Some nap help please

[Mom2X&F&V]

Hi. I am not sure if I should post here or in toddlers, but it has been such a terrible napping week. She is not sick or teething, and is eating great. She crawls and cruises, and is learning to walk, but her naps and A time are so different that I do not know what to do anymore.  She hopefully sleeps from 7 to 7 straight. Or so was she.

She was sleeping at 10:30 am. now she shows tired cues at 9:30 or so. I wait until 10 to put her to sleep and she goes to sleep by herself with her blankie immediately. At exactly 1 hour later she wakes up crying, and sometimes happily playing, and that is her morning nap. It used to be 2 hours. Now she only has 1 hour, and earlier!!! 

So this should sound great, but her afternoon nap usually at 2:30 is now at 2, and only 20 or 30 minutes!!!! I tried to extend this nap for 4 months now, but we usually are at MILīs house or momīs, and it is impossible.
So at 7 she was so overtired that I have been putting her to sleep at 6:30 or 6, and she wakes up at 5 am.   

I do not know what else to do. I tried extending her A time, but she is so tired and begs me to put her to sleep at 10. I tried to extend so maybe switch to 1 nap, and she slept 20 min and woke up overtired.
At this point i am lost of how much her A time should be , and how long her naps. Like what is the aproximate normal time of naps and A time. I am lost...

So any suggestion will be really appreciated....  I do not want to have an overtired baby... Should I extend her A time by distracting her? Please help me out here. Thanks.
TIA

[alyssa1]

I'm so sorry to hear what you are going through because I too know all about overtired and short naps.  My son has recently started to wake up after 20-30 min. and does not want to go back to sleep but is clearly still tired and crying.  My son is 16 months and will sleep 7:30-6:30am with nap1 at 10-10:30 and nap2 from 2-2:30 and then if I can get him back to sleep, he will sleep for 40min. more.  I am kinda lost as well but I wanted to let you know that you're not the only one out there.  What we have tried to do is give him his short morning nap and then extend the afternoon nap with the same bedtime.  At first we thought he needed to switch to one long nap but he cannot stay up in the morning late enough.
For her morning nap, do you find that when you see her start to get tired you try to extend it to later?  I know we always shot for 10am but now if he is tired at 9:30am, we sometimes lay him down then.  I have heard that when they show tired signs as they get older, they need to go down right away or they will be overtired and wake up unhappy/short nap.  Also, is she walking yet?  I know this changed my sons sleeping dramatically - he was overtired a lot during that time.
I know you say how hard it is to extend the afternoon nap - what have you tried??  We try to extend this nap as well by doing pd with wi/wo or sometimes just our hand on his back for a few min. will calm him back to sleep.  We have had no luck extending morning nap but by afternoon he is so tired that he will more than likely go back down.
I think you are doing the right things.  Maybe she is just going through an adjusment to something that is happening right now (beginning to walk, teeth, change at the house) - can you think of anything that might have set this off?
Sorry, not many ideas but I honestly know what you are going through.

[Florencia]

Hello Daniela, i hope we can figure her out...

You could try to extend the activity time with a snack in the moment she starts showing tired signs. You say she's eating great so maybe her becoming more mobile is making her burn calories faster so she needs some extras to hold on through the mornings. If you can post what her usual day looks like we can think of something.

I beleive she's too young to go on one nap, i think you should stick to the 2 naps a day even if the evening one is short. If we can get her to take that second nap closer to 230-300 even if she has a short one there, she will manage to go bed in good shape (not overtired). But for her to hold on to 230 or even 300 she needs to have a decent nap in the morning.

The A time for babies that age varies with teh temperament of the baby. Most of the babies i've seen her hold on for 3 hours, mine did for 4-4.5 at that age, some others take a super early morning nap and are willing to stay awake for a long period between nap1 and nap2.

If you say that she's been waking earlier since you put her to bed earlier, go back to your usual bedtime so she gets her full 12 hour nights. We can try with the daytime naps and see what makes her be rested and happy till bedtime.

You say that she's super tired at 9 so by that time you can try to give her some crackers/cheese/yoghurt/fruits by that time. As they approach to toddlerhood they're more into snacks than into big meals, since they're too busy exploring, they don't want to sit for long and have a full meal. At least that's my experience. We used to do 3 meals when he was a baby and as long as he learnt to stand up and cruise we had to go to the 5 meal scenario (3 strong meals -not as strong as the ones we used to do- and 2 snacks).

Also when toddlerhood appears their tired cues are shown even if they're not sleepy. I found also that when ds was whiny sometimes he was hungry or bored and at the beginning i mixed it up and thought it was tiredness.

