13mo - 1,5 hour nap - A time too short or too long?

[nathansmum]

Hi!

I've got a quick question: DS is 13months old and we have recently switched to 1 nap (it's still a little akward on some days...) but he usually only takes 1,5 hour naps. I kind of feel that this isn't enough because after a day or two the tiredness kind of builds in and he needs an earlier bed time or an extra catnap.

I'm wondering if he isn't sleeping longer because his A time is too long or too short? or if it could be something else...

Thanks for any input!
marilyn

ps: am I on the right board or should I be posting on the Toddler sleep board?

[Layla]

Hi Marilyn, I do think that 13months is about the average when lo's start to make a transition to 1nap. And although some are quiet happy to go straight to 1 nap, others need a little nap tweaking in the process. You can either have a long am nap and offer a catnap in the pm.... taking every few days to try to push that long nap closer and closer to middle of the day. Or you could have a catnap in the morning and offer a longer pm nap. With my dd for example, I had her taking a catnap in the morning - I almost always had to wake her up thou and so she would be tired enough in the afternoon. I would first limit it to 45mins then 30 mins until she dead set refused to sleep in the morning. But I do remember very clearly that some days she would be quiet happy to stay awake till like 11pm, so I would then offer some lunch, give her a nap around 11.30 and hope that it would be a long one  . If the nap was only 1hr (which did occur on many days), I would try to offer another nap in the late afternoon but more often than not, she would refuse it so I would opt for an early bedtime. Every 3rd day or so, she would be taking 1 nap and others it would be 2naps. Honestly, it is a matter of 2 is too many and 1 is not enough. She finally transitioned at around 15/16 months but it took me forever to find a happy-medium and until I started waking her from the am nap, she would just sleep in the morning for 1hr and then nothing for the rest of the day. Eventually what you want is A time of about 5.5hrs before naptime and bedtime. If your lo thou is showing signs of going back and forth from 2 naps to 1 nap to 2 naps, thats ok too. That was the case with my lo anyway.

In regards to early bedtime - I was the queen of early bedtime if/when my lo only would sleep 1hr in the morning. She would go down for the night as early as 5.30, if not 5pm sometimes . That's extrememly early, I know, but considering that her nap would end at say 10am...she was awake for 7hrs and would fall asleep as soon as I would put her in the cot.

HTH
Good luck
Layla

[nathansmum]

Thanks for your reply! This was extremely encouraging.
When you did an early bed time, how were her nights? Did she wake up earlier? Did she sleep good although she had stayed up for so long?

thanks again!

[imsmum]

Marilyn--what are the A times?  Maybe you could post a schedule.

[Layla]

In our case, we had lots of nightwakings. Mine got overtired real quick. I only went to find out about the transition when I joint this site and by that time things got really bad (night wakings and early morning wake ups, not napping, tantrums, etc....). So, I kind of experimented until we found the best way to keep her rested. Putting her to bed early did help but she still had restless nights mainly cause she was overtired. Her am nap always started around 9am so she would only sleep for 1hr and then be awake 7hrs till bedtime. Her normal bedtime was usually 6.30pm so that would have been waaay too many hours to be awake so I had to bring it forward.

My rule was that... if she was not asleep for her am nap by 9.30, then I would keep her awake till midday (or try to at least until 11.30ish). That was just my thing thou cause I found that if she was falling asleep after 9.30 for her am nap, she would refuse the pm nap. She was never much of a catnapper in the car or stroller so it was hard for me to offer her catnaps in the afternoon - she would just play in her cot. On the days that the am nap was not taken, I used to take her out of the house (made it a little easier to deal with her tiredness), come back close to 11. Offer split lunch and off to bed.

I also had a theory that if she would have an early bedtime, she would wake up more rested in the morning and not need the am nap so much. It really depended on what kind of a night she had and the time she would wake up. If she woke up before 6am (which, again in my case hapened alot), I would most certainly offer her an am nap (but still limited it to say 45mins). If she had a decent night and wake up around 6/6.30 or sometimes till 7am, I would still offer the am nap but she would not always take it so then it would be lots of outside/inside stimulation in the hope that she would be taking a long pm nap.

An early bedtime will not always help if your lo has been up for 7-8hrs. They still get overtired and don't always sleep good at night. This was the worst of the transitions for me, mainly because I was 9 months pregnant with #2 at the time this all hapened and then the baby came home, new change, and she refused to nap altogether for a few days. I was really scared of creating a nightwaking habit by going to her all the time but believe me, it will pass. We just used to go to her and pat her back until she was falling asleep. As soon as she was better rested, the nightwakings stopped and she didn't need us again.

Sorry to ramble on, but I hope this helped. Sorry, I did forget to ask about your day...maybe like imsmum suggested if you post your routine, it will be more clearer of what your lo does.

