Hawaii Babies

STTN moms

How much does your LO(s) nap during the day (how many naps per day and how long per nap)? We had been spending time building up his naps to 1hr+ and all of the sudden when he started sleeping 9hr stretches, he's napping his usual 3 times a day but only 20-30 min max. I want to make sure he's getting enough sleep since he always wakes up crying from his naps...

Also, when do babies start transitioning to just one longer nap during the day that toddlers generally do? I'm just wondering if it's time to gradually transition to 2 naps a day instead of 3 and if maybe that's why he's not sleeping as long per nap cuz we're putting him down for one too often?
Sept 2008 Wedding | May 2010 & Mar 2012 Babies

Re: STTN moms

  • imageinamra:
    How much does your LO(s) nap during the day (how many naps per day and how long per nap)? We had been spending time building up his naps to 1hr+ and all of the sudden when he started sleeping 9hr stretches, he's napping his usual 3 times a day but only 20-30 min max. I want to make sure he's getting enough sleep since he always wakes up crying from his naps...

    Also, when do babies start transitioning to just one longer nap during the day that toddlers generally do? I'm just wondering if it's time to gradually transition to 2 naps a day instead of 3 and if maybe that's why he's not sleeping as long per nap cuz we're putting him down for one too often?

    Well Bella's 17 months and just recently (within the last 2 months) transitioned from 2 to 1 naps a day. Some days she REALLY still needs the first morning nap and we just play that day by day, if she's really crabby we put her down. That said, even if we do put her down in the am, we KNOW it'll mean a shorter afternoon nap. Bella ALWAYS wakes up crying from her naps. She only wakes up talking and happy from sleeping at night. She's always been like that though.

    For your situation I would suggest trying two naps a day, a morning nap and an afternoon nap. I'm not sure what times his naps are now but when Bella was taking two naps she would wake up at 6:30, nap from 8:30-9:30, play/eat/play, nap from 1230-230ish and then play/eat/etc until her bedtime at 7pm.  

  • *sigh* I had a whole reply typed out and then my browser crashed. I'll try to recapture the brilliance. Stick out tongue

    Will and Dash used to have a cycle where they'd only nap for 30 min at a time. It was awful since with a nap that short they could only stay awake for like 1.5 hours, then they'd need a catnap again, then they would only be able to stay awake for a little while, etc. They'd also stopped STTN and were waking up several times per night again - even with short naps they were sleeping too much during the day and making up for it by waking up at night.

    Finally we bit the bullet and decided to sleep schedule them (I know not everyone agrees with this but it was clear that letting them decide when to nap and bet awake simply wasn't working). We put them down for a first nap at 9am whether they seemed tired or not, and then kept them up until 1pm for the second nap even if they were exhausted. After they were used to that and had longer nap and awake times, we ditched the third nap. The whole process took about 1.5 weeks and was certainly painful at times, but the end result is happy boys who have good awake times, decent nap lengths (usually 1.5 and sometimes 2 hours - I'm not sure we'll ever reach 2.5-3 hours like some people get, but what we have seems to be working) and STTN for 11.5 hours every night.

    This book was really helpful to me to figure out when we needed to ditch the third nap, since some babies are ready sooner and others may need the third nap for months longer.

    If your little man is waking up crying, then it sounds to me like he's still tired. Is he screaming or just fussing? If he's not in full blown hysterics, what happens if you leave him to fuss for 5-10 minutes? Will he go back to sleep?

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  • Thanks ladies for your input =) Yeah, we usually have a nap schedule (not strict though)--just something along the lines of one in late morning (11am-ish), one around 2-3pm, one around 5-6pm. Sometimes though, he'll skip that last nap and sometimes he'll go down around 7pm, which then screws up our bedtime routine a bit because he ends up not being tired at all by 8:30-9pm (when he's usually starting to go to sleep). But he's usually down by 9pm for bed, then wakes up around 5-6am to nurse & falls asleep, then gets up around 9am.

    But I think I might try ditching the 3rd nap, at least to try it out to see if that's what he wants/needs? If I do only 2 naps, then should I just put him down whenever he looks tired/yawns rather than when it's "time for a nap"? I just remembered that when he was younger, he would nap less when he got overtired and was just wondering if that applies now or if it may not apply as strictly now that he's older?

    imageredshoegirl:

    This book was really helpful to me to figure out when we needed to ditch the third nap, since some babies are ready sooner and others may need the third nap for months longer.

    AH, yes, this book! MH and I ended up picking it up from the library for a few weeks (but had to return it because there was a HUGE waiting list on hold for it) and MH skimmed it a bit but I don't think we gave it a fair chance because we were kinda biased against the book from the get-go because our CIO-advocating pedi swears by this book =P BUT maybe we should pick it up again. I had barely even looked at it (I think I read 5 pages from a selected chapter of interest) and MH read through a bit more (maybe 1/3 of the book?) but he complained that it didn't really have solutions for some of the issues that was brought up as possible problems. Maybe that came later in the 2/3 of the book that he didn't get to?

    imageredshoegirl:

    If your little man is waking up crying, then it sounds to me like he's still tired. Is he screaming or just fussing? If he's not in full blown hysterics, what happens if you leave him to fuss for 5-10 minutes? Will he go back to sleep?

