11 month old confused about A time

[Toddlerfun]

Hi,

My dd is almost 11 months old and I have been confused as to what to do about her naps for a while. For the past couple months she hasn’t been showing any tired signs...unless they are microscopic. Lol. They last time she showed clear tired signs her awake time was 3.75 hrs A time and that was 2 months ago when she was 8.5 months old. I have tried waiting up until 5 hours to see tiredness which basically meant she had 1 nap and sometimes it’s worked out but other times she has been overtired by the end of the day and woke early the next morning.

I have tried 4 hr A time all the way to 4.5 A time and all with varying results in regards to length of nap. And lately, in the past two weeks she resists napping in general by crying and squirming in my arms no matter how long the A time has been, even after 5 hours. In the past my only last sign that it was time for a nap is  when I  started the nap routine she would snuggle into me and suck fingers. She doesn’t do that anymore.

My other challenge is often I am putting her down around 10:30/11:00 am and if she has an hour nap she used to resist the second nap if it came any earlier than 3.5 hours which means I would be putting her  down at 3:30 or later if she slept in that day. Then that would mean I would have to put he to bed later than 7pm, which is our preferred bedtime. I know she is probably transitioning to 1 nap but I just don’t know what to do in the transition. I did read the article on transitioning 2-1 but I tried reducing her first nap to 1 hr and 45 mins but she will only have a 30 min to 45 min nap in the afternoon so then she is only getting a 45 min nap and a 30-45 min nap. Doesn’t seem much to me.

Here’s a few different routines I have tried. (Lately she has been teething so I know that doesn’t help either.)

4hr15 min A time
6am wake
10:15 nap ( woke after 30 mins but resettled)
12:15 woke
3:35 lay her down ( takes her another 10 mins to fall asleep)
4:15 woke her, she seemed really overtired (or overstimulated) so put her to bed at 6:45pm and she didn’t resist but then cried 10 mins later and we brought her down for 15 mins and ride again but she cried again but did PD
5:50Am woke the next morning

5 hr A and 1 nap
7am woke
12:00 nap
2:00 woke
6:30 bedtime ( cried a lot and woke before 6 am the next morning)

4.5 A time two naps, reducing first one
6:30 woke
11:00 nap
11:45 woke her
3:15 nap
3:45 wakes
6:45 bedtime

If you have any idea as to what I should be shooting for in regards to A time and how to get the two naps in I would appreciate it.Thank you so much for your help!

[NattysMom]

Hello, I’m in the same situation as you...around 9m my LO started fighting both naps with around 3h30-4h A time. I tried increasing in 15min increments every few days but had no change. After a month of that I decided to watch her to figure out her new AT. She rarely has sleepy cues, only sometimes once I brought her to darkness for her nap routine.  Some days she would be up for 5+ AT in the morning, but some days she would have a 2 hour nap after only 3h30m AT. I was so confused. I ended up doing 4h45m-5h. She did have some OT naps but they’re easier to resettle and eventually she got used to the AT.  She didn’t fight me anymore and went to sleep so easily. Her AT before bed is shorter, more like 4-4h30m. She is now almost 11m and we have some days with 2 naps if she wakes up earlier for the day or has a shorter nap. I always try to get her back to sleep if it’s been less than 2 hours and I only cut the nap short if it’s a second one and it will make bedtime too late. She also seems to sleep longer overnight with one nap which results in more sleep overall. I like her to be in bed by 730 and with 2 naps it usually goes later than I’d like. We’ve had many days with 630 BT and her WU the next day usually wasn’t much earlier.

For example,

2 naps:
WU 630
Nap 1130-12 (wouldn’t resettle, I give up after 20m)
Nap 4-430 (cut short at 30m)
BT 745

1 nap:
WU 730
Nap 1230-245 (extend if needed)
BT 7

I prefer one nap over 2, it was getting really hard to fit 2 naps in. When she did 2 naps they would both be short and weren’t as restorative as one long nap.

Hope this helps. Good luck

[creations]

Welcome Toddlerfun

I know lots of people try the capped nap in the morning to keep the afternoon nap going a bit longer, I always prefer routines the other way around with the long nap in the morning as I feel more relaxed once LO has a good 2hr nap in the day, the afternoon nap might be hit and miss for a while but at least it's not 2 CNs.
If it was me I'd keep encouraging the long nap at 4.5hr A and see if LO can get back into a more agreeable mood about it.
I experienced with mine some nap refusals (when he thought he was ready for a nap drop) but when I persevered with the routine he settled back into it, partly (I think) because he got OT and realised for himself he still needed to sleep.
There's a chance you might do better with a set nap time rather than altering the nap time each day based on A times. Usually we suggest this for LOs 12 months and over and on one nap but your LO is approaching this and perhaps trying this out a little sooner might help?

