capped)
Nap 2: 1:45/50-3:15pm (I usually have to wake him up)
Bed time: 6:15pm

But this week, he's started playing around when I put him down for nap 2, and taking 15 minutes + to settle.  Today, I not only had the playing around but then miserable screaming (I assume when he got fed up with trying to go to sleep!).  Eventually I calmed him down enough and he went off but I really don't want to repeat this!  He's great at going down for naps normally. 

So, I assume I need to cut down nap 1 some more?  But, do I just cut the nap and keep nap 2 at the original time, or do I need to move nap 2 earlier - so I'm keeping his awake time the same?

Wake up: 6:00am
Nap 1: 9:00-9:50am (capped)
Nap 2: 1:35-3:15pm (he may now wake earlier)
Bed time: 6:15pm

Does this look like it might work?

He gets OT very easily so I'm wondering about even just cutting nap 1 back by 5 minutes at a time?  And then, would I also have to move nap 2 earlier by 5 minutes?  I know I'm aiming (in a few months time!) to get the nap roughly in the middle of the day so I know it needs to move earlier at some point. 

Thanks very much - I just worry about his sleep so much, having worked so hard to get him to sleep a decent amount during the day (and night!).  Thanks again for your help.

Offline lauradj

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2016, 04:18:23 am »
Hi there!  The 2-1 transition can be such a prickly time with trying to get the timing just right.  With my first boy, I actually gave him the long nap in the morning and then a CN in the afternoon and I just gradually pushed out the morning nap later and later.  Boy #2 has a CN in the morning and a long nap in the afternoon at the same time as his brother, bless you child! 
I would suggest you cut the morning nap back to just 45 mins and then have the second nap take place when you would like it to occur long-term.  As an example, this is DS2's EASY:

6:30am WU
9:30am CN
10:15 WU
1:00pm Nap
3:30pm WU
6:45pm BT

What do you think?


Offline trimbler

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2016, 21:17:35 pm »
Hi there - not wishing to contradict Laura, just giving an alternative so you can weigh them both up... Am I right in thinking that we discovered that your DS seemed to be really similar to mine in his sleep needs? Or am I getting muddled? As in, really sensitive to OT etc? Anyway, I just remember vividly that every time we shortened his morning nap (for just the same reason as you are), we'd just shave off 5mins and bring the pm nap earlier by 15mins (ie decrease the A time by 10mins) until he got used to it, then gradually bring that pm nap later again to where it was before...then at some point he'd stop settling so well so we'd shave another 5mins off the morning nap, etc, etc. We had no choice but to keep the end time of his pm nap consistent though, due to CM's school run, but it seemed to balance quite nicely for DS :) Oh, but hang on... No I think at this stage we just kept gradually reducing the morning nap and bringing pm nap forward, rather than pushing the pm nap later again, so that by the time he was doing a 45min nap, he was doing this (shifted to your WU time):

WU 6am
Nap 9-9:45
Nap 12:30-2:30
BT um... Maybe 6:30?



Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #3 on: February 29, 2016, 20:58:24 pm »
Hi
Thanks so much both of you and sorry for the delay in replying.

Woke up on Saturday morning to find DS had spots all over him!  Thought it was chickenpox but apparently it's just some other virus.  Anyway, he's pretty miserable and not settling as well for naps at the moment anyway.  So, I'm not going to change anything until he's better but I think we still do need a shift.

Both of your EASYs look great and I would love DS to do that.  Yes, Trimbler he is very similar to your DS and I remember you helped me to cut out the OT early night waking.  In fact, he's just started to STTN for some nights and we rarely get the dreaded wake up 2 hours after going down (still sometimes get the 3 hourly one but it's improving all the time!).  However to get there, he seems to need his 1 hour morning nap plus another 1.5 hour nap and then I need to get him down at night less than 3 hours after waking up from nap 2 to avoid OT. 

So, I'm worried about moving nap 2 earlier as I'm not sure he'd do a 2 hour nap regularly (although as I often wake him at 1.5 hours for the PM nap who knows?!).  I don't think he'd do your lovely 2.5 hour nap Laura though, sadly.  I have to get the A time in the middle of the day exactly right or he'll just do a shortish nap and then even with an EBT I'm pretty much sure of a rubbish evening with lots of wake ups. 

