N/W during 2-1 transition

[PeepersMom]

Hi I do post on the nap board, but wondering if someone here has some other clues....

DS is 14+ mo and we started transitioning to 1 nap about a 3 weeks ago.  The first week was great as he took to the naps really well, then we went back to a few short naps, then long.  Then he got sick and slept horribly during the day.  He also started with night wakings.   

For over a week he has had short naps (less then 2 hours, mostly 1h15 min!) 1 time a day and most of the nights he has been awake for 1-2 hours.  Only one of them was early - 930 pm-11 pm with his crying the whole time.  The others have been totally random times and no crying just chatting and playing/squealing then suddenly back to sleep until the morning.

His 'routine' right now is

645/715am wake up
1145/12pm nap for 1h15 min
630pm bedtime.

He is pretty consistently getting a 12hour night sometimes 12.5 but he is also awake for an hour of it. 

He is sleepy in the morning getting to the nap.  But if he wakes up at 7am I don't really have time to squeeze in a second nap if I still want him down for the night by 7 (630 was adjusted to accommodate the shorter nap and the switch)

My long term goal is to get

7 am wake up
nap 12-2

bedtime 7/730

thanks for any info you can offer

Meg

[Andys mum]

Hi, thought I would offer our experience....it has been 3 months now since we went form 2 to 1 nap.....it was exactly as you described....short naps and night wakings! We were all of the place for a while. He is settled down now and his routine is 6.30 wake, 12.30 sleep (2 hrs) and 7/7.30 bed.  He still wakes occasionally at night if his teeth are hurting, etc....but all I can say that I did was be consistent and he finally got the hang of it himself. 

I got advice from here and basically the BW ideal is 7 wake, 1-3 sleep and 7.30 bed....and tweak to suit your baby.  I found that if I put Andy down between 12 and 1 he is fine...after that then I am in trouble and he is harder to settle. If he wakes from his nap after 1 hour or 1.10 I try and resettle him...if it has been an hour and a half I tend not to worry and go for a slightly earlier bedtime.   Likewise if he gets up at 6, I move everything forward 30 mins.  I also found if I put him down before 12 he tends to have a shorter nap so I stretch him to 12 even if he is up at 5!

During the transition I would say that I had to amuse him a lot in the mornings to take his mind off being tired..he still tends to wilt around 9.30 which is when his nap used to be....I give him morning tea around that time now and he peps up again!

Hope our experience helps,
Andy's mum

[PeepersMom]

YOur experience helps a lot!  especially the part about wilting around 930 - that is us.  Good to hear that it is normal, and doesn't necessarily go away. We do a lot of am activities.

I will stick with the schedule, and once he gets the hand of things I will try to adjust.  Actually - the other morning when he really slept in late I pushed his nap to 1220 and that was the one day he slept longer in the past week.  Hummmm

Thanks again

Meg

[Andys mum]

Glad it helped...Let us know how you get on.
Andy's mum

[imsmum]

Like Andy's mum we had the exact same experience as you when first transitioning to one nap.  For my dd keeping the interval between nap wakeup and bedtime was key--any longer than 5 or so hours and she would wake in the night, so an early to bed was key to get over the night wakings.  ( of course we then got early wakeups  but they were better than the endless hours of night waking)Also trying to have a set nap time and not varying it too much from day to day (ie setting the nap at 12 every day instead of say 5.5 hours after wakeup) really worked for us but dd is spirited and really needs a set routine. 

Margot always used to wake about 3 hours after going down--i think when she was transitioning from her deep sleep at the beginning of the night, to the lighter sleep.  I found if I went in immediately and just lay my hand on her she would go back right away.  No such luck with any wakings in the second part of the night unless I stood there with my hand on her for about an hour--which I did on occasion just to break the cycle of overtiredness.  The early bedtimes were really the only thing that solved those long wakings in the second half of the night for us.

It's really tough at first--sometimes it feels like there are just too many hours in the day for the amount of sleep that they get during the transition.  If your lo naps longer with an earlier nap time you may want to bring the naptime forward a bit until he starts napping longer but then start pushing it back 15 minutes every few days or so--some lo's have trouble making a big leap and need to have the AM nap time extended gradually--until you can get so he is napping 1.5 to 2 hours at least 5.5 hours after he wakes. 

Good luck and let us know if we can help you out some more. 

[PeepersMom]

thanks about the awake times.  Interesting b/c we did get a wake up last night 340-5am!  and he was up for 5.5 hours in the afternoon.  I am wondering what we were at the night before???  I wish I could remember b/c the night before he didn't have a wake up.

thank you I now how something new to log!

Time for nap