Help with the 2-1 transition

[Tabathagucci]

Update: she slept till 6 am!!!! Wooohoooo! I will keep her at 10:45 for a day or two more and then maybe shift it a bit later.  Soooo excited! This is the first time she's made it to 6 am without nursing her back to sleep in 2 weeks! 
Thank you so much for your support, I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out what you were saying!  Fingers crossed things go well today and for at least a few days now. LOL She's due for another developmental leap in a few days.

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[Tabathagucci]

Ok so yesterday:
Wake 6 am
Sleep 10:47-12:35 (i woke her for fear of pm nap being too late)
Put her down for second nap at the 3h35m mark (4:10) because this is what has worked recently and she wouldn't go down.
Finally at 4:50 pm I nursed her to sleep.
Sleep 4:55-5:25 pm (fitful and broken sleep)
Bed time she looked tired so put her down probably a little too late at 7:37 pm
Slept 7:45-5:58, so a fairly short night.
Any suggestions for second nap?  Maybe I put her down too late? Or too early? Cap first nap at 12?

It was hard making it to 10:45 after an almost 11 hour night yesterday.  Making it there today is likely to be harder after just over 10 hours of night sleep and I'm worried about OT.

[Tabathagucci]

Just found two new teeth.  Could be why we had an issue with nap 2 yesterday!  But she slept fine all night!

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You're doing great - a certain degree of winging it is likely needed right through the 2-1 and all the teething.
I wouldn't worry to much about the morning nap time and OT as she looks like she can do a good nap and I think not so long back she did a super long A time and handled it brilliantly so try not to be too fearful.  Even if you have the perfect A time she could still have a disturbed nap due to teething.

[Tabathagucci]

Thank you!  I stuck to the 10:45 and she did great.  Slept just under 1h20m. Tried 3h35m for second A time again and she's in their fussing and crying. Both today and yesterday she went down easy for nap 1, for nap 2 she fusses for 5 mins, then for quiet around 3h40m when she usually falls asleep, almost fell asleep a few times and then went fully awake and started talking and chatting.  I can't tell if she needs a shorter second A time because of the longer morning A time or if she needs more A time before going down for second nap.  I will have to try both I guess, but any thoughts here?  Pm nap has always been a struggle...

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I can't tell if she needs a shorter second A time because of the longer morning A time or if she needs more A time before going down for second nap

It might not be either.  She might just have teeth movement which is not painful enough to cry but is bothersome enough to prevent her relaxing for sleep.

I tend to think UT on most stuff though, so if it was me I'd increase the A 10 mins.  Doesn't mean I'm right though!

[Tabathagucci]

I will try 10 mins later!  Absolutely know it's not for sure but somewhere to start!  If it's the teeth tho, you'd think it would affect the am nap too!  Although maybe she's. Although maybe she's not super tired and if it wasn't for the teeth she'd be able to fall asleep?  Whereas for the first nap she's more tired?

[Tabathagucci]

Tried 10 mins later today and same thing happened.  She rolled around for 5 mins, got quiet and almost fell asleep, then went fully awake and for all chatty again.  I've nursed her to sleep the last two days and will probably do that again today but that obviously is not a good solution.
Could she already be ready for one nap?  If I put her down much later it just makes the day waaay too long.  The first A time is already 4-5 hours, if the second is 4 hours.
She did the 6+ hour A time before bed last week and did fine, so maybe if I get her to sleep till at least 12 and she refuses the second nap, I nurse her at 6 and put her to bed?  She only slept 11 hours that night and woke at 5:30 am but that was before I pushed the nap to 10:45 am.  So maybe she'd sleep till 6!?!

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Try the extra 10 mins for a couple of days I think, then maybe another 10 mins onto that. You don't have to let the day get longer, you can try to cap that nap at the usual time, so giving 20 mins or 10 mins nap instead of 30 mins (I think you were giving 30) and then a shorter A to BT too.

She could well be ready to move to 1nap but my experience of moving to 1 nap was pretty messy. I thought my DS would hold on to his good 2hr nap and just skip the CN - he didn't - he started short napping 20 mins at a time. Horrible. So I am cautious to encourage you to move to one nap early yk?
It is of course your decision though. You can try it.  If so I'd move that morning nap as late as you can bare without too much OT then do EBT.

[Tabathagucci]

Ok will keep trying... do I just keep nursing her to sleep for second nap?  Assuming she keeps refusing...

[creations]

Hmm..well I wouldn't nurser to sleep but then my LO wasn't BF and didn't have a feed to sleep prop, ever, there's no way he would have accepted a bottle if he wasn't hungry.  I did engage in some super-serious APOP on occasion though. He was seriously hard to AP my DS and it was mighty hard work to make it happen but sometimes it was worth it to get him to sleep some.
I think you might have luck with increasing the A time a bit and not need to feed to sleep but if you feel APOP is needed then sure you can go ahead.  The good news about APing at this point is that it isn't going to be forever, the nap will get dropped and along with it any prop you have in place.

[Tabathagucci]

Well I always nurse her after the nap so she is generally hungry at this time, especially after rolling around for 30+ minutes.  My husband has occasionally been successful at getting her to sleep but often takes an hour of him holding his hand on her back, which we just don't have time for.  If I try to comfort her by doing this, walking her around, rocking her, etc., she just screams and throws her paci.  So it's either get her up or nurse her.  She's been a really indepent sleep since 6 months or so, but when she wants to eat, she wants to eat. There was a time when I'd already nursed her before pm nap and she wouldn't nurse back to sleep and wouldn't settle so we gave up and had no nap.
I won't always be able to nurse her because I have my 5yo who has activities some days so we will at some point just have no second nap and see how she does.  I'm inching the first nap later (5 mins every 3 days) so maybe that will help us get to one nap eventually.  She's going down at 10:50 am now.
However, she just started her developmental leap and her teeth are coming in so the past two mornings I've had to nurse her at 4/5 am.  Good news is, she always rights herself after the leaps and teeth, I just hope she does the same as she gets older!

[Tabathagucci]

Wow, she woke at 5:45 am, napped from 10:45-1:05, figured it was ridiculous to have her nap at almost 5 so I put her down at 4:15 just for kicks and she fell asleep at 4:20!!!  So looks like she needs a shorter second A time with a longer morning A time.  Whew!

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  That sounds good, I hope it can continue