16mo entire schedule change? need advice....

[NicoleW]

My dd is 16mo's old (today:)) and has been flexible between 1 or 2 naps for about 4mo's now. she goes to bed between 6 and 6:30 pm sleeps until 8am and her naps are 1.5hrs long. either 1 or 2, didn't matter, still 1.5hrs.
the last 5 days, completely cold turkey, has been taking 40-60min naps. if i keep her up for 4-5hrs and try one nap it is still at MOST 60min.
the only thing i can conclude is that she is ready to go to one nap, right? (if you have ANY other suggestions, let me know).
(she is also getting  teeth finally, we've only had 4 until December) but she doenst' wake at night, so i'm assuming those aren't the problem.
So, do i wake her up early tomorrow and just stick it out for afew days doing ONE nap? i know it means i'm gonna have her awake for 6hrs in teh afternoon b/c she will onlysleep an hour, but SOMEONE tell me that nap will eventually lengthen....
and how long will it take?
is this the right course of action?
let me know
thanks!!
Nicole

[elfin]

It sounds like she is ready for the one nap.  Pick a time and stick to it, give or take 15 minutes or so.  The better you are at sticking to it, the better she will be at adjusting to it.  It is a tough transition, and my ds also did the 45 minutes to an hour thing in the begining as well.  The nap length will lengthen once she figures it out and her body adjusts to the one nap.

Hope this helps!

[Florencia]

We see lots of bad naps around here when the teething monster comes. So you might want to try some tylenol before nap just to make sure she's not waking from discomfort.

As Elfin says, you just pick the time of the day you want the nap to be, taking onto consideration her usual wake up time (8 am) so if she usually goes to bed at 630 PM then you might want to try a nap around 1ish. That way, even if she only takes 1 hour nap, the long awake stretch wll be before nap and there are more chances that you dont end up with a cranky baby for the evening.

When we made that transition, we also had lots of early mornings but i sticked to my "chosen" nap time and in the course of 3 weeks ds was finally settled. For all the cases i've seen here and with friends, they adjust to the time you pick but you have to be very consistent about it.

If you have trouble keeping her awake for the long morning stretch, you might want to try a snack (a cracker, cheese or some fruit) to boost her energy for a while.

Good luck!

[NicoleW]

thanks ladies...that helps a bit but now i need more help! lol....
last ngiht she only slept 12.5 hrs (as opposed to her 14...weird?) and today i kept her up from 7am to 12pm..... and she only slept 60min! so by 6pm she was DEAD tired. i'm just praying she doesn't wake up before 7 tomorrow.
she's pretty much dropped the afternoon nap...and i'm sure her nap was short today b/c she was overtired....
so, do i just move her morning nap later slowly? for example. try like 10:30 , then 11, then 11:30 etc?
but in the meantime how do i deal with her being awake from 11-6pm?...OR do i just go cold turkey and keep putting her down at 12 everyday?
please help!
Nicole

[elfin]

It is normal for them to decrease the amount of nightime sleep at this age.  So if she is sleeping 12.5 hours at night, that is still really good.  I think the total amount of sleep for this age is around 14 hours, so she is doing ok.  I would try and put her nap a bit earlier until she adjusts to just one nap, not too early so maybe around 11-11:30.  It is very normal to have the short naps during this transition, it is just important to stay consistent and she will get there.  The days that she does have the short nap I would just try and keep the time before bed very low key so as not to overstimulate and overtire.  We also did the very early bedtime when we made the switch.

Good luck!

[NicoleW]

Thanks Elfin,
okay. so the damn garbage showed up at teh 45min mark! i could have SCREAMED.He is SO Stinkin' loud! so her nap was from 11:45 to 12:35. THAT"S IT! what do i do now? how early is too early for bedtime? yesterday was 6pm. i'm not sure she'll even make it to that today. but i dont 'want her waking too early tomorrow morning.
this sucks! ONE 45min nap! are you kidding??
and she was up last night at 10pm and 1am.....she hasn't woken up in months! do you think its from being over tired? or maybe teeth?

N.(....highly discouraged...

[imsmum]

I think the night waking is overtiredness.  In transitioning to 1 nap some little ones seem to have difficulty with the am stretch to naptime and others seem to have problems with the afternoon stretch.  You'll have to figure out which one yours is.  If the am is the problem you do have to keep naptime early and slowly push it back because with these little guys and gals you miss the nap window and they're done--no nap.  With my dd she was the opposite.  If there was too long a stretch between nap time wake up and bedtime she would become very overtired and either be a beast getting down and/or wake in the night or wake up very early in the morning.  If your little one has been going down pretty well for the nap and waking in the night I suspect she has more of a problem with pm overtiredness.  what I did with my dd was figure out her maximum comfortable awake time in the afternoon by watching when she first started getting tired signs after her pm nap  with mine it's 5 hours .  she only naps for 1 1/2 hours so I know her nap has to start 6 1/2 hours before bedtime.  when my little one started resisting naps I just pushed it back 1/2 hour and while not painfree, it helped!  Good luck!   

[Florencia]

Oh Nicole im so sorry to see things are still wacky for you girls.  It is always the same, isn't it? here we have a lot of unexpected visitors when sleep training... i wish i could put a sign at the door: sleep training, either you help or dont come back in one week!....

How was last night? I remember you saying she had one 12.5 hour night instead of a 14 one... (you lucky girl!) but i don't know if this has been still happening. Is she shortening her nights? Nightwakings might also be caused for teething. How long do they last? is she screaming hysterically or just restless? what do you have to do to get her back to sleep?  For us, night wakings always have meant teething even though it takes us up to 1week to see the white bumps.

How are you finding the morning snack to boost her energy till nap? if the afternoon stretch is over 5.5 hours, what i do is make ds have a catnap in the car to avoid overtiredness. I remember lots of walks in the stroller and in the car when transitioning to one nap. It took us like 3 weeks to finally have a clue on his new schedule, so try to stay positive, because this change is a tricky one.

Good luck and keep us updated!

[NicoleW]

HI Ladies, thanks for all your help.
so, this was her day yesterday.
7:15AM AWAKE
12-1pm nap 
(woke with poopy bum)-she's done this everyday so i think that could cause the early waking-atleast paritally
6:30pm BED
11:30pm woke-crying.....held for about 1min.
6:15AM WOKE(YEAH Right!- laid her back down.c ried fora few minutes)
7:15aM UP FOR THE DAY

I am REALLY REALLY hoping this early waking and short naps passes. i've been living in bliss the last 6mo's..so i guess its my time:( lol...
any insight is appreciated!
Luv Nicole

[elfin]

It looks like you are on the right track!  Just keep at it and she will come around.

Keep us posted!