So basically, the advice before looking at her schedule is keeping the timings consistant and tank her up in the A time so she can hold on for longer and then, take good naps. It doesn't matter if the 2nd nap is short cause in a couple of months she might be transitioning to one nap a day so if she's getting her 12 hours at night we should only worry to fit 1.5 hours of sleep (if we can get more, it will be great, but we should not stress about it) during daytime. So nap 1 being 1 hour and nap 2 being 30-45 mins should be enough for her as long as she's not overtired when going down.

Will be waiting for her schedule to think about something else. HTH!

[Mom2X&F&V]

Thanks a lot on your replies!
Well here is her schedule...

7:00 wake up and play in crib
7: 30 diaper change, play with dad and 4 oz mil, sometimes only 2
8:30 Brekkie (4 oz fruit with trouble, sometimes 2, and a cookie)
9:46 juice in sippy wonīt take much, few Corn Pops. (if she take snacks she does not eat at all)
10:00 Nap... 'till 11 this past week, past weeks until 12:00
12: 30 Big meal (Chicken/meat/fish and veggies + milky dessert
2 snack sometimes peas or corn or a bread stick
3 pm nap (this was past weeks, now she naps at 2 or 2:30)
4:30 or 5 Dinner (swiss cheese (Danonino), vegetable + beans or lentils or ham)
7:00 8 oz milk

The thing is that the way it was before was OK eventhough she was on a 30 min nap in the afternoon. She would nap at 3 or 3:30 so at 7 she was ready, and not overtired.

Now if she naps at 2 she will wake up at 2:30 and then until 7 is way too much time. So this is the main problem, her afternoon nap. The other big problem is that always since she was born we eat at MILīs or at Momīs place. So we are always out of the house. She sleeps in a swing at motherīs house 30 min., and at MILīs in a Pack and Play again only 30 minutes. Do you think it is possible to extend this nap if we are not home? Believe me, Iīve tried for long enough; but I will try again if she needs it, but I do not know how.

If I offer her a snack instead of sleeping sometimes she throws things to the floor, she hates at this time her booster seat.

Also when toddlerhood appears their tired cues are shown even if they're not sleepy. I found also that when ds was whiny sometimes he was hungry or bored and at the beginning i mixed it up and thought it was tiredness.

I think this may be happening, she is maybe bored  and not necessarily tired, so that is why her morning nap is getting earlier. But sometimes she is really tired, and not interested in playing anymore. Who knows? 
I can not complain as she is sleeping 12 hours, and this past days she came back again in sleeping until 7, but at 7 pm she is overtired (I take her to a ride to the park or keep her busy playing with her), no problems at all, but she is whining the whole afternoon after her 30 min nap.
So, any thoughts?
Thanks a lot again for your help!

[Florencia]

So we could start working with nap 2 so either she extends it or manages to make it to 3 pm when she'll be more likely to hold on to bedtime even if she has a short nap.

I beleive we should work on making her hold on till 3 since you say you've tried long enough for her to extend the nap without success. We can follow this route since her 12 hour nights are still intact (yep im afraid to announce that you should prepare yourself for some night wakings, early mornings and awful stuff when toddlerhood is definetly in your home... but let'snot talk about it now ok? who knows, maybe she won't get the sleep bug!)...

You can try to extend the put down time 15 mins for 3 days. You can do it for nap1 and nap2 and that will buy you a good 30 mins so she won't be that tired for bedtime. Hopefully she'll nap for longer once she goes tob ed a little later. If she's doing the same (or worse) by day 3, you stay with the timings for another 3 days, cause you have to give each measure 1 week trial to see if it's really working. If she's napping better, then you can adventure to extend the put down time another 15 mins.

For snacks, i think you could try to feed her some more. You say she won't eat if she snacks, so that's your call but i ahve found that my son eats better when i split the meals as opposed when he was a baby. When he didn't walk if he ate a snack that was for the day, he wouldn't eat more. But once he got mobile he got so active that now he needs a boost every couple of hours. He still eats the same amount but now it's splitted. We don't do snacks on the highchair, more like i give him some cereal (fruit loops his fav or some crackers with cheese or jello) in small chunks with my/his fingers while we play or watch tv. I used to put some cartoons also when trying to extend the awake time so he wouldn't be bored and tired of doing the same things over and over. HE was more likely to take the snacks with tv or books than just seated. He's a very picky eater as Xime is so you might find this helpful too.

Since you'll be trying to extend the awake time in 15 min increments, it's less likely she'll be overtired for the nap. That along the snacks and a different entertainment (that is if you play with toys in her a time, for the extra awake time you should read, watch tv, sing or do something else)  should give us some light.

Another thing about the snacking, you can break up meals, that is you can give her the fruit and a few corn pops  for breakfast and at 945 give her the cookie and the juice. The same amount of food only that you give it close to the time she gets tired and whiny.

Keep us posted so we can tweak it if needed!!!!! good luck!