Author Topic: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!  (Read 1371 times)

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Offline alyssa1

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Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« on: May 10, 2006, 13:48:23 pm »
I posted this here about 1 month or so ago and really got some useful hints that I thought had taken care of our issue.  But, we seem to be going through the same thing again.  Here is my son's schedule.  He is almost 16 months. 

6am wake/bottle - this has been getting earlier again.  This morning 5:45am
7:30 breakfast
9:30 snack
10:00 - nap1 - He is so tired by now but he will only nap sometimes 30 min. and wake up screaming tired.  He was napping 40 min. but it has shortened again.
10:30-12 - Play time
12 lunch with bottle
1:30/2 pm - nap 2 - Again he is so tired that he goes down within 5 min. but will only sleep 20-30 min. and wake up screaming tired.  We go into his room, lay him down and tell him it's still sleep time, then we leave.  After a few min. sometimes he will go back to sleep for 30 more min. (sometimes  :-\).  If not, we get him up and he is so so tired for the rest of the day.
2:40-4:30 - Play time with snack
4:30/5pm - dinner
6pm - bath then bottle then quiet games
7pm - bedtime.  He goes down within 5-10 min. with very little crying and sleeps till 6am - No night wakings  :)

Our big problem before was getting him to go down for his nap - this used to take 30min.-1hour before but now he will get to sleep on his own within 5-10 min.  We do quiet games/books/puzzles at least 15 min. before each nap, diaper change, small snack, say night night to everything and he goes to sleep on his own in his crib.  1 month ago I though he was ready to do 1 nap so we tried for 3 solid weeks but this lead to night wakings and terrible days so I went back to 2 naps and they were ok for awhile but now I am back to early mornings and really terrible day sleep.  I know that he is overtired almost all the time but I am lost on how to correct it.  If I try to do 1 nap again, he might only sleep for 30 min.???? That is not enough for the whole day.  And if I push up his morning nap, he will be really overtired for it - I guess he's already overtired by 9:30am anyways?????  I'm so puzzled????  We have checked his mouth and no new teeth, he is healthy and happy the rest of the time apart from tired because the little rascle only has short crappy naps???

OK any advice???  Should I just be happy he sleeps through the night and make due with the bad day sleep??  I really want to fix this so he can have good days without being tired.

Offline imsmum

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2006, 18:02:34 pm »
I do think he needs to go to one nap.  Can you just slowly start pushing the morning nap back but try to keep the pm nap for a while until the am nap starts to lengthen.  Once the am nap gets longer you can drop to one nap with an early bedtime.  My dd had a long period (4 months) of adjusting to this one nap with night waking, shortish naps and early mornings.  I think it is something that happens to most lo's during this transition and is just something we have to ride out until they can adjust.  I know it's not much comfort but we are here for support.

Offline alyssa1

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2006, 18:42:00 pm »
I think you're right about the 1 nap thing but how do I get the nap to lengthen?  I can start pushing nqp1 back - this is what I did before but what happened was he would have 1 short nap for the whole day and then night wakings and early mornings.  And if he did have a 2nd nap in the afternoon it was so late in the day he wasn't sure if it was bedtime or not and then it messed up bedtime. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!   What a cycle! 
I just called my husband who is at home with him now and he had a 30 min. mornng nap and only 30 min. this afternoon.  He woke up miserable both times but refused to go back to sleep each time.  We have tried wake to sleep - big mess!, we tried being there when he woke doing pd with wo/wi - nope, crying-awful!!!  I'm just out of ieads on how to get the 1 nap to get longer?  I wouldn't have a problem switching to the 1 nap if it was longer than 20-30 min. but it never happens.  Should I just push up nap1 and hope for longer each day, not offer nap2 and do 6:30 bedtim?  If he goes to bed before that (we tried before) he is up at 5am as he will only sleep 11hours a night max????
Thanks for your advice - any more????  What would you do???? 

Offline imsmum

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2006, 19:47:20 pm »
With Margot we didn't have a choice about one nap--she just started to refuse the am nap which had only ever been 30 minutes anyway.  So we skipped her 10 am nap and just put her down at 11:30 and she napped for about 2 hours.  Unfortuantely that long nap didn't stick around and we had all the problems I described earlier, so I'm not sure that I can advise on how to make the transition well, just waht we did to try to sort out all the problems!  So if the gradual push back didn't work because it just shifted the whole routine you could try cold turkey and just push the nap back to 11:30.   

