cant get it right

[mrsrobbo]

Hi everyone,
Im having trouble getting Bradleys naps right. When i was working (up until last week when i quit) it was fine, he would be out all morning and sleep for 1.5 hours after lunch. we had a routine and everything was good. Now its not so good. He will not go to sleep! We dont go out every morning now and these are the worst days. he wakes around 7 and by 9am he is looking so tired, and is rubbing his eyes etc. I put him back to bed and he just gets out of bed each time and starts playing with his toys. He never does this at night. I put him back to bed but the same keeps happening. I have tried letting him nap in his pushchair but he just screams. If I get him up again and let him play he winges because he is tired. Some days he will go past it and be fine and have his usual afternoon nap, other days he is soooooo grumpy!
Here is his schdule

7am wake and bottle
7.45 Breakfast
9am getting tired....sometimes he will have an hours nap
10am snack
12 noon lunch
1pm Nap
3pm walk the dog (we do this every day)
3.30pm snack
5pm tea
6.30 bath
7pm bottle story and bedtime

obviously we have other activities going on but they change. So what am I doing wrong?? and ideas?

Bev

[binxyboo]

Here is a post I wrote earlier today showing the schedule that works best for us at 16 months






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Here is our average routine at 16 months.

7-8: wake
Breakfast, playing etc.
Has his lunch and milk and is asleep by
12-2/3: Nap
Play, walk, dinner, bath, milk
7-8: Bed

So we have some natural variablility in our day, as I don't wake him to start the day, just go on his cues for nap which has turned out he's usually fast asleep by noon. I find any later he tends to sleep less and then fights bed time. I'd say we get between 13-15 hours of sleep per day depending. Well, 15 is about once a week or so....

It took us a while to get used to one nap. For a while he would go down at 11:30. 

[PeepersMom]

Is it only his first nap that he is giving you trouble with?

I know we had the exact same schedule as you before we did the transition and I had 2 options.  1) stretching him with longer A time in the morning to get a nap in, which in turn was pushing everything back and bedtime back even further, or 2) start the transition to 1 nap. 

So you could try putting him down at 10am for first nap, let him nap an hour, then 2pm for second nap.  That worked well for us, but then bedtime was 8 and it was too late for him.  As a result of the later bedtime,  he was waking earlier.  So that was when I decided to do the transition to 1 nap. 

Good luck

Meg

[mrsrobbo]

Thanks for your replies. Up until last week he was only having 1 nap as I was at work (in a daycare place and he came with me), we got home around 11.30, he would have lunch then go straight down for a nap with no trouble. If we go out in the morning to toddler group or swimming he only has 1 nap then. Its just the days we stay in! he gets sleepy but wont sleep. I vary his activites, we play outside, he has a playroom in the basement, we do paintings etc. But by 10am he is sooooooo grumpy, nothing pleases him, i know he wants to sleep but he wont. i dont want to get in any bad habits, i know i could cuddle him to sleep, he almost went off that way today but i have never done that and dont want to start now!!!

[PeepersMom]

OK, well that 10am sleepy hour isn't unusal at all when you are trying to transition.  They get really grumpy around 10, go to the llllllooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg thread on 2-1 transition on the nap board and you will see almost every person there complains about 10am.  And for a handful of us 4 pm is bad, too. 

We go outside, have a snack, some sort of activity to get through.  For a while he wouldn't take the snack - probably from fatigue b/c he loves to eat - but if I kept trying he would take a little something that would keep him going to lunch.  But the key is a snack at 10am.  maybe something easy to eat, like applesauce and a cup of milk to sip on? 

So now my ideal life would be
7 am wake  cup of milk/handful cheerios
8 breakfast
10snack
1130 lunch
12 -2 nap
2 snack
5 dinner
6:30/7bedtime

I think that what you are experiencing/describing is totally normal.  They just need to get used to it. 

Meg

[mrsrobbo]

thank you so much! it helps to know its not my fault