need advice for the 2-1 nap switch with 17 mo PLEASE!

[Gigismom]

ok, so i thought that the sleeping issues were supposed to get easier...

a few months ago, gianna started taking 1 nap a day.  it was a total disaster.  she was so cranky.  getting her to bed at night was a fight.  and then she went back to 2 naps a day.  but as of today, we are back to trying 1 nap a day.  and today sucked.  she was soooooo fussy.  and then came bedtime...holy crap she was freaking out.  i ended up having to rock/walk her to sleep.

so my main question here is:  when your lo switched to 1 nap, how much earlier did you bring the bedtime back?  i put her down an hour earlier than usual because she only napped a little over an hour today total (usually gets 3 hours of naps when taking 2 naps) so she looked sooooo tired when we put her down.  i am thinking that she freaked so bad tonite cause i put her down the whole hour earlier than usual.  (this is a kid who likes her routine to vary by no more than 5 mins, thank you very much).  she kept pointing at her bedroom door and when i would tell her we weren't going out, she lost it.  so did i put her down too early or too late?

[kim&savannah]

We've never had a set time for bed--it was more like 5 hours after waking from the last nap, or something, so I pulled it back according to how long she'd been awake and if she was starting to act grouchy.

It does take awhile (like, weeks, or even months for some kids) to adjust and its kind of messy in the meantime.  Savannah started by skipping her afternoon nap some days, but not always, and then it just got where she was taking it less and less, and her morning nap got later and later.

Of course, night sleeping had always been a nightmare for us, so I have no idea how much was due to the changing and how much was our girl being our girl. 

If Gianna is really used to a certain time, you might want to see if you can keep the bedtime closer to that--it may not work, but maybe her night is so set in stone that she'll make up the sleep somewhere else.  Whatever you decide to do, just stick with it for awhile before you give up. 

Good luck!

~Kim

[imsmum]

I replied to your other post as well--I think the big jump in nap time and trying to go cold turkey on the one nap won't work for your dd especially if she loves routine.  I would defintely check our the Tracy's method for the gradual transition to one nap set out in BW Solves All your Problems where the am nap is pushed  back 30 minutes at 3 day increments and a pm cat nap is offered but kept short until the am nap is around 11:30 and has lengthened to around 2 hours. 

[Gigismom]

hi
actually we have been pushing the am nap back for about a week now.   and when i put her down for the pm nap, she cried, so i ended up driving her in the car for about 30 mins.  she did seem genuinely tired at the pm nap, but the grandparents were here bringing her all sorts of new toys everyday for the past week, so i just chalked it up as her being too excited to sleep.  but then yesterday, after the grandparents left, and i tried putting her down for the am nap, she cried at that one as well.  so that is why we ended up trying the one nap yesterday.  i guess it just seems like all signs are pointing to the move to one nap.  so i thinkthat the move to one nap is the only option now, right? 

i guess i'm just wondering if it is such a bumpy road for everyone or is it just  my lo who has problems cause she is so set in her routine?

[imsmum]

Lindsey--

It took us 4 months of short naps, night wakings and early wakings before things got somewhat sorted out and I think that there are quite a few others in the same boat based on the postings on this board.  My lo would not take the 2nd nap either, I'm sure it's the preferable route if you can do it, but  sometimes these lo's just don't co-operate.


Regarding the length of the interval between nap wakeup and bedtime you obviously want to keep it as long as possible so that you don't get an obscenely early w/u time but not so long that your dd is overtired and either wakes in the night or starts shortening her night sleep which seem to be 2 common side effects to transitioning to 1 nap.!  I know Tracey and some other sleep experts recommend that there be no more than 5 hours between nap w/u and bedtime.  I think you need to stick with a super early bedtime while you try at the same time to push the nap close to 12 or 12:30.  She may not have been tired last night because she sounds like an otherwise pretty well rested little girl and maybe wasn't feeling the effects of the short nap immediately.  After a few days though it really catches up with them so just keep up with the early bedtime and guaranteed she'll be falling asleep a lot earlier soon.