Mine also dropped to one nap at this age and although he'd been doing a lovely predictable 2hr nap for a long long time dropping to one nap messed our routine up for a while. He started taking 20 min naps and I had to really tell him it was sleep time and force him to go to sleep (I rocked and walked, sang, shushed, used my key phrase...every possible tool in the box to get him back to sleep), it was tricky for about a month but he settled back to his 2hr nap in the end. Mine probably had 5hr or more before his nap but a much shorter A time before BT.

[Toddlerfun]

Hi creations and Nattysmom,

Thank you so much for your replies! I was starting to think there wasn’t anyone out there who could relate or had a clue as to what to do. 😅

Thanks for your suggestions! I am going to try to stick with a time and a longer A time that will get us one big nap and put her to bed earlier if needed. I have been thinking perhaps she is ready but I didn’t want to go to one nap in case I would create too much OT.

I will let you know how it goes!

[NattysMom]

You’re welcome. I hope it goes well. My LO sleeps more when she’s OT so we haven’t had any issues with horribly OT. Good luck! 🤞

[creations]

Good luck

[Toddlerfun]

Hi,

So far the two days I have tried the one nap at the same time; 12:00, after 5 hrs of awake time, she has slept two hours and the first night I put her down after 4.5 hrs but she seemed not tired. She woke up an hour and a half after bedtime and two other times but I think she was hungry because she wasn’t eating as much in the day.  She Slept in until 7:10am the next day. Put her down at noon again and she had another 2 hr nap but she woke half way and it took awhile for her to go back to sleep. She seemed tired earlier on in the evening so I put her to bed at 6pm but then she woke again an hour late which may mean over tiredness.

Today I did two naps partly because of appointments but partly because she seemed whinnier today. The first nap, she woke at the 45 min mark and resettled so not sure if that indicated about of undertiredness. I ended up waking at 1.5 hr mark . She was whinny after 2.5 hr A but I wasn’t home so I put her to bed after 3.5 hrs and had To wake her afte 45 mins because it was 4:15 and I didn’t want to interrupt bedtime. She was asleep just before 7pm.

Day 1:
7:10 woke
12:10 sleep
2:10 wake
6:50 bedtime
8:30 woke
11:30 woke
4:00am woke

Day 2
7:10 woke
12:10 sleep
2:10 woke
6:00 sleep
7:00 woke

Day 3
Befor 7:00? Woke
10:15 sleep
11:50 woke
3:30 sleep
4:15 woke (seemed tired so put her to bed earlier, 6:30, but she laid in bed until...)
6:55


I am going to try one nap for one more day, if she wakes up around 7am and if she seemed tired by the end of day and wakes in the evening I guess I will go back to two naps

[creations]

Hi there. I've hurt my back and can't post properly.
I've highlighted you thread to the other mods so hopefully you can get some support.

[Buntybear]

Hi - it sounds like you are doing the right thing and going with the flow for the last couple of days. I do tend agree with creations though and maybe try a set nap routine at some point? Olly didn't give sleepy cues either and so I found a routine that worked for him and then when he struggled I would shave 15 mins of his nap time (keeping WU the same) and that seemed to do the trick. This was when he was comfortably on one nap though....

How are you doing now?

[Toddlerfun]

Hi,


Thanks for your responses!

I tried another day with one nap and she woke up again in the evening and was hard to get back down. So I went back to 2 naps, one around 4.5hr A time, at 10:30ish, and another around 3:30 and it was working for a few days but lately she is only sleeping an hour at the first nap and taking awhile to fall asleep for the second nap and having 5-30 min naps so I guess it’s back to the drawing board. I guess I will push back the first nap by 15 mins but then I don’t know what to do with the second nap because then it would start past 4 pm.

Any thoughts ? And Buntybear I wasn’t sure what you meant by “shaving 15 mins off his nap meant. Do you mean at the of the nap or push nap back 15 mins ?

[NattysMom]

Mine does the exact same thing after bedtime and I’m 99% sure she’s UT. Last night she only had 4h AT before BT because she slept late from her nap. She went to bed at 8, woke at 10 and 11 and was wide awake until midnight. She didn’t seem sleepy or cranky at all except she got very angry when I stayed in her room. This is what she does when she’s not ready to sleep. May be worth a try?

[creations]

I guess I will push back the first nap by 15 mins but then I don’t know what to do with the second nap because then it would start past 4 pm.

I'd work towards one nap but if you have to put in two for a short time to get back to a good nap length then that's fine.
When the first nap starts and ends later it is hard to fit in nap 2 but you can start it and let her sleep a short CN, some people even do 10 min then get LO up, that can help to keep BT reasonable although it still might need to be later than you'd like.  Once you are down to one nap though (you had a really good nap length there on one nap) you can bring BT earlier.