Layla

[nathansmum]

On a good normal day  Nathan goes to bed @ 8pm and wakes around 8am
I offer a snack around 10am when he starts getting a little cranky
lunch around 11:45
Nap around 12:30-45 (he usually naps 1.5 hours)
so about 2:00 -15 I offer another snack
Diner around 5
7pm the 4 B's - bath, bottle, books and bed 

Today however was a weird day... For some unknown reason he didn't sleep well last night and woke early so I thought he might need 2 naps today - well I was wrong! I put him down for a nap around 11:00 - he slept for 30-40 min. I then offered another nap around 3:00 and he napped for 15min - IF AT ALL!    I guess 2 naps are not for him anymore...

[imsmum]

I would say your morning A time is too short ie the nap is too early which may be why he woke early in the morning.  There is usually 5.5 to 6 hours of A time before nap and 5 to 5.5 after.  Of course that all depends on how long nap and night sleep are.  If he's getting 12 hours at night he should probably be getting his longest A time in the morning since he is well rested  and with the 1.5 hour nap and 12 hour night , so you might want to do 5.5 in the morning and 5 after nap.  HTH

[nathansmum]

Thanks! It does help! I thought it was about the lenght of A time but they get us so scared about our LO's getting overtired that I didn't dare stretch him anymore than this... Especially since he sometimes seems very tired at lunch time. Could this be just because he is sitting still doing nothing except eat?

Thanks again!

[nathansmum]

Ok - so today, I put him down @ 1pm and he played in his crib untill 1:15 but then woke after half an hour 
What's this about? He went to sleep without any problem... had been up for a little over 5 hours... he had however had a bad night's sleep...

Anyway, I am prensently hoping that he will go back down. He needs some rest as we are going to see Doc tonight for yet some more shots. Oh dear! I hope I'm not screwing things up...

[Layla]

Tbh, in our case, for a while I thought mine was ready for 1 nap but it backfired and she went back to 2 naps for a few weeks again. I would still offer the morning nap for as long as possible, especially if he is getting cranky way before lunch time. In my case if my lo was overtired, she would take a really short nap. Try to offer a catnap before bedtime if he doesn't return to sleep. I always left mine in the cot to play for the duration of the nap (say 1.5hrs) in the hope she would fall back asleep.

Let us know how it goes
Layla

[nathansmum]

Well, Nathan finally ended up going back to sleep and got up a little before 3. Did great for his shots - although NOT pleasant. And went to bed at7:45pm. We heard him a little around 10 but never had to go in and didn't hear him the rest of the night. Yippee!

He got up this morning at 8:15 and I have just put him down for his nap 12:50 - he is prensently playing in his crib but I know he is tired as he was giving me BIG yawns during his wind down.

Thanks for your help. I'll definitely let you know how things go.

[nathansmum]

Ok! - so things have been going pretty much ok for the past week... I'm wondering if last week was weird just because he had started to walk completely unassisted and if that would have disturbed his napping.

This week, he has been seemingly close to normal with wake times around 7:45 in the mornings (1\2 hour earlier than his past 8:15am - but otherwise normal for a baby) and he's been having great mornings with a little crankiness around snack and lunch times - probably caused by hunger. He's been going down well around 1pm-ish. But I think I need to bring it earlier a little bit since he's been waking earlier in the am and he wakes after 1hour nap not rested. It's usually easy to get him back to sleep though. I'll be trying things a little to figure this one out and we'll see what comes out of it.

So things seem good! hurray!
I just have a little question: when they switch to one nap, do a lot of LOs get really sleepy at lunchtime and what does this mean - other than 'I'm tired'. I mean, should the lunch be a little earlier and let them play after before their nap or should nap be sooner also, or is it just normal tiredness that I should just overlook and put him down as regular?

thanks for your input!

[nathansmum]

Here is another thought... Could it be that his waking after an hour just means that he needs to re-learn how to sleep long naps now that he has switched to one instead of 2 and I just need to help him do that?

[Layla]

Marilyn, so good to hear that Nathan is doing well!!! 

Isabella wakes around 6idh and has her nap starting anywhere from 12-12.30pm. She could go to sleep as early as 11am and no later than 1pm for a nap (if I put her down that early/late)... but she is able to hold off until I put her down. I think their bodies get used to deling with tiredness a little better  , In regards to lunch, you can give it to him just before he goes to sleep (which is what I try to do) and if he's not interested, give him a snack before nap and lunch just after he wakes (which is what Isabella does, tbh). I don't really let her play sooo much after lunch, its more or less eat, wash up (brush teeth) and then to her room for a book and then nap.

At the start the naps only lasted 1hr for us as well and it wasn't until about 1 month after the transition that she started sleeping longer. She was ok thou with 1hr nap so I didn't bother trying to extend it. You could try to extend by w2s, but I just waited until she on her own slept longer. She now naps for 1.5-2 hrs (which is the norm, I think).

Keep us posted
Layla

[yaya]

hi marilyn ,we have similar issues altho DS has been on 1 nap for a while now and his naps are averagely 1.5hrs, sometimes up to 2hrs but usually needs resettling. Have u tried resettling when he wakes after 1.5hrs? Have u tried w2s?
i have actually come to the conclusion that he doesnt need more than this as no amount (more or less) of A time made any diff and he seems perfectly happy when he wakes.