Trouble getting 16 month old down

[Tabathagucci]

Hello,
LO just turned 16 months.  We had a great routine around 11-12 months, long nap at 11 am and short nap in the afternoon.  It became increasingly difficult to get a second nap and many days I'd have to nurse her to sleep.  I also have a 5 yo so this wasn't practical.  When the spring time change came, her nap automatically shifted to 12 and I kept it that way and dropped the second nap, putting her to bed at 7.  Bed time slowly shifted back to 6/6:30 because she kept falling asleep nursing, but she always went down easy.  Because of my son's schedule, I kept her naptime around 12/12:15.  Our early mornings got messy, but I just nursed her back to sleep and it worked.  Recently she's been harder and harder to get down for bed, but her nap times shifted to 11:45/12.  She'd either fall asleep on our pre-nap walk (not every day but quite a few) and I'd put her down asleep or she'd fall asleep in the car, sometimes as early as 11:15/11:30.  Now she's acting tired around 11:30 but when I put her down at her normal time (12), twice this week she refused and didn't go down till 1 pm.  Yesterday she fell asleep in the car at 11:30.
I've been wondering if I need to push her nap later to help the early mornings and bed time struggles  but she seems so tired around 11:30/11:45!  Could she just need to go down earlier or should I but the bullet and push her nap later?  My son is out of school so I can do that now!

[Lindsay27]

My DD is a tad older but we have had nap at 1pm for a while now.  If we happen to be in the car at 11:30ish chances are she'd fall asleep so I honestly just try to avoid car rides around that time unless they are short.  I think it's just that they are starting to approach nap time so the movement lulls them to sleep, if you were in another scenario (a play group for instance) chances are the tired signs wouldn't show at that time.  I also start lunch around 11:45 if she's showing tired signs because it kind of picks her up a bit to get through to 1.

[Tabathagucci]

Thank you!

[Tabathagucci]

So I pushed her nap to 12:15, sometimes it's 12:30.  Our mornings are still messy but she usually goes back down for an hour or two after I nurse her so at least that.  She goes down super easy for her one nap.  But bed time is still a struggle.  I think I am just mis-timing it.  How do I tell if I'm putting her down too early or too late?  She usually wakes from her nap around 1:30/2 and I try putting her down around 6:30/7 and we struggle for 30-60 mins to get her to sleep.  I have to go in usually 3-4 times, sometimes more and pick her up and sing her a couple short songs and put her back down.  It's not awful but for nap we literally just walk in, put her down, close the blinds and pat her on the bum and walk out.  We do do a pre-nap walk for nap wind down, but I've tried this for bed time and it hasn't helped.  Thanks in advance!

[Lindsay27]

How long is her nap usually?  I'm thinking she might be OT if her nap is only an hour or so.  We have nap at 1pm but it's a solid 2.5hrs, sometimes more, so she's usually not waking until 3:30ish.  I'm wondering if you actually try to push nap a little later if it would get longer.

[Tabathagucci]

She sleeps anywhere from 1h15m to 2h15m but it's usually about 1.5 hours.  Today she slept from 12:25-2 pm.  Put her to bed at 6:30 and she was asleep by 6:52.  Had to go in one time, which is better!  Should I keep bedtime at 6:30 then or shift it earlier?  I've been putting her down at 12:20 for a couple days so will try to get it to 12:30 and see how things go!

[Tabathagucci]

She slept a full 11h10m last night!  Woohoo!  Woke at 6 am.  So that's great but I am hesitant to push put down 10 mins to 12:30 when she woke at 6.  Thoughts?

[Lindsay27]

Should I keep bedtime at 6:30 then or shift it earlier?

6:30 is probably okay.  Logistically for us a BT before that is just not possible because of work schedules etc. and I always worry about crazy EWs lol!

She slept a full 11h10m last night!  Woohoo!  Woke at 6 am.  So that's great but I am hesitant to push put down 10 mins to 12:30 when she woke at 6.  Thoughts?

Maybe try at 12/12:15pm nap?  That's a good solid 6hrs of A time so she should be plenty tired by then and hopefully gives you a good long sleep.  I kind of float the nap, most days it's a 1 but if she's up earlier than normal in the morning I do pull it back as needed.

[Tabathagucci]

Thank you!  She slept from 12:20-1:55, not too and but not 2 hours.  will keep bed time at 6:30 and see how it goes. If she by some miracle sleeps till 6 am again do you think I should I push nap 5 mins or so?

[Tabathagucci]

Well, bed time 6:30, took till 7:35 to get her down (we had to go in 5 times) so maybe I should have put her down at 6:15 so she had time to wind down in the crib.  She woke at 5:55.  Sigh...