To make things more complicated, if he STTN he seems to only really do 11.5 hours, which means EBT doesn't work so well.  DH and I were discussing this earlier as we keep on getting woken at 5am each morning and it's touch and go for an hour whether we are going to have to get DS up or whether he'll doze and chat!  I don't really want to start our day earlier than 6am really. 

I'm wondering whether something like this looks really mad:

WU-6/6:15
Nap-9:15-10:15
Nap-2:10-3:45/50ish (if he'll sleep that long)
BT-6:45

So instead of cutting nap 1, I lengthen his day a bit as he never sleeps for 12 hours anyway any more.  Hopefully he might do a more solid 11.5 hour night and wake up closer to when I'd like him to get up!  His morning A is often longer than 3 hours really as he plays around in his cot for a while!

Trimbler - when he was 6 months, he needed a 3 hour A after a 35 minute nap to get a 1 hour and 20 minute 2nd nap!  He's always had a really long A time in the middle of the day.  I think TBH he could do 4 hours but am scared of trying in case he gets OT.  I don't want to shorten his night to less than 11.5 hours but I'd love him to WU a bit later.

It's all so complicated now I write it down!  I'm guessing that he needs about 14 hours sleep in 24 overall but who knows?  He gets OT so easily that maybe a bit more would be good if I could get it :)

Sorry this is SO long!  And thanks.

Offline lauradj

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #4 on: February 29, 2016, 23:47:55 pm »
It sounds like you've got things firmly under control now, at least in your head, as to how you want to move forward.  That's great!  Poor little guy with spots though, maybe Roseolla or measles?  Either way I agree with you, don't do anything until he's recovered.


Offline trimbler

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2016, 00:35:16 am »
Aw poor thing, hope he gets better soon! I think it's quite common for some cold-like viruses to produce a rash, hope it's nothing more serious than that :-*

Perhaps they're not quite so similar any more, my DS certainly preferred his longest A before BT at that age, but the main thing is that you have a feel for what he needs, go with those instincts :) just be aware that too long a first nap, after too short an A time, can exacerbate EWs, so watch out for that with the routine you suggested...



Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2016, 14:26:42 pm »
Thanks both of you.  Yes he is much better now luckily. 

Yesterday I tried giving him 10 more minutes before his 2nd nap, instead of cutting nap 1 any further, and he went down fine and slept for 1.5 hours (in fact I woke him up in the end as I wanted him to go down at bedtime). 

Weirdly though bedtime was earlier than I thought and the day ended up like this:
WU: 5:45 (he has been getting earlier and I think we do have a problem with EWs, but we are happy to have him on a 5:45am wake up at the moment as the clocks go forward at the end of the month).
nap 1: 8:45am-9:45am (woke him up)
nap 1: 1:40am-3:10/15am (woke him up)
Bedtime and asleep: 5:55pm

What does this look like as a day for 11 months?  I think the next step will be to cap nap 1 (I'l probably start it 5-10 minutes later and still wake him at the same time) as I'm worried a little about the EWs.

I'm always really surprised at his short A to bedtime, especially after 2.5 hours of day sleep, but the day was slightly over 12 hours so maybe that's just what he can handle at the moment?

Trimbler - I think you might be right about the 1st nap and EWs.  He always wakes before I am due to get him up.  I set the time for nap 1 - i.e. if he wakes and plays for 30 minutes before I get him up then I don't put him down any earlier and he's fine with that - but I'd love him to sleep more in the morning.  Having said that, 2.5 hours in the day and 11-11.5 hours at night is possibly enough sleep?  I think that's about average isn't it?  So I wonder if he's just had enough sleep.  If he goes to sleep at 5:55pm and wakes at 4:50am (like this morning - he then dozed until 5:40) does this count as an EW?

