Overtired or undertired?

honeydew01

I'm sorry in advance if this is a stupid question but how do you tell if your LO is overtired or undertired? I posted a few days ago about my LO (14 months) transitioning to one nap and got great suggestions that I am following. We are transitioning very slowly but I feel like I can't tell anymore if she is overtired or undertired. 

She takes her time to settle and go to sleep. She is usually content, babbling, rolling, talking, playing then she settles and puts herself to sleep. This takes anywhere from 15-45 minutes. But the last few days she has been doing the same but after half an hour she starts fussing (naps only, she's been going down for bedtime). Does this mean she is undertired? or overtired? She looks pretty tired when I put her down. I've tried shortening/lengthening the awake time by 15-20 minutes to see if it helps but it hasn't. 

honeydew01

Erin KM said:

My LO often stays awake for a while, babbling or playing, when I put him in for nap. Sometimes it leads to fussing, but he still goes to sleep. There have been occasions when he played for 45 minutes, fussed for 15, and then took a great nap. Sometimes he just needs to wind down. I don't cancel the nap unless he gets really worked up in there. The nap being earlier or later doesn't effect the likelihood that he will stay awake for a while. Like your DD, he only does this at nap time.

ah thanks! Yes, she has been falling sleep after the fussing. She is not hardcore crying, just fussing, if she was crying hard, I would intervene. So thankfully I haven't had to cancel her naps (I hope I just didn't jinx that). But I feel like I am trying to solve a puzzle with this sleep transition so I was curious if she was just not tired or was way overtired.. I miss the good old days of two predictable naps;)

honeydew01

Thanks Nicb! I was just feeling like maybe I am missing something because this content babbling in the crib for half an hour THEN fussing is new and it coincides with this transition so I thought maybe I was putting her down before she was ready or too late...