Short AM/long PM

[Lindsay27]

Posting this here because Nora is 1 in about 2 weeks.

So, she's always taken a stellar morning nap, usually 1-5-2hrs, usually 1.45ish and then I try to a CN about 4hrs later, which now more often than not she completely refuses making for a 1 nap day...which wouldn't be terrible if it were mid-day, but her morning nap is ending at about 11:30am, and it's a loooooong haul from 11:30-bedtime.

So, alternatively I've been trying a short AM/long PM nap...but the afternoon nap is just so mediocre, and never as good as that long morning nap we get.  When I do that short AM I cap it at 45mins then do the PM nap about 3-3.5hrs later, but she only sleeps about an hour, so she just never seems overly rested.

I'm just not sure what to do because neither scenario is working out particularly well right now.

[lolsyb1982]

Have you tried a shorter first nap? To get a decent 2nd nap we have to cap the first one at 15/20 mins.

[Lindsay27]

I can maybe reduce to 30mins but I don't know if I can do more than that.  Even waking her at 45mins she is extremely difficult to wake up and the A time to the next nap isn't exactly fun, she is very whiny/crabby and just generally acts very tired.  When I let her have her long morning nap however she wakes happy and is very playful etc.  I don't know, the short AM just doesn't seem to work that great for her to be honest...she's just a grumpy mess.  Maybe I will just try to push her morning A time so that the nap is more mid-day.  I mean she's doing okay on her 1 nap days, we do an EBT and she'll sleep nearly 12hrs, but it still makes for an early wake up which makes it hard to get the nap mid-day. 

[lolsyb1982]

I hear ya. We're at a very similar messy point. Hate the 2-1!

[Lindsay27]

It's gross lol

[Martini~]

Yes, definitely capping earlier would help or pushing second nap even further. Can you make this first nap earlier? So she is not so tired for it and would be more happy to be awake?

[Lindsay27]

Today she is completely refusing the PM nap altogether.  I capped her at 45mins this morning and tried for her PM nap 3.5hrs later and she is so OT (I think from no good naps yesterday and then the capped nap this morning) and is fighting it with everything in her, yet she can barely keep her eyes open. This short AM stuff just really isn't working at all, I think I will just go back to what we were doing.  Even on her 1 nap days she is so much happier than this and she does eventually catch up with 2 naps.  She isn't in daycare until mid-January so I don't really feel the need to force this right now lol

[Martini~]

You can do it if you wanna, but as I said it's quite normal. From my experience capping works at this age with a very short morning nap or 10-30min.

[Haribo2012]

DS1 could never do short am long PM it just wouldn't work with him, we did long am but pushed it later and then forced CN at 4pm but that was with drive or buggy walk. Not easy when you have an older LO to consider.

[Lindsay27]

Ya she's honestly just not ready to do that short of a morning nap quite yet. I think like you said Zoe we might just have to keep pushing that morning nap later and later. 

[C&B&E]

We brought the am nap earlier, cut it to 30 mins which ds could cope with better because he was less tired due to shorter A time. Then was able to bring the pm nap forward too. It took some tweaking, but ended up being a good option as then we gradually made that morning nap 15 mins, then cut it all together.

[Lindsay27]

How early would you bring the morning nap?  She loves her morning sleep so much I think she would go down with as little as a 3hr A time.  Actually today I think her first A was only 3.15hr.  Her WU can be anywhere from 6-7am.  DS did great with the short AM nap, but I don't know about this girl.  I would say she is on the higher end of sleep needs, not anything crazy but probably slightly more than average, and she goes to bed at 7pm pretty well no matter what...has since the day she was born, bless her, she's like her mother lol.

[Martini~]

Hehehe who would thought that she is towards hsn when she was waking at 5am:). So with the nap and 6/7-7 routine I would say 9:30 would be ok if you let her sleep for 20-30min. You may tray 40min but as I said it's usually already too regenerative for them to go to sleep easily for second nap and sleep long.

[creations]

This was the age DS went down to 1 nap. The option of a long morning nap has already been mentioned I see, that's what we did. Forcing an afternoon nap was not really possible here (rare anyway) so I kind of had to just go to the1 nap and EBT.
I would do the morning nap later and let her sleep as long as she wants, if it's later she might do the 2hr regularly or if she is higher sleep needs she might do a bit over 2hrs, the longer the better as it help to get closer to BT.
Something like
nap 10.30 - 12.30
BT 5.30
aiming to move the nap and BT later.
If she was managing on a 1 nap day when the nap was early and she refused the CN then she has somehow coped with a mega long A time following the nap, maybe she could adjust quite well to just one nap and EBT?

[Lindsay27]

The last few days before I attempted the short AM she would do her usual long morning nap, and the CN wouldn't be until about 4:15pm and I would let her sleep 15-20mins and she still went to bed at 7pm no issues and would do 11-12hrs overnight.  If she refused the CN she would do an EBT and 12hrs and she could handle that for 2 days and then day 3 she'd take 2 naps.  She is handling it all quite well but every day is different, which is fine...such is the transition right!?  I think she's always been higher sleep needs we just ran into a wonky period during the 3-2.