Another issue is that for the last 2-3 weeks he's been having a lovely early morning poo (!!) - sometimes I don't hear it and find out when I go in to get him up, other times I hear him about 20-30 minutes before I am going to get him up.  This morning, I crept in at 4:50am when he stirred but he was OK so I told him it was sleepy time still and crept out again.  He dozed off but then woke about 5:20 and had his poo!!!!  I'm not sure if there's anything I can do about this and DH can't believe I am discussing it on a forum (!!) - I guess it may be one of those things that will change over time.  It's annoying though as I don't know if he's waking just to have the poo and might sleep longer if not.  I'm not sure.

Sorry this is so long!  Thanks both of you.

Offline trimbler

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2016, 22:19:35 pm »
Hi there, so glad to hear he's better now :)

Your plan sounds good to me, although I think I'd be inclined to let him sleep longer in the afternoon to push the day out a bit? 11h sleep at night could just be enough sleep, or of course it could be the poo ::) I'm never quite sure when it's a case of waking because of needing to poo, or just poo-ing because he's awake. My DD used to like her early morning poos ::) Actually we occasionally still get one from her... How are his bowel movements during the day? (Yep, we're quite used to discussing this on here ;) ) I wonder if you could encourage him to have one closer to BT in the hope that he won't then need one during the night? Eg a strategically timed laxative food? Or a bit more chance to move around after dinner? Other than that, I'm not sure there's much you can do really, it's frustrating isn't it!

It sounds like he's probably getting about enough sleep - does he seem well rested in the morning, or does he yawn constantly or otherwise act tired? I suggested letting him nap longer in the afternoon as I thought that might help him to manage a slightly longer A to BT and that would just push the day out so that he's not waking earlier than you'd hoped, ie so he's doing a 24h cycle, rather than 23.5h or something! Does that make sense?



Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2016, 15:59:40 pm »
Hello!
I spoke too soon...he's now got conjunctivitis and a cough but will hopefully be on the mend soon.  I'm not playing around with sleeps too much while he's ill but he doesn't seem to be doing anything unusual really at the moment.

The poo is annoying! This morning, he woke at 4:10am and I really wasn't sure why.  He'd had 10 hours sleep but that's definitely not enough for him.  5 minutes later he pooed and then called 'mama'!  I changed him and told him it was still sleepytime and put him back down. I honestly thought he'd never go back down but after about 45 minutes of dozing and chatting he went back to sleep properly.  So I'm assuming that he woke to poo and needed to go back to sleep?  Normally he does it much closer to getting up time so I never try and put him back to sleep although sometimes he poos and then falls straight back to sleep anyway  ::) 

He normally poos 2-3 times a day.  He used to be really regular - after breakfast, then lunch and sometimes tea but it seems to have changed.  He loves prunes so I'm going to try giving him them with yoghurt for tea and then get DH to chase him round the house for a bit!!!  He eats a lot so I assume he needs to poo a lot too!  I just wish he'd pick a better time.  :)

He seems well rested in the mornings - happy to get up and go!  But he's always ready to go to sleep 3 hours after getting up.  However, this could be habitual.  With the 2nd nap.  Do you mean trying something like this:

WU: 6am
Nap 1: 9-10
Nap 2: 1:55-3:40 (i.e. give him 1 hour 45 minutes if he'll take it)
Bed: 6:40pm

This would give him 2 hours 45 minutes of day sleep and 11 hours 15 of night.  I'm worried that's a long day and he'll be OT but could try?  Do you think it looks reasonable?

If we pushed the 1st nap out a bit and capped it instead, how much would we need to do it to make a difference do you think?  I thought about trying 15 minutes less to get this:

WU: 6am
Nap 1: 9:15-10:00 (45 minutes)
Nap 2: 1:30-3:15 (I'm not sure what time he'd need to go down to get a decent nap here, so I'm only guessing at 1:30.  I'm cutting back 10 minutes for every 5 minutes I cut off the start of the nap - does that make sense?  Because he's losing 5 minutes of the nap AND gaining 5 minutes of A time...)
Bed: 6:30pm???
Then hopefully an 11.5 hour night.

I'm not sure which one looks best?  Really, the EWs have only started since he's been STTN.  Which is clearly a good thing but I'd rather not be awake at 5am every day!  If he has a bad night (the other night he was restless and coughing in the middle of the night) then he'll tend to sleep later in the morning.