Offline alyssa1

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2006, 00:27:20 am »
 Thanks so much for the reply. I'm going to see how tomorrow goes.  I put him down at 6:45pm tonight and he was sleeping within 5 min.  Hopefully he will be well rested and not wake up too early then we will take tomorrow one day at a time.
Thanks again

Offline alyssa1

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2006, 16:59:54 pm »
So he was up again this morning at 5:45am - wow too early!
My sister is watching him today and when I called, she said he was really tired and had to lay him down at 10:15am but he only napped for 30min. and woke up really tired and upset.  I don't get it????

I might try what you suggested, just skip the morning nap all together and try for a later one.  Or should I try pushing it 15 min. every couple days?  The thing is, he's overtired at nap1 no matter what time it's at.  He could probably go for a morning nap at 9:30am he is usually so tired but then how would I fix anything if I did that.  And, he would probably only get a 30min. nap anyways!!!!  So frustrating. 

Offline Florencia

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2006, 17:06:38 pm »
I'm sorry the horrible 30 min nap monster has returned to your home. The good news is that lo is less reluctant to go back to sleep.

I remember in the past month when this was happening you were saying that your mom and husband also took care of ds. And that your mom had some success extending the naps when patting/shshing. I also remember you didn't want to interfere too much cause that would cause the no independent sleep problem you were experiencing.

Now that ds is going to bed easily, can you give that a shot? You say wi/wo gets him worked up. My ds found it quite distressing too. What we did when experiencing short naps was to only give one nap a day (only one struggle a day LOL) and to stay in the room as long as i wanted the nap to be. I set a 2 hour period and he'd be staying in his room being pat/shshed to sleep for the whole 2 hours even if he napped for only 20 mins. THe first days were rough cause he'd be crying hysterically the full 2 hours and he'd be a bear by bedtime. I had also set early bedtimes for that so he could make up for some missed zz's. I also found that nanny always told me: HE DIDN'T WANT TO GO BACK TO SLEEP... i was always a little suspicious of that "didn't want to" and i asked for a day off and that didn't want meant he would cry for 20 mins and she could'nt take it and took him out of the crib. We had a long talk and i convinced her that it was going to be hard but she needed to be on board with this whole thing doing exactly as i said cause otherwise she'd had a bad time taking care of him in the future and we'd have an overtired baby. She finally got it and the "didn't want tos" became it was hard but he went back to sleep. It was only a rough coupe of weeks and then he was napping for 1:45 hours. Since i still wanted 2 hour naps i kept staying in the room patt/shshing till i got it. It was clear he needed the extra sleep cause he was waking hysterically crying and being cranky. Once he passed the 2 hours his wakings are totally different.

So, the thing is a) going to one nap a day and making sure it lasts and b) getting everyone on board and "spying" on the caregivers to see if they're doing their job as it's supposed to ;) Sometimes is just a matter of misunderstandings on the methods and babies get confused with the lack of consistance.

Keep up the hard work! at least you saw some results over a short period so that means your lo can do it!
Mom to Manolo, spirited monkey and Jose Miguel, an angel cupcake

Offline alyssa1

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Re: Back to 20-30 min. naps!!!!!!!!!!
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2006, 17:36:01 pm »
Thank you for your encouraging words. 
I guess the real problem is going to bed getting the nap to extend past the 30min.   My son does not understand pat/sh - he thinks we are in the room to play with him and he just keeps standing up, running away in his crib and laughing.  That is why we did the pd with wo/wi after a few min. of letting him settle.  I guess the thing is - how long?  At first we were doing it for the 1.5 hours and consistently for days on end with no success.  My mom is kinda on board and my husband most definitly is.  My mom tries to stay in the room with him when he wakes up and this just ruins what we have taught him/to go to sleep on his own.
So do you think I should just go to one nap mid-day or as close to it as possible and do pd/wi/wo for the 1.5/2 hours until he gets it??  And also early bedtime for a few days?  He is so overtired even with the 2 short/crappy naps, I would be willing to ditch the one and work on the 2nd by extending it??
Thanks for the advice.