[Tabathagucci]

 I have a few questions relating to EW and OT.  We've had issues in the past with early naps causing NW and EW so I've always tried pushing nap as late as possible until I couldn't push it further due to my older son's school pick up time.  Since then (or maybe just always), we've had issues with EW and sometimes NW. I always just nursed her back to sleep as it was usually just once a night/early am but lately she either takes forever (1+ hours) to go back down (if she wakes around 3/4 am) and if she wakes between 5/6 she won't go back down at all.  We've had teething and vacation so things are really off now. She refused a nap in the car yesterday and fell asleep at 7:45 pm after a 14 hour day, woke at 2:20 am, finally nursed back to sleep at 3 am, woke again at 5:45 am (I think, she may have been awake earlier!), so we're basically in disaster mode. 
1) she was seriously OT yesterday but refused to sleep all day on a 7 hour car ride and fell asleep waaay after her normal bed time (still in the car).  How is this possible?  Is this normal?  She would not sleep even 30 mins for a whole car ride, despite quiet from all in the car, white noise, soothing songs, rubbing forehead etc.  How can she not finally fall asleep at some point for her nap??? (Excuse the frustration here it was a looong car ride) 😊
2) In these cases (way OT from vacation, etc) do I put her down waaaay early (11:30 or so) or just a few mins early (12). 
3) We previously had pushed nap to 12:15/12:20 but have been getting so many EW that it slipped back to 12 and we still have EW so I feel like I'm stuck at this time.  I get the feeling that the early nap is perpetuating the EW but don't know how to get out of that cycle if she keeps EW and can't take a later nap.  Before I'd nurse her back to sleep in the am and then be able to put her down for a later nap but now she won't even nurse back to sleep.

Ok I think that's it!  😊 Thank you! 

[Lindsay27]

1) she was seriously OT yesterday but refused to sleep all day on a 7 hour car ride and fell asleep waaay after her normal bed time (still in the car).  How is this possible?  Is this normal?  She would not sleep even 30 mins for a whole car ride, despite quiet from all in the car, white noise, soothing songs, rubbing forehead etc.  How can she not finally fall asleep at some point for her nap??? (Excuse the frustration here it was a looong car ride) 😊

Ugh, both my kids have pulled this maneuver, not fun! Honestly I just chalk it up to one of those severe cases of OT,  unfortunately there isn't much you can do at that point except an EBT and pray they catch up. 

I personally try to stick with the same nap time, but it might just be some trial and error, you may need to try an early nap just to see if she'll catch up, but I do agree that the earlier nap is likely perpetuating the EW.  I think in my case I would probably try to stick with whatever would be a "normal" nap time (12:30?) and just let her sleep longer or do an EBT if necessary.

[Tabathagucci]

Thank you!  I've been telling myself to stick to the later nap time even with EW but guess I needed someone else to tell me! I put her down at 12:13, she took a while to fall asleep (12:35) and slept 45 mins.  She woke early (before 6) this morning and I tried nursing her back to sleep.  She did fall asleep for a bit but was hard to tell how long so not sure if her short nap was OT, UT or due to teeth!  Will stick to 12:15 or so for the next couple days and then see if I can push to 12

[Tabathagucci]

Ok I need help!  For a few days now, she's been sleeping ~ 10 hrs a night or less due to hour long night wakings and EW. I've been putting her to bed too late for various reasons so I chalked it up to that.  Last night I put her down at 6:20, took her till 7 to fall asleep.  She was awake for an hour (maybe more) at 2:30 am and then wide awake at 5:45.  I haven't been able to nurse her back to sleep, she wants to get up and go.  Because of the short nights and EW, I haven't pushed the nap as far as I wanted to, I just did 12:05 instead of 12:15.  One day she slept 1h40m, the next she was crazy OT and it took me over 1.5 to get her down (I finally had to nurse her to sleep) and she slept 30 mins.  Since that day I've backed up to putting her down at 11:50/11:55 and been getting 1h40 th
first day, then 1h20m since.

How do I get out of this mess?  Thank you!

ps she is teething but it's never messed her up this bad before.  Also thinking maybe developmental?  She's been learning how to walk for a few weeks now, but showing more interest the past couple days.

[Lindsay27]

Could be developmental, but I think for now the best think to do is just to set a nap time.  A 1.20hr nap tends to indicate UT so I would pick a time (12:15?) and stick to it for at least a week.  Eventually her body clock will adjust if it is consistent.  As long as the nap is decent then I would stick to a BT between 6:30/7pm.