Almost 11 mths - difficulty napping

[Burmese3]

Hi

I just wondered if it is common for babies this age to not want to go to sleep during the day at this age.  Since about 2 weeks ago, she has been either:
1.  Missing the morning sleep or missing the afternoon sleep
2.  Not sleeping long during either of the morning or afternoon sleep (40 or 50 mins sometimes - occassionally 30 mins!)

From what I've read, babies typically drop to 1 sleep during the day at between 12 and 18 months.  But she's been off her sleeps at just over 10 months old.  Mind you, she dropped from 3 sleeps to 2 at around 5 mths old.

Do I persist, and keep trying for 2 sleeps during the day??  Have also recently extended out her 1st sleep until 10.15amish, it had been at around 9.30amish previously.

Routine roughly (it's a bit out of wack with daylight savings starting here in NZ):
6.40am - Wake
7am - breastfed
8.15am - solids
10.15am - sleep
11.00am - wake and breastfed
12.15pm - solids
2.45pm - asleep
3.45pm - awake and breastfed
5.15pm - solids
6.45pm - bottle and top up with breastfeed
7.10pm - asleep

I'm not sure if she is teething (I can't feel any new ones coming, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!!) - she's got 4 teeth at the moment.

Can anyone help?

[Mom to M&M]

If you limit the first nap to only 30 minutes, can you get a long nap 3 hours later?

[Burmese3]

Not sure, its always hit and miss.  eg. today, during the morning sleep I woke her up after 1hr 10 minutes thinking she might have a longer sleep in afternoon, but she only slept 50 minutes during the afternoon sleep.

Would 30 minutes be long enough?  I'm kind of scared that if I do this, she might not sleep long enough for the afternoon sleep and she'll be really overtired?

I also think she could be teething again.  She doesn't normally wake up when we put her to bed at night, but she was inconsolable tonight.  Didn't go to sleep until about 9pm and only when we gave some paracetamol.  Eek!

[Layla]

Dd1 was around 12 months when her naps went all over the place - short naps, missing afternoon naps, missing morning naps and i think around this age, they are starting to make the transition to 1 nap. Having said that, she was not on 1 nap comfortably until she was 15 months (3 months later) so I think 1 nap is not enough yet...its a balance b/n letting them sleep twice a day but having 1 short and 1 normal nap. For us, shortening the am nap worked really well. She only ever slept in the morning for an hour, so I would shorten it to 45 mins, then 30 mins and kept offering it to her until she dead-set refused to sleep in the morning. By shortening the am nap, she would still be "tired" enough to take a proper pm nap. On "bad" days, when she would only take a pm nap, I would offer her an earlier bedtime so that she would not get overtired and to try to avoid night wakings. The short am nap would take the edge off a little and help her stay awake till afternoon nap time.

Let me know how it goes
Layla

[Mom to M&M]

Great advice from Layla - and I agree. Likely the one hour 15 minute nap was still too much for your DD to need a long second nap. I'd shorten to at least 45 minutes, and probably less (30 minutes) at this point and then you should see a 1.5-2 hour second nap.

[Burmese3]

Thank you both for your wonderful advice.  This morning I checked to see if any teeth, and I can see a tiny bit of grey/white along the gumline, so it must be another tooth coming through. 

Ashlee slept 1hr 5 mins this morning, and 1 hr 15 mins this afternoon (which I am happy with - she's never really been one to nap for a long period, 1.5 hrs each nap would be the max).  We had to wake her up both times today. 

The afternoon nap is usually a pain (because her morning sleep is now later).  If we put her to bed too early in the afternoon (less than 3.25 to 3.5 hrs of activity time), she takes ages to go to sleep, then ends up sleeping past her feed time, and its also getting too late in the afternoon.  I try not to let her sleep past 4.15pm.

I'm putting it down to teething at the moment, but if she continues to do the strange sleep patterns, I will definitely try to reduce the AM sleep time.

Thanks.

[Mom to M&M]

Sounds good - let us know how you get on.