HELP: 8 month struggling to nap longer than 30 mins

[Lasm2016]

Hi there,

My daughters naps are slowly getting shorter.. So now she will nap for 1 hr 15 mins at about 11am and another 45 mins to 1hr at about 3pm.  Any advice? Should I keep trying to push the awake time to get a 2 hour nap?

Also she has learnt how to crawl in the last week and now I'm really struggling to get her to settle at night. She is fine going down for naps but at bedtime she is hysterical and just sits up in the cot screaming! Really not sure what to do!! The only thing that will settle her is the dummy

Thanks so much

[Scottishmummy]

How old is she now & how much A time is she getting before her naps?

You might be at the start of the 2-1.

You could start gradually pushing that first A time later (15 min increases every 2-3 days until you get a better nap) and see if that helps.  That would obviously also move the 2nd nap later which would mean you need to cut it shorter to get an easier bedtime.

Sometimes sleep is affected by learning to crawl..another developmental leap...but I do wonder if the bedtime battles are because she might be ready for a longer first nap and a shorter CN late afternoon.

Have a read of this and see what you think & please come back if you have any questions or want to chat through more.
From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older)

[Lasm2016]

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly!  I will have a read of those links this evening. She was 10 months yesterday.

Over the past week I have been extending the A time by 15-20 mins each day.  she gets up at 7am (sometimes wakes at quarter to or 10 to 7).  I put her down at 11.25am today so thats an A time of around 4.5 hours.  She wasn't really showing signs of tiredness but she was asleep within seconds! 

It's just dawned on me that if she has a long nap at 11.30ish then this will mean a very late lunch at around 1.30pm followed by a bottle at 2.30/3pm - it seems quite close together?  So I am guessing I would need to adjust the eating? So perhaps give her some milk around 11am before the nap and then lunch at 1.30pm? Or alternatively give her lunch at 11.30am and keep the bottle at 2.30/3pm?  Any thoughts on this

Thanks

[Lasm2016]

She did 1.5 hours there.  I do wonder if I stretched it until 12pm that I might get a two hour nap...

[Scottishmummy]

Meals are a bit of a juggle with the 11.30/12 nap.  I would give something before the nap. My DS used to always have milk around 11 anyway so I still gave that and a snack too, I think, then a small lunch on waking so he would still take his 3pm milk.  So I kind of split his lunch either side of the nap.

I would hold the 11.30 nap for 2-3 days at least to avoid overtiredness with too fast an increase, but yes you could gradually start moving closer to 12 and see how she gets on.

What time and length are you thinking for a CN? If it's around or after 4pm, I'd limit it to 30 mins at the most and see how BT and night goes on that. Some need a shorter CN if after 4pm but it's a bit of trial and error.

[Lasm2016]

I think you were right about the hysterical bedtime perhaps being down to the napping rather than the crawling...

She missed her afternoon nap today because we had to go out for an appointment and she wouldn't nap in her pram (I really struggle to get her napping in her pram unless I'm walking about with her).  Because of this we put her down at 6.20 and she was out like a light - no protesting at all!

I was thinking the CN would be at 3pm, after her afternoon milk - hopefully for an hour as this would still give 2.5hr total daytime napping.  If 3pm doesn't work then maybe 3.30 but I have found in the past that if she does longer than 30/45 mins in the afternoon then I really need her to be awake by 4pm otherwise she is UT at bedtime.  It does seem the later morning nap means that I am running out of hours in the day to fit another hour of napping in, which leads me to think that ideally it would be great if I can achieve a 2hr morning and a 30 minute CN in the afternoon! i.e. if I limit the CN to 30 mins then that could be at 4pm or 4.30pm without affecting bedtime too much.

I will keep 11.30 nap up for a few days and let you know...

Thanks x

[Scottishmummy]

Hooray for an easy bedtime 

10 months would be pretty early to drop to just one nap, although some babies manage it.

I would definitely try for a short afternoon CN of around 30 mins & see how that goes..The longer later nap does mean total day sleep changes but youmight find that if she does slightly less naptime e.g. 1.5hr + 30mins, she does a longer night to compensate? Or you might find that, as part of the transition, she is actually moving to manage on a little less day sleep.

Fingers crossed you get a long night tonight
Xxx

[Lasm2016]

We had a long night last night!  slept from 6.20pm until 7am.  She must have been exhausted!