Thanks so much for helping again!



Offline trimbler

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2016, 19:27:05 pm »
Oh dear sorry he's ill again :( hope it's short-lived!

I just meant to let him sleep in the afternoon, I'd say up to 2h even. As long as there's enough day sleep, some LOs are fine with a 13h day, I know my DS was happy with that at this age, as he got plenty of daytime sleep - on days when he didn't nap so well, we'd go for EBT,  but the days with long pm naps always resulted in the better nights. However we did find that he had a limit as to how short the nights could get before he ended up too tired in the morning - just before dropping to one nap, he did fine with 10.5h naps, but once on one nap, the shortest we could let the nights get was 11h. Just an example of course, you'll find out what your DS needs at night to be well rested the next day. Our DD needs much longer than he did, for example - 12-12.5h at the moment, and it never got much shorter than that, even at transitions.

So you could try something like:

WU 6
Nap 9-10
Nap 2-4
BT 7

Which would be 14h overall. If he doesn't really need that much I'd be inclined to start capping the morning nap, I actually used to keep it at the same time and just cap it shorter. Since he seems to like a short first A, I'd probably do that as he'd end up more tired if he stayed up a bit later and then was woken earlier. But perhaps start with letting him sleep longer in the afternoon, wdyt?



Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2016, 14:46:28 pm »
Hi
Thanks for replying.  He looks a bit better today - still very red round the eyes though.  Yesterday he did his usual 1hr and 1.5hr naps and then STTN for 11 hours straight.  BUT...this was from 6pm-5am and he wouldn't go back down!  He woke up and coughed for a bit, so I went in and offered him a drink...then about 10 minutes later he had his lovely early morning poo  ::).  DH volunteered to go in and change him (this amazed me!) and then put him back down and told him it was still sleepy time.  DS clearly didn't believe him.  He didn't cry, but just sat up in his cot and sucked his thumb as if waiting for something to happen next!  Of course by then it was nearly time to get up anyway.  He may well have dozed off again out of sheer boredom if we'd left him long enough but maybe not.  Anyway, we all got up at 5:45am and started our day. 

I'm guessing that he does get about the right amount of sleep - 2.5 hours for naps and 11 hours at night is OK I think when you look it up on various sites.  DS has ALWAYS fallen short of the BW sleep totals despite my best efforts.  I know he was often OT though when he was younger but I think he's a lot better now.  The problem is that, now he STTN quite a lot, he just does a shorter night and so we struggle to make it through 24 hours.  If he has a bad first part of the night, he'll sleep for longer in the morning (to catch up I suppose), or at least if he does wake about 5am then he'll resettle a lot more easier.  He's just started to resist going back to sleep at that time.  And of course, we have the poo issue!

I'm worried that if he does 3 hours sleep in the day (I can't remember when he last got that much sleep in the day - probably many months ago) then he'd do an even shorter night.  Also, at some point we'd have to give him a 14 hour day to stretch from his 5am early wake up right through to 7pm for bed time.  I think he'd be exhausted by that point even with 3 hours of sleep.  I'm just really worried about making him OT again.  I was wondering about using the clocks going forward in 3 weeks time to my advantage (kind of!) and just getting him up at 5am and starting his day and trying this:

WU: 5am
Nap 1: 8-9
Nap 2: 1-3
Bed time: 6pm

This of course would then translate into much more reasonable times in 3 weeks time without actually having to change anything.  And then hopefully the poo would then happen after we'd got him up.  But I really don't want him to keep getting earlier and earlier and the danger is that he'll then do a 10.5 hour night after 3 hours of daytime sleep and we'd be back to where we started again.  I could try it though, I'm just a bit scared to!

I wonder if there's some in between option that I haven't thought of yet?  Do you think he could possibly be waking at 5am out of habit?  Or OT? 

Thanks so much!




Offline lauradj

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2016, 21:40:04 pm »
I'm just going to throw this out there, feel free to discard it.  When DS1 was this age, he was doing lots of early morning WU's, which just about did me in.  I started the 2-1 transition with him and when I got him down to 1 nap a month later, the early WU's stopped.  Do you think that might the case here?


Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2016, 10:08:28 am »
Hmm, I'm not sure really!  We didn't transition to 2 naps until he was 8 months but he started sleeping better after that (naps and night).  But he was actually getting MORE sleep during the day after the 3-2 transition as he used to just do mainly short naps before. 

His A time is still really short though - apart from the middle bit of the day which is 4 hours, he does 3 in the morning and less than 3 (about 2 hours 45 mins).  So I thought we still had some way to go before dropping to 1 nap.  But at some point I suppose I'll have to cut nap 1.  I can't do that at the moment though as his day-night cycle is still under 24 hours!  Yesterday went:

Awake (in cot): 5am
Get up: 5:45am
Nap 1: 8:40-9:45 (woke him up)
Nap 2: 13:35-15:05 (he woke up)
Bed and asleep: 17:50

Then I heard him sometime before 5am this morning coughing away - thing is, he's still a bit ill so that's not helping at all.  He then dozed on and off until 5:45am when I got him up.  DH thinks that's OK but I feel like it's wasted time and if he cries I spend an hour going in and out of his room trying to settle him which is not much fun for anyone.  He clearly tried to go back to sleep this morning but it didn't work (or at least not for longer than 5-10 minutes). 

He seems tired at the moment, but agaun I'm not sure if it's because he's ill.  I feel a bit confused with it all to be honest. 

thanks again for the suggestions.

Offline lauradj

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2016, 14:44:32 pm »
Honestly, if he's not crying but he's just lying there dosing, leave him to it.  He may very well fall back asleep, which is the best case scenario and otherwise, at least he's lying quietly in his room in the dark.  He's still resting, even if he's not actually asleep.


Offline ecwinters

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Re: Capping nap 1
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2016, 15:10:28 pm »
Hi again.
Trimbler, please could I just clarify about capping nap 1:

I just remember vividly that every time we shortened his morning nap (for just the same reason as you are), we'd just shave off 5mins and bring the pm nap earlier by 15mins (ie decrease the A time by 10mins) until he got used to it, then gradually bring that pm nap later again to where it was before...then at some point he'd stop settling so well so we'd shave another 5mins off the morning nap, etc, etc. We had no choice but to keep the end time of his pm nap consistent though, due to CM's school run, but it seemed to balance quite nicely for DS :) Oh, but hang on... No I think at this stage we just kept gradually reducing the morning nap and bringing pm nap forward, rather than pushing the pm nap later again.

At the moment I still have:
WU: 6:00
Nap 1: 9-10
Nap 2: 13:55-15:25 (I have tried letting him go longer, but now he's better he does't sleep longer than this, and he's beginning to play around at the start of the nap time again and cut it short i.e. 1.25 hours). 
Bed time: 6:15

Would you reduce nap 1 in 5 minute increments? And do you mean then move nap 2 forward by 15 minutes?  So
Nap 1: 9:00-9:55
Nap 2: 13:40-15:10 (or hopefully later?)

When I last reduced nap 1, I took 10 minutes off but kept nap 2 at the same time - it worked really well but after a week I thought it was actually a bit much for DS and added 5 minutes back onto nap 1!  So, taking 5 minutes off is good, but I'm wondering if moving nap 2 forward by 15 minutes will make him UT?  I guess I could start there and see what he does :)  At least then I can always shift it back. 

The thing that puzzles me (and is annoying!) is his very short A time to bed.  If he naps 1.5 hours for nap 2 then he can just make it 3 hours (I get him in bed by 2 hours and 50 minutes) but a shorter nap means I need to put him down 5-10 minutes earlier than this.  If he'd give me a longer nap 2 then maybe I could stretch him by 15 minutes or so, but I'm not sure.  He's still so sensitive to being OT at bedtime!  He'll be one year old in 2 weeks time though, so I feel this is a very short A time!  Do you think I should continue putting him down this soon after nap 2, or would he gradually get used to a longer A time?  I'm still battling with staying on a 24 hour cycle and don't want to keep pushing bedtime earlier and earlier...

Thanks so much...again!