anyone want to chat about the 2-1 nap switch , thread#2

[Isabella's Mummy (Lilab4)]

slgregory - we are having similar troubles here. Isabella has always gone  down for the night with no problem and now we have crying EVERY night. I don't have any real advice, but I wanted you to know that you are not alone!! We are currently doing 5hrs A then 2 hr nap followed by 5hrs A. If she is very tired in the morning she has just 15 mins sleep at about 3.5hrs A to see her through til her lunch time nap. If we give her any longer it throws the day off and she actually ends up having less sleep which doesn't help. We are hoping that this is a phase and it will pass, maybe it is to do with adjusting to 1 nap?? We are going to have to shake things up again soon anyway as DH has been on summer hols, so we've been sleeping in, we will need to adjust her day earlier again next week and I can see it going horribly wrong!

[OliverRowland]

this transition takes forever.....is there a record for the longest time?!

[M and N's Mom]

this transition takes forever.....is there a record for the longest time?!

If there is, I think we've got a shot at it!  We started shortening DS's am nap around 11 mos and here we are at 18 mos and still can't get to 1 nap! 

And the crying at bedtime...we had 65 mins of wi/wo with DS screaming last night 

[MommaHolmes]

slgregory - have you tried cutting the am nap down a bit more? It's possible your LO needs more A time between naps. I think for most people it has worked out something like 40 mins sleep, 4 hrs A time, 30 mins / 3 hrs, 20 mins / 2hrs, although they're all different. We've struggled massively at bedtime during this transition, and taking 2 hrs to get to sleep at bedtime has not been unusual 

oliverrowland - how are things going for you guys?

new mum - sounds like there's a bit of improvement, but the extended NW are sucky. We seeeem to have cracked it with longer A times in the morning and shorter A times in the afternoon (just over 6 hours before nap, just over 4 hours before bedtime), he still wakes a couple of times at night but usually goes straight back to sleep and we're averaging 11.5 hr nights so huge improvement.

...having said that, I just spent 10 mins in his room ssshing him cos he woke an hour after falling asleep at bedtime (NOT at 7.20pm, we seem to have broken that particular habit!) and struggled to get back to sleep. He was verrrry sweaty tho so I presume either bad dream or teething.. 

[NiknLily]

slgregory
I am having exactly the same problems you describe with the wanting contact to fall asleep, refusing naps, NW's, teething, and had a short break end of July which she didn't really resettle from.

I'm not suggesting you do the same but what I have done, mainly because she just wont take 2 naps a day because of trouble getting to sleep, is do 1 nap.  We are doing 4.75 A in am, aiming for her to be asleep no later than 5hrs after wake up then depending how nap goes 4.5-5hr A time before bed.  Its not going brilliantly but on the whole things are starting to settle down, although today she only took a 1hr nap  1 step forward 2 steps back seems to be us at present.  With regard to settling to sleep Lily was wanting to be touched to sleep.  I am using gradual withdrawal at moment in an attempt to sort it out and we are making slow progress.  I have decided not to push this too hard tho as her getting some sleep and not being OT is currently more important and the longer it takes for her to settle the more OT she gets every day.

Sorry don't have any real advice but I do know just what your up against at moment.  I really really really HATE this transition.

[OliverRowland]

mommaholmes, thanks for asking.  we are ok...better than some but still NOT there.  we do at least 2 2 nap days a week.  we may try 4 1 nap days in a row next week (gulp).  right now our biggest challenge is sleeping thru naps.  ds wakes up but usually can be helped back to sleep b/w 5-10min.  and well, we still have early am's....but I think we are stuck with them.  i am trying to accept it.  it just makes it hard to have naps when others kiddos are having naps.  we eat lunch early so that we can be sleeping by 11:30-11:40.  c'est la vie!

[slgregory]

Thanks all for the support. It's nice to know others are in the same boat.   We're still trying the short am nap which we woke her from at 45 mins but then only slept 40 mins in the pm which is unusual.  I'm not looking forward to bedtime.  The only thing that seems to be working is to let her cry for about 5 mins and then go in and put my hand on her chest until she sleeps.  Luckily we haven't had the bad NW the last few days but with today's lack of naps I'm not hopeful for a continuing streak.  Oh well I'm back to work in 2 weeks anyways and it's all going to hit the fan then!  

We're finding that even with a short nap she's able to have 4 - 5 hours of Activity time.  Does this mean I should shorten the am nap even more?  I also had a colleague tell me she used to go every other day with 2 naps during this time.  Has anyone tried this?
thanks again

[NiknLily]

I'd say to shorten the nap more, if she can go 4-5hrs A time then your almost at the point of no return where you will have to do 1 nap or your run out of hours in the day.  When switching to 1 nap they need to be doing 4.5-5hrs A time so you really are almost there.

A lot of the mums alternate 1 nap & 2 nap days, some every other day, some do 2 days of 1 nap then a 2 nap then 2 days of 1 etc.  This really works well for some and other LO's seem to just end up getting more messed up by all the chopping and changing.  Lily seems to come in the latter category and now simply wont take 2 naps  so for us I think its just going to be a case of working through it and putting up with NW and EW until she catches up with the new routine.

