12mo fighting afternoon nap

[cornflakegirl]

We've been having problems with DS2's daytime sleep since he hit six months. Recently he seems to have settled fairly well into a routine of a 1.5 hour nap at 10.30 and a half hour nap at 4pm. However, while he will settle (for DH) at 10.30 with about 10 minutes of fussing, it's next to impossible to get him down for the afternoon sleep without feeding to sleep. And my maternity leave is now over; I'm back to work on Monday.

Yesterday we bought a dummy, it wasn't a great success (he rejected his dummy at about 2 months, and stopped sucking his thumb around 6 months). Sometimes we do putting him down at 4pm whether he seems tired or not (ie before he gets overtired). Other times we try waiting till he starts yawning or getting grumpy. No noticeable difference. He does sleep in the car, but DH won't have the car as I need it to get to work. Sometimes he'll sleep in the pushchair, but he seems to need to be really tired for that, and I think the problem with the afternoon nap might be that he's not shattered enough. But I don't think he's ready to drop the nap - 12.00 - 7.30 or 8pm seems like a really long time.

What can we do?

My DD hated going down in the afternoons as well. Mornings were fine, but she just hated the afternoon sleep, would cry and cry. In the end I just moved her morning sleep forward as far as possible, so she was going down at 11 or 11.30, and just gritted my teeth and put up with the grumpiness at teatime. Time passed and now one sleep is plenty for her.

You could shorten the morning nap and give an afternoon nap after lunch. 4pm seems quite late and 10.30am seems quite early for naps (assuming your DS gets up around 7ish). Can you make the morning nap a little earlier around 9 and another one after lunch around 1? My DS naps at similar times and that works for him. He has 30-45 mins in the morning and 90 mins post lunch.

Thanks both. I agree that the times are a bit weird, but they were the times he settled into. His sleep had been so mixed up for so long (some days he'd have two long naps, some days it was one 30 minute nap) that I was just pleased that he seemed to have settled down, and had picked times that didn't clash with the school run.

Have been back at work for two days now - yesterday he refused the afternoon nap, today he had it, but took about 20 mins to settle for DH. Apparently he would appear to be asleep in his cot and then suddenly stir after a few minutes - not sure what that's about!