keep trying this 2-1 nap transition and failing

[olliepop]

Hi, I'm going to try to make this quick my 15-month old has been crying for 30 minutes so far now as he tries to take a nap.

He has been doing okay with some days taking only 1 nap, usually around 10:30 or 11:00, and then some days taking 2. He almost always goes to bed at 6 or 6:30 and wakes up 5:30-6:00. But he's been only taking 1 nap the past couple weeks and it's getting less restful, only about 1 hour.

I was thinking he needed to just go back full time to 2 naps but he never takes the 2nd one. So I'm trying to now start to wake him up from his 1st nap early so he can nap in the afternoon. So for example today he woke up at 6:00, I put him down for a nap at 9:30, woke him up at 11:00 (he used to sleep 2 hours in the am), and I put him down this afternoon at 1:45, and it's not going to happen. I guess I'm wondering how the heck I should get him to take that afternoon nap if I try cutting his long morning nap short. What do you do if they STILL don't nap in the afternoon?

[Lindsay27]

What I would do hun is cut that morning nap really short, 30 or 45mins, which would then allow for a long PM nap.  If he did a 1.5hr morning nap and then you tried the PM nap less than 3hrs later, he would definitely be too UT to fall asleep.  So I would aim for:

WU 6
Nap 9:30-10/10:15
Nap 1-3
BT 7pm

Eventually that morning will get shorter until it phases out, and when that happens sometimes the afternoon nap moves a bit earlier (12:30ish).

[olliepop]

Will do, thanks! Hope to report back after a couple weeks.

[olliepop]

Haven't tried the short am nap yet. Today he's with a nanny and I just didn't want to introduce something new with her. I'll start tomorrow. Just wanted to add that this kid can really sleep when he wants to! She put him down at 9:30 this morning and he slept for 2 hours.

[Lindsay27]

My DD also can take a massive morning nap as well, but then the problem is that she refuses the PM nap...and then ends up going from say 11:30am through to bedtime, which is not ideal for anyone.  You might find also that once you start doing the short AM/long PM that the WU time moves later, and at the point you can sometimes make the push for 1 nap.

Yesterday my DD did a 45min morning nap, and a 1.45hr PM nap, and today WU was 8am so we just went for a 1 nap day and she slept 1-3:20pm and BT at 7.

[olliepop]

So far it't not going super great today. We had:

5am wake up (we don't get him up until at least 6:00)
9:30-10:15 - catnap
1:00 - ? (It's almost been an hour and Oliver still hasn't gone to sleep, he's doing some mix of crying/talking in the crib)

[Lindsay27]

How did he make out? I have 2 thoughts, one is that he could have been a bit OT from the EW followed by the CN, but on the other hand, talking and rolling around sounds like it could be UT.  I would try to leave a minimum of a 3hr A between the 2 naps, or cap the morning nap even further to 30mins.

[olliepop]

He never ended up taking the afternoon nap yesterday, but he did sleep in the car a bit later that day.

This time we did the same morning nap of 9:30-10:15, and put him down for his afternoon nap at 1:45. He's still in his crib awake, this time doing a combination of whining/some crying/some talking. He's not a happy camper
Just based on previous experience I'm guessing he's not going to fall asleep again, but we'll see.

Happy New Year

[olliepop]

For what it's worth, I went in to check on him after 30 minutes because he started screaming, and he's fine, he smiles and wants to play as soon as I walk in.

[lolsyb1982]

Maybe you need to try a shorter morning nap so he's ready for that 2nd nap. We only do 20min max with my 13month old and then 2nd nap around 3-3.5hrs later.