Funny what you said about letting LO cry for few minutes before she will settle with hand on her, this is exactly like Lily, she had to get a little upset first or would just muck about and still not settle, whats with that 

[Charlotte07]

Oh my, is this thread ever busy! I hope someone out there can help.
I posted a message a while back, but haven't had a chance to write regarding our routine and due to the nap craziness.
It's pretty much been all over the place. The only thing that is consistent is bed time, she is down between 7:15-7:30 each night.

Our days used to be:

Wake around 5-5:30, nurse and sleep with me until 6:30 or so.
Nap 1 at 9:30-10, for an hour if lucky
Nap 2 at 1:30-2:00, again, about an hour.
Bed at 7:15-7:30

But it has all changed!!! She fights me during the morning nap. If she takes it, it starts about 30-50 minutes later, then it lasts only about 40 minutes, and then she fights the second nap. If she takes the second nap, it can be an hour, but then she fight bedtime. I tried one nap over the past couple of days because I was just tired of the nap/bedtime battles, and she did fall asleep quickly for her nap, but struggled a little at bedtime.

The past couple of mornings (following a one nap day) she has also refused to go back to sleep after waking in the early morning, so we started our day around 6:00. Sigh. However, the stretch of sleep was slightly longer than before.

What do you make of this?

She is closing in on 11 months, and these issues started about 3 weeks ago. She has also stopped displaying the tired signs I had grown accustomed to. No eye rubbing or yawning really.

Any advice is hugely, hugely appreciated.

[Charlotte07]

Hi,
I also wanted to ask what you all do for wind down? I wonder if that could be the problem. I normally put her in a sleep sack and sit in a chair and sing to her and then put her in the crib. Used to work like a charm...but now she starts fussing as soon as I put her in the sleep sack and cries in the chair as I sing. I have rocked her a little the past few days until she stops crying and looks drowsy, then put her in the crib. She'd fall asleep that way for a nap. Is the rocking just a bad idea? What else can I do to stop the fussing? She just seems to get very upset as soon as she realizes that it's time for a nap!

[MommaHolmes]

Charlotte07 - My guess is that she's overtired - she has a very long day anyway, with a long A time before bed, and if she's missed naps on a few days then she will get OT very quickly. That leads to difficulty falling asleep (and so getting upset at naptimes / resisting naps) and difficulty staying asleep (so waking early). She may be getting ready to start the 2-1 transition but I suspect she's not ready yet and OT is your problem.

My suggestion would be to move her bedtime half an hour or even an hour earlier. On days when she resists the pm nap altogether then do a VERY early bedtime (5pm or 5:30pm). I know the first reaction to this is to worry that if she goes to sleep earlier she will wake earlier, but this is rarely the case. You should at least give it a try as I suspect she would surprise you.

I wouldn't worry at all about rocking her to calm her down before a nap. It's fine to do that so long as you're putting her down drowsy but awake as she's still falling asleep on her own. Just don't get into the habit of rocking her to sleep.

HTH
Laura.

[Charlotte07]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try an extra early bed time next time we have a bad nap day.

I had a feeling that she may be overtired. I also think she is just getting upset about being away from all the action and that may be why she starts crying when we start the nap routine. Every time I've rocked her she would get drowsy and I've been able to put her down in her crib. I did that for the afternoon nap today (two nap day due to early wake up), and she ended up napping an hour and a half. Whew.
I was kind of concerned about the rocking because I've read in the BW books not to do that. Does anyone else out there rock their little one a bit before naps?

[NiknLily]

Charlotte07 - I just wanted to add to what mommaholmes said.  If she is OT and struggling to get to sleep or maybe sometimes knows she is not ready for a nap she will be getting anxious about naps and bedtime thus causing her to start fussing and crying when she knows whats coming.  I think if you can prevent her getting so OT she should resist naps less and become easier to put down again.  I am certainly finding this is the case with Lily.

Our wind down was, into sleep sack, hold her while I sing Winnie Pooh theme song then into bed.  This was always enough, plus she was always having a bf before being put down for pm nap & bedtime, with addition of story before bf at bedtime.  We now do this, nap - potty, story, say night nights to everything in her room, song and into cot. bedtime - bath, story, bf, say night night to everything in room, song and into cot.

[NiknLily]

Tell me there is some way to change this pattern.  DD now seems to be set into 5-5.40 wake up times so bedtime is generally no later than 5.30pm these days.  These early mornings are killing me and with this schedule I'm not really ever managing to get Lily to bed early when she needs it as by 5.30pm she has already done a 12hr day, also we are still firmly stuck in OT land with naps of 1hr, 1.15hrs and the odd 1.5hr which would be good but she is waking and needs resettling at least once sometimes twice in that 1.5hrs.  If she was waking at 7am and bedtime of 7pm our day would be the same but an early night would be do-able and I wouldn't be so plain knackered to boot.

Any ideas how I shift her day, bearing in mind she is constantly a little OT already.

[jmoran544]

My twins are 11 months old (9 adjusted), and taking two naps. Ds takes about an hour in the morning, although this can vary, and up to 1.5 hr in the pm. My question is, what does the transition to one nap look like? I know we are not there yet, but I'd like to know how it begins.