2-1 Transition a BIG struggle, overwhelmed.

[KYKatydid]

Goodness, we're struggling with this 2-1 transition. Bub is lower on the spirited scale, 14 months, still waking up a night to nurse (we're working on night weaning, phew!)

-Lately he has been waking up between 5 and 5:30 for the day. Throws an absolute tantrum if we try and settle.
-Totally restless b/w 4-6A (which is light sleep), he wakes at 4, nurse down, then up at 5, and 5-6 is a total fight.
-Tires quickly in the morning, starting to give me sleepy signs by 7:00 some days, will sometimes want to nap b/w 8:00-8:30. I'm struggling to stretch his awake time b/c of the early WA
-Won't sleep more than an hour, maybe an 1.25 for his AM nap. I've tried PU/PD and he just fights it for the remainder of a full 1.5 or 2 hours. Sometimes wakes up happy.
-We try for an afternoon cat nap, but he fights it. We try to have a shorter awake time b/w AM nap and PM nap so he has more AT b/w PM and BT
-If he has a cat nap, BT is b/w 6:00 and 6:30
-If no cat nap, BT is by 5:30
-Doesn't matter what time he goes to bed, he's up no later than 6AM, and 6 is a "luxury" these days.
-Night weaning we feel we have hit a wall, see note*
-We are religious about his BT routine, and working on a more consistent NT routine.

He's such a mess, we're all tired, and I'm overwhelmed with where to start. The book makes it sound so easy and simple, and it's just the opposite for us right now.

*NOTE: We accidentally let him CIO twice, the monitor stopped working in the middle of the night. We (obviously) got a new monitor, but will be doing trust rebuilding soon. We had to do this before, as the power went out twice in the middle of the night and bub was accidentally left to CIO several months ago. We had great success with this when we hit a wall with our initial PU/PD, so hoping this will help with NW transition.

DH is starting his masters this winter, and I work from home. Ideally we would both like to wake up at 5AM, and work for two hours with bub waking up for the day at 7. This may be unreasonable, as bub has always been an early chicky, but that would be an "ideal goal", oh and for him to STTN and nap okay 

Would LOVE LOVE LOVE any help or thoughts or feedback, please!

[Scottishmummy]

Hi!

It is a really tough transition, going through it with my DD too right now and also getting 5-5.30 wus (although if she slept later I would too, I'm impressed with your start at 5am work ethic!)

I wonder if the EW is linked to the early nap and also early BT. It sounds like you're trying long am/short pm.  Have you tried waking from the am nap and doing short am/long pm?  It might help to try to push it slightly later too to try to shift your whole day a bit later?

Have you read the 2-1 link on FAQ: From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older)
This has a good explanation of short am/long pm.

Hope that helps
Xx

[KYKatydid]

Oh, thank you so much for your reply!!

I was just reading another person's babe who is 18 mos and is having EWU, and it made me wonder about early nap/early bed time making the early wake up. Especially since I'm asking him to sleep more than 12 hours. And, I believe his sleep needs may be shorter than 12 hours?

I have read that post you linked to, but it has been awhile, and I do have a few questions.

1. He is SO ready for an AM nap, should I just keep him a busy bee (he's fine if we're active and doing stuff, especially if he's interacting with other children! Or outside.)?

2. I believe he is a habitual early waker (DH stopped setting his 6AM alarm clock months ago, ha!), with shortening the morning nap, and needing to push the morning awake time, do I do this all at once?

Example:
WU-5:30
AM Nap-8:30ish (instead of 8:00), 45 minutes (to start with)
PM Nap-between 11:45 and 12:15
BT: this is where I get confused, since his nap(s) are so early, I struggle with how much AT to give him between PM nap and BT.

3. Do I keep shortening his morning nap, even if he's not sleeping more for his PM nap? And I see for habitual morning wakers, to lengthen the awake time by 20-30 mins. Is this a one time push?

Thank you again for your post, and your empathy. I feel like this one is as hard as his 4 month regression. But we were moving at the same time 

We have been early to bed/early to rise people for a long time. My husband is former Army, so we didn't really have a choice The idea of doing work in the PM after a long day sounds like too much work, ha!

[Scottishmummy]

Hi!

I'll do my best to answer your questions, but it is a lot of trial and error at this stage!

1) Yes I would try to keep him awake longer to push the first nap later...how depends on what you think will work best, some LOs cope with more activity and entertainment to keep them going, some need a longer wind down e.g. stories or quiet activities to fill the extra time but avoid getting too OT.

2) So from re-reading the 2-1 link- the advice there is to both push the nap later and shorten it at the same time.  If you feel unsure about this though, you could try pushing it later but capping at just an hour at first? Then shorten to 45 mins a few days after that? This might help to avoid the OT you could get if you push it later and shorten it at the same time.

