2-to-1 Nap Messiness?

patchen30

So I guess some people have an easy time with this but my DS is totally struggling (so of course we all are)...

He used to take great naps, 9am-ish and 2pm-ish, and sleep perfectly for about 11 hours at night.  He started trying to drop the afternoon nap so I shortened the morning nap to 1 hour and he kept the afternoon nap for another month or so. 

DS is stuck in the 2 naps is too many, 1 naps is not enough phase.  For the past 3 weeks we've had screaming for long periods of time before naps on the 2 nap days and sometimes a nap is skipped, days with only 1 nap resulting in night wakings, and just general messiness.  There don't seem to be enough hours in the day for DS to get tired enough for 2 naps, but he's not quite ready for 1 nap either as that resulted in him getting overtired and having early wakings/night wakings. 

I'm a Weissbluth follower so my current solution is to offer 1 or 2 naps depending on what kind of night he had, what time he woke up, etc.  If it's a 2 nap day and he refuses the AM nap we go to 1 mid-day nap, and if it ends up being a 1 nap day we do a reaaallly early bedtime, like 5:30.  That so far has helped w/ the night wakings.

We never know what the day is going to hold, there has been way more screaming than I like hearing, and we're trying our hardest to keep DS well-rested but it's a challenge.  Just wondering if anyone else is stuck in this weird place?  I heard the transition could take MONTHS.

hunnybunny614

We have been fighting the nap monster for a few weeks now.  Some days he will do just fine with one, but sometimes by dinner he is cranky and over tired.  I certainly miss having a predictable nap schedule.  What I try to do is put his nap in between when he used to nap.  For instance, his naps were usually around 9 and 2.  Today, he went down for his nap at 11.  He has been down an hour and a half and is still snoozing.  He shouldn't need a second, but we might have an early bedtime tonight.

patchen30

canadiansciencegeek:

This is so us!  The days when we manage to keep DD awake until 11:30 and she takes one nap are glorious.  She sleeps for 2+ hours and is a happy baby until bedtime.  Sadly, she rarely make it that long... so we end up with a nap from 9:30-11 and then MAYBE a second nap, but usually just a very cranky baby come afternoon.

It hadn't occurred to me that this might be contributing to night wakings, but it makes so much sense.  Yesterday was a morning nap only day.  She woke at 4:30.  Ugh. 

Yeah I've read and heard that during this transition time on the 1 nap days (whether they're due to refusing a nap or when you purposely do 1 nap) you should put them to bed super early - as early as 5pm - to make up for the lost sleep from losing a nap.  This is also recommended if there's only purposely 1 nap b/c often in the beginning the 1 nap isn't very long and there's a long awake time after the nap/before bed.  This helps prevent being overtired which leads to night wakings/early waking. 

You have to play w/ it though - usually the baby will sleep until the normal wake up time or later, but if it backfires, you might have to go back to a later bedtime.

Elsa1984

We are kind of going through the same thing. With Gator, I have just been reading her cues. Like yesterday, she woke up at 10am....so I knew she wouldn't take a morning nap. Around 3pm, she started getting cranky and went down for a nap. She normally goes to bed around 9pm, but last night after waking up from nap, she was still cranky so I put her down for the night around 7pm. She woke up this morning at 8am....and was tired and ready for a morning nap before 11am.

It makes it a little hard to plan sometimes, but she is really flexible for the most part. If we have a play date at 1pm, I put her down for an early nap. If she sleeps, good. If she doesn't, oh well. She is usually so busy during play date that she plows through and just as she is getting cranky, it's over and we are heading home to nap anyway.

Gator has always been the type of kid that if you wake her from nap, you can guarantee she is going to be hell on wheels, cranky, and miserable. So we let her sleep until she wakes up on her own. Because of that, sometimes she sleeps in late, sometimes she has one morning nap, sometimes she only has an afternoon nap, sometimes she doesn't nap at all and goes to bed early at night, and sometimes she takes two naps. Sounds like a pain, but it actually isn't bad at all. And we have never missed out on things schedule wise because of naps.