Napping (well, not napping) problems--please help!

[sbgrace]

Hi--I am new and desperate for some advice!
My 29 month old son has been having nap issues off an on for way to long now (I think it started about 18 months but we have spurts where things are fine and then it gets bad again---like missing weeks of naps).
He will go in his crib and just talk and play for the entire time. He is over-tired I know because he is sooo on edge and often says night night...until he gets there anyway! On the days he naps, he goes to bed fine (usually about 7:30 and sleeps until about 7 to 7:30 the next morning) but when he doesn't nap--especially after doing it for days--it can take hours for him to fall asleep and then he wakes very early the next morning. I think he is overtired at those points and just can't settle down for sleep. Often he will have a poo diaper at some point but I am positive it is because he is just in there awake and not the cause of his not sleeping.
I'll give an example. The only day he napped last week was Wed. and he didn't nap Monday of this week--we was exhausted and night sleep was getting worse and worse.
Tuesday he woke at about 7:00 a.m., nap at 1:30 until I woke him at 4:00, down for bed (happily) at 8:00. Of course I am scratching my head still because I did nothing different than any other day in the last two weeks. He was still asleep at 8 the next morning so I woke him.
Wednesday he said he was tired all morning then didn't nap when I put him down at 1:30. I got him out of bed at 3 (still awake and getting more and more so). I put him down for bed at 6 (so 1.5 hours early). He was still awake at 9:00 (about 1.5 hours after his normal bedtime). He woke the next morning at about 6 (1.5 hours earlier than normal). No more naps this week.
I guess that was a lot of detail. Basically, he skips naps and then he has a tough time falling asleep for the night even when I put him down early and wakes early the next morning--making him even more exhausted and less likely to nap the next day.
Help???

[Carmela's Mom]

My advice is to move nap time forward.  My daughter wakes anywhere between 6:30-7:30 in the morning.  Her nap is at noon.  I tried pushing it back to 1:00 and she skipped many naps!  I then moved it forward to 12:30 and she would still skip.  Once I moved it to 12:00, she has skipped two naps in two months.  I would love for her to nap later in the afternoon to give us more time at playdates and such, but right now she is stuck on her 12:00 nap.

So maybe you can try putting him down at 1:00 for a nap, if he still doesn't sleep, try 12:30, etc.  I think he's overtired by 1:30 and thus not sleeping.  Though its weird that he goes right to sleep when he does nap and not when he skips a nap.  My DD is the opposite.  The days she misses a nap, I am guaranteed for her to fall asleep in 3 minutes and the days she doesn't nap, it goes from 45 to 1.5 hours to get her to sleep!

[sbgrace]

I've wondered about that....here is the thing. Before our time changed he was waking between 6 and 6:30 and so I was putting him to sleep at 12:30. When the time switched we just let him wake at 7 to 7:30 and put him down at 1:30. I guess I'm thinking that noon is actually still 11 on his body clock. Still, it does make sense as really all our nap troubles started when we went to one nap so maybe I never had that one nap early enough for him....

[Florencia]

Along with the early nap, I'd suggest you to stick to a regular schedule in order to make him catch up. That is, if his average waking time is 730 am, then wake him at 730 am even if he went to sleep at 8-9 the prior night. Make naps at the same times and same with bedtimes. You have nothing to loose since he's already "getting used" to skip naps but much to win if you find a winning schedule. But first off he needs consistance in his schedules so he knows when nap/bedtime is.

Good luck and let us know about your progress, so we can come up with some tweaking ideas.

[sbgrace]

Do you think it is ok to put him to bed early (hoping he will sleep) on days he skips a nap? I have also thought of shifting bedtime a little later so he might sleep in later and then be able to make it better to his nap.

[Florencia]

Well... it's pretty much a guessing game but the majority of lo's around here do better with early bedtime on days the skip a nap or this one is really short. As hard as it is to beleive, they do better with an early bedtime and seem to sleep longer periods at night, helping wake up time to stay the same and hence, giving the oportunity to take a nap on the right time.

I'd suggest you to go with the early bedtime at least for 2 weeks and see if that improves the napping issue. You can also offer snacks and keep daytime activities really low key for him to hold on till naptime without being overtired. If, after 2 weeks of consistancy with schedules and ways, he still resists the nap, we can think of a different approach.

Good luck!