    This! Whenever he'd nap for a good 1hr+ (and esp 2hr, which hasn't happened for at least a month now), he'd wake up so happy. But now that he's not napping very long, he's crying when he wakes up. It's like a very sudden loud cry, not even worked up from a fuss or anything--just a sudden instant cry. If we don't go to him, then it will escalate generally into hysterics. Once he sees us though, he'll calm down. I wonder if he has a bit of separation anxiety mixed in there now because he has also developed this thing where he refused to nap (he literally will scream at the top of his lungs non-stop) unless we're with him (and preferably patting his back the whole time =P). Part of me wants him to be more dependent but I can't stand to hear him cry his little heart out =(

    Sept 2008 Wedding | May 2010 & Mar 2012 Babies
  • imageinamra:

    But I think I might try ditching the 3rd nap, at least to try it out to see if that's what he wants/needs? If I do only 2 naps, then should I just put him down whenever he looks tired/yawns rather than when it's "time for a nap"? I just remembered that when he was younger, he would nap less when he got overtired and was just wondering if that applies now or if it may not apply as strictly now that he's older?

    .....

    AH, yes, this book! MH and I ended up picking it up from the library for a few weeks (but had to return it because there was a HUGE waiting list on hold for it) and MH skimmed it a bit but I don't think we gave it a fair chance because we were kinda biased against the book from the get-go because our CIO-advocating pedi swears by this book =P

    The overtired thing...it really depends on your baby. Will and Dash don't nap well under two circumstances: first, if they're extremely overtired. This happens when something overstimulating like Christmas Day takes place, not when I push their nap time 15 min from when they start yawning to make sure they keep to their schedule (it might seem harsh, but my kids really do best on a relatively solid schedule and a 15 or 30 min deviation can make a huge difference in their day). The second circumstance is if they haven't been stimulated enough. I see a huge difference in their nap times on days when we've played a lot, gone for a walk, etc. vs been cooped up inside because it's raining and have read the same book 25 times.

    So personally, I would schedule the naps. However this might not work for your LO, so you can try just following his signals first (although you will want to make sure the second nap takes place late enough in the day that he can make it until bedtime).

    As to the book, I took the CIO thing with a grain of salt. I know that doing a hardcore CIO (i.e., letting them cry unattended for however long it takes) wouldn't work for our boys - like your little man, they tend to build tension when they cry and can easily escalate into hysterics. So I decided to reinterpret it as encouragement to give them a chance to soothe themselves, and what that will actually entail depends on the baby's personality (although the author does tend to talk about modified CIO a fair bit, there's also a section encouraging parents whose babies need to be rocked to sleep, so he's not 100% "let your child cry no matter what"). Sometimes my dudes settle themselves and sometimes not, but I give them a bit longer before leaping to the rescue now, and they're getting better and better about it.

    He does repeatedly emphasize that babies need to be able to learn to self soothe though and a little crying isn't harmful. I know this advice can be a little weird to read after you've seen the 5000 discussions on the bump about how any crying automatically equals CIO and that means you're a bad neglectful parent, but it makes sense to me.

    What I really found useful was the explanations of what might be behind the sleep issues - not always quick one-size-fits-all fixes, but considering what the root cause might be as well. I did find that a lot of the information had to be cobbled together from different sections of the book, so you couldn't just flip to a page and go, "Oh, there's the solution."

    Anyway, it's not guaranteed to help every baby and mama out there, but it did help us. Smile

  • imageredshoegirl:

    Anyway, it's not guaranteed to help every baby and mama out there, but it did help us. Smile

    Good to know.  I've been thinking about getting this book, and now I've just ordered it!  :)  Worth a try, I think.

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  • imageinamra:

    Thanks ladies for your input =) Yeah, we usually have a nap schedule (not strict though)--just something along the lines of one in late morning (11am-ish), one around 2-3pm, one around 5-6pm. Sometimes though, he'll skip that last nap and sometimes he'll go down around 7pm, which then screws up our bedtime routine a bit because he ends up not being tired at all by 8:30-9pm (when he's usually starting to go to sleep). But he's usually down by 9pm for bed, then wakes up around 5-6am to nurse & falls asleep, then gets up around 9am.

    This has been Libby's schedule exactly. We just started dropping that last nap (5-6 p.m.) this past month. She has started napping a little longer for the first two (which until now were ALWAYS one hour exactly!), which is great! So now she's taking like two 90-120 minute naps/day...10:30-11 a.m. ish and 2:30-3:00 p.m. ish with bedtime at 8 p.m.
  • imagelelekay:
    imageredshoegirl:

    Anyway, it's not guaranteed to help every baby and mama out there, but it did help us. Smile

    Good to know.  I've been thinking about getting this book, and now I've just ordered it!  :)  Worth a try, I think.

    Yeah, I think I'm going to give it a try again. Thanks for the rec =) We really didn't give it a fair shot last time around =P

    Sept 2008 Wedding | May 2010 & Mar 2012 Babies
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