The timing of 2nd nap again is trial and error but I'd guess around 2-3hrs after a capped nap.

For bedtime..again a bit of trial and error and depends on how long the 2nd nap was...maybe aim for around 6.30 with a view to gradually pushing it later as you shift whole day later?

3)  If the pm nap doesn't lengthen after a few days of trying the shorter am nap and up to 3 hrs then yes you might then try a 30 min nap.  Typically a lot of LOs this age are starting their morning nap around 9.30, so you may find that you need to also keep gradually pushing the first nap later...but, as above, I'd suggest pushing the nap gradually later and holding the length at new time for a day or 2 before cutting it shorter.

I hope that helps, good luck & pls come back if you want to chat through it more
Xx

[KYKatydid]

This is immensely helpful, I greatly appreciate it! It just helps to have some guidance, since this is such a tricky transition full of trial and error. Since we had so much going on (or so it felt) with his naps, bedtimes, waking, I truly didn't know where to start. I'll be sure to ask more questions as they come up Thank you again!

[KYKatydid]

I've hit a hiccup, and therefore have some questions

The short AM nap, long PM nap was doing great for a couple weeks, with a few minor set backs.

We had a week of taking him an hour to go down for both naps, so I thought I would try seeing if he would sleep long with his 10/10:30 AM nap, and he did for a week.

Now, he has been going down at 11AM (with morning wake ups usually around 6:30, sometimes still back to 6:00), but he is only sleeping 1-1.5 hours instead of 2-2.5.

I feel like we're kinda back into that vicious cycle where if he has a 1-1.5 hr nap, he gets OT before bed, and so I 'have' to put him down sooner. I really do think he only needs 11-11.5 hours at night, as that's when he typically gets up for the day.

I was wondering if we should go back to short AM/long PM? It's hard b/c 11AM is so "late"

Cat nap 11:00-11:30
Long nap 1:30/2:00-4:00/4:30 (potentially),
Bed 7:30/8:00PM

However, this sorta makes sense since if we want him to wake for the day at 7AM, that he would need to go to bed at 7:30/8:00.

Today he cat napped on his own from 11:20-11:50 and I'm trying a long nap now (2:00).

The big thing is making sure he doesn't get OT before bed, and gets 11-11.5 hours, I believe. It's just a matter of getting there 

[Scottishmummy]

It's a really tricky point in the transition. 1 nap isn't enough but 2 is too much and gives a really long day.

I think at this point the CN needs to be really short- only 15mins or so & your choice whether you do that at 11-11.15 then try for another nap around 1/1.30 OR long nap 11-12.30/1 and try to get a 15min CN around 4.30/4.45 and a 7pm BT.

The micro nap seems a bit odd because it's so short but it can be just what is needed to bridge the gap on this awkward stage of the transition

Good luck xxx

[KYKatydid]

Hello Again!,

So sorry for the delay!

Thanks so much for suggesting the micro-nap. Naps are so much easier, and it seems a very good fit for him!

I was thinking once they reach that 15 minute nap mark that they would be good to drop it, but apparently he was NOT ready for that! Once he adjusted with getting a nap late enough, despite and early wake up, he had a few great days where he slept in until 6:40/7:00. But now that early wake up has reared its ugly head again, phew!

The past four or five days, if he wakes up at 5 or 5:30, he is ridiculously restless until "I say" it's time to get up (6:30). He fusses, or just kinda chats to himself, and then sleeps for about 5 minutes, and then starts all over again. Sometimes he is outright mad and throws a major tantrum.

With him going to bed between 7:00 and 7:30, 5 AM is obviously much too early.

I've even stayed in there with him in hopes that I can do the "chair method", but in this situation I'm laying on the floor. He's had great success with this in the past in regards to me being able to leave the room with him still awake, but not much luck with the EW :-/ Any tips on this?

[Scottishmummy]

Glad the micro-nap helped...for a while at least!

I wonder if the time for needing that bridging nap has passed and he's ready to try again for 1 nap? My DD dif the micro-nap for months but with EW too, we only pushed her past it when the wus became ridiculous (3.30 am start, anyone?!) so I definitely wouldn't recommend waiting that long.

Doing the maths, I'm guessing he's around 16mo old now? So lots of LOs do well on set naps and BT by this age I.e. Choose a nap time around the middle of the day (usually sometime between 11.30-12.30) and a BT (probably still around 7ish) and stick with it. Expect some OT & possibly shorter naps at first but after a week or 2 it will hopefully fall into place.
Set naps for toddlers: Why, How and When

Good luck xxx