Afternoon Nap nightmare

[momofnewbaby]

Hello everyone, I am in the process of moving my 15 month old to one nap a day, and we're upto 11:15 and she only takes a 30 minute nap at that time. The other nap is also only 30 minutes, since she can't go thru to bedtime on this one nap, so she ends up taking another nap at around 3:30-4. Her bedtime is between 7 and 7:30, and wakeup anytime between 6 and 7.

What am I missing? She used to nap well, taking two 1.15 naps till about three weeks ago, and since she's npt able to get a good nap she is cranky all the time, but if I try to put her back in the crib, say after an hour, she screams and screams, bringing the house down.

Please help, 1/2 hour is not enough for me to do anything, much less have any You time. I would apprecaite any help. Oh, and she is going thru' a huge separation anxiety phase, could that have anything to do with her naps going haywire?
Sumita

[zelkad]

The only thing I can think of is that you need to hang in there until her first nap ends up being around 12:30 or so.  Even then, she probably won't nap more than 30/40 minutes for a bit.  We switched to one nap now over the past month (our little guy is younger too....he started refusing his second nap right after he turned a year)  He was also having 2  - 1.5 hr naps a day and a 11-12 hour night sleep.  ANyway, after (I hate to say it) a month, things are "normal" again.  He now has a 7-7 night sleep and one afternoon nap of about 2 hrs (12:30-2:30)  A few times he'll sleep longer (3hrs) but not usually.  Sometimes it's even 1.5 hrs. (how I do miss the morning and afternoon naps of 1.5 hrs each!)

I know it would be hard, but is there any way that you could do something to distract her from her second nap?  I realize she's cranky but maybe if she isn't allowed to catch up on sleep in the late afternoon, perhaps her first nap would eventually lengthen.  Or, you could allow her the second nap until you eventually get her first nap to fall about 12:30.  Then, ideally, she would be able to last until 7.  I so understand your frustration.  The whole month we transitioned was full of 45 min daily naps, early wakings, crankiness, etc.  Know that it has to get better and it will!!

Hang in there!
Zelka

[Sylvia.]

look it does sound like you dd is ready for 1 nap, just see how it goes, when dd went to one nap a few months ago it was very difficult at first everything changed but it didn't last long, it interfered with lunch and she started having early morning wakes as well, if you are sure that you are going to move your lovely dd to 1 nap try and extend her wake time till noon, can you do a favourite acticity, go for a walk, bath, ... anything, hang in there it will sort itself out

[momofnewbaby]

Thanks guys for your support. I believe she is ready for one nap, I just didn't know it took a while to fall "into place." Thanks for letting me know it could take upto a month to sort itself out, and until then I just have to hang in there, try to deal with her crankiness as best as I can, and hope that it happens soon, so she is getting ample sleep.

Thanks again.

Sumita