Nap Help?

patchen30 · November 2012

XP from Toddler board, and warning - long...

Since about 8 months old my DS has taken a morning nap at about 9-9:30am and an afternoon nap at about 1:30-2pm. He used to do 2 hours in the AM and an hour in the PM, but at about 11 months he started dropping the afternoon nap; I was able to save it by waking him up after an hour in the AM so he would do an hour morning nap and a 2 hour afternoon nap. I would rock him either to sleep or drowsy, and he went down easily.

A couple weeks ago he started screaming at all sleep times, and would either cry the entire nap until I went to get him, cry for a while and then never go to sleep, or cry for a while and eventually fall asleep. Although I've always rocked him before naps, I often put him down just drowsy and he would put himself to sleep, so I'm doubtful that it's a self-soothing issue. Plus, he's been sleep trained at night and can put himself to sleep then.

I thought maybe he was trying to drop a nap, but I didn't want to rush the transition so I kept offering 2 naps. About half the time he'd take them, however, on the days when he'd take just 1 nap he'd scream at that one too, and then would sometimes fall asleep for a short amount of time and sometimes not sleep at all, which meant ZERO napping for the entire day!

I've kept bedtime relatively consistent (7pm) throughout this except on days when he either didn't nap at all or had little napping, and then I'd put him to bed about a half hour earlier. He's averaging about 11-12 hours of sleep a night, and I haven't wanted to put him to bed TOO early (i.e. Weissbluth's suggested ultra-early bedtimes) b/c he has a history of having naps fall apart if he gets too much sleep at night.

I'm at a loss for what the issue is...is he overtired? Is it a battle of the wills - i.e. he doesn't WANT to nap so he's going to scream? Does he need to go down to 1 nap and it'll eventually get better?

Today I tried waking him at 6am and am planning on pushing his AM nap back a bit in hopes of getting one (i.e. longer A time before morning nap). I figured I'd try this strategy for a few days and if it didn't work I'd try and move to 1 nap.

I would appreciate any advice!

cantalopes24 · November 2012

Can you do one long nap in the middle of the day? Is there a reason he needs 2 naps?

jonnygurl76 · November 2012

Bump burp. Stupid mobile.

jonnygurl76 · November 2012

Let him sleep until he wakes in the am and try to push the am nap later, your goal should be one mid day nap after lunch. I would bump up bedtime during the transition to one nap.

patchen30 · November 2012

cantalopes24:
Can you do one long nap in the middle of the day? Is there a reason he needs 2 naps?

I can do 1 nap a day, but when I've tried then he's been screaming for a half hour before he falls asleep and then only sleeping for 40 min. even when he only has 1 nap.

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