I put her down at 11.30am again this morning - I gave her a snack before but no milk.  She woke up at 12.30 really upset but still visibly tired.  I gave her some milk but it took me half an hour to get her back off to sleep.  She's still asleep now, not sure when to wake her!  Its almost 2pm and still not had lunch - will take a bit of getting used to juggling the meals and the napping! 

[Scottishmummy]

I would let her sleep as long as she wants then do an EBT again if you need to.
She could have a late lunch and her afternoon milk with it?

And maybe tomorrow try milk & snack before the nap in case she woke from hunger?

[marjorie_kate]

Hi Laura and all,
I'm in the middle of extending A time to move to 2 naps/day with my 8mo.  She's been all.over the place so I'm confused and feeling lost. 
Today she had a 1 hr, 10 min morning nap around 9, then was so tired I put her down at 1230 but she talked and played until 110... then slept for an hour but refused a cat nap.  I'm currently nursing at 630 for early bedtime because she was a fussy mess. My EASY today was not ideal, plus she's waking at night crying which tells me she is OT.  (Early, last night it was 930)
615 WU
630 E BM
730solids
900 S
1015 E, BM
1200 solids (just a snack while I ate)
1230 S, but didn't fall asleep until 115 with my help
115 S
215 WU
230 E, BM
445- attempted CN. She cried and cried, got her up after 10 min
530 solids
600 bath
615 BM, then BT.

Any thoughts from the experts??? Thanks!

[Lasm2016]

She ended up doing another hour at 1pm.  Our plan was to do another early bed but by 4.45pm she was beside herself, really tired.  We put her down at 4.50pm for a CN and we woke her 20 minutes later. She was not happy to be woken up but teatime, bath time etc was good.  She went to bed by 7.30pm (later than normal and a bit upset with it) but she slept right through until 7am.  We've Monkey Music today at 12.30 so going to have to switch back to an earlier morning nap again today but I'm going to keep trying with the 11.30am nap for the rest of the week, I hope once I sort the food out the napping will fall into place.

Hi Marjorie_kate, when I first posted on this forum I was having real nap issues (3 30 minute naps a day) and my daughter was 8 months.  The advice I got on here was that at around 8 months some babies need around 3.5-4hrs of activity time and 2.5-3hrs of daytime sleep.  I was putting my daughter down for her first nap around 9.30 (she wakes up at 7am and so 2.5hrs was not enough activity time).  Once I moved nap time to 10.30am I instantly got great napping - from memory two 1.5 hour naps or sometimes 2hrs in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon...  My daughter adapted really well and quickly to the extended activity time but it might take other babies a few days to adjust.  If I was you I would try to work towards 3.5-4hrs by extending activity by 15 mins a day (I think I actually extended by 30mins as my daughter was coping well but the general advice on here seems to be 15 mins). I'm not sure if solving the napping will resolve the EW - but my thoughts are that if you can solve the napping and aim for a bedtime of nearer 7pm then she might not wake as early?  That could be wrong, I'm not sure - I have been really lucky and my daughter has pretty much always done 7am-7pm despite her poor daytime napping.  Hopefully someone else might be able to help!

[Lasm2016]

The other thing I would say is to watch out for signs of tiredness from your daughter.  I must admit, that sometimes I get so caught up in trying to implement her routine that I sometimes overlook that!  So this morning for example, I planned to put her to nap at 1030 so she could have a nap before the baby class but at 10am she seemed really clingy and a bit grouchy and hard to entertain.  So I put her for a nap and she slept for 1hr 20 mins!!  She hasn't gone down for a nap that early in a long time and she still had a decent nap...so I guess today she was just tired for some reason! 

[Scottishmummy]

Lasm2016: Sounds like your DD is adapting to the transition pretty well and you're doing a great job of following her cues and working out naps that work for her.

Majorie_kate: I agree with Lasm2016- I'd keep trying to push her A times- try keeping her awake for a little longer before naps e.g. around 3hrs to start with, and see if you can get a longer ones.
And looking at the day you posted- remember that sometimes tired signs actually mean something else. For example my daughter often rubs her eyes & fusses at the end of her lunch, but it actually means she's had enough to eat and is bored of being in her chair rather than tiredness. I wonder if your DD was really tired enough for that 2nd nap or whether the tired signs meant something else. It sounds like she wasn't really ready to sleep when you put her in her cot, but when she did she was undertired from going down early so only had a short nap.
If you'd like to chat through it more, please feel free to start a new thread.