Nap problems

[grace11]

My 11 month old dd used to have two naps a day - 45 mins after breakfast at 9am, and 1.5 hours after lunch around 1. For a few months now the afternoon nap has been tricky but she's gone to sleep eventually, after half an hour maybe. This last week though she just won't go to sleep. She sits up in her cot, no matter how many times I put her back down, and will stay in there for well over an hour - then I give up. When I take her out in the pram later she goes to sleep, but only for half an hour. I think she's too young to transition to one nap, but I can't really figure out what's going on as she certainly acts tired before I put her down. I could try to delay the nap but if I push it on much more she'll have been up a fairly long time and will be late having her milk - which will then muck dinner up. I'm wondering if it's a phase as it has coincided with crawling...

Any thoughts/help would be much appreciated as it's driving me mad!! Thank you!

I think she needs to drop the morning nap. My boys dropped their morning naps around this age.

I think that your DD needs to drop her am nap too . DS dropped his at about the same age and in a similar way - generally very pesty to go down for his pm nap.

It's funny, it's both a good thing, as you can actually get out and about further afield, and a bad thing, as you lose the am hour or so to yourself.

Good luck, the transition can be a big bumpy (2 naps too much, 1 nap not quite enough).

It's apparently very common for little ones to appear to want drop the 2nd nap at this age, when in fact they still need it. If she falls asleep in her pram you could take her out in that at map time just to re-establish the routine? DS never slept in his pram, do we cut the morning map back to about half an hour and put him down for his afternoon nap half an hour later. It worked for us, and he was still ready to go to bed at 6.30.

He went back to sleeping 45 mins morning / 2 hour in the afternoon when he got to 14 or 15 months. Then he started sleeping later in the mornings (8am) so would sometimes do 1 nap and sometimes 2 until about 17 months, then back to 2 naps and only recently have consistently achieved one nap a day and he's 21 months!

Trial and error!

(hope that actually makes sense)

LotusPalm makes a good point, I've heard that too. In our case, limiting DS's am nap to 30mins didn't solve the problem though. So, it's definitely trial and error.

Thanks everyone for your advice. Just wondering though, if I do the transition to one, how should I do it? She wakes at 7am (or thereabouts - after a small feed in the wee hours of the morning I should add!) and weirdly goes for her morning nap about two hours later (as I write this though she's far from being asleep!!). Not so long ago I was letting her have a big sleep at this time, because she wouldn't later, but now I wake her up before 10am. So if I cut this first nap out, should I try to get her to sleep before lunch, say 11am?

LotusPalm, I think I will persevere with the two naps for a few more days but I will try one nap if I'm not getting anywhere. The problem for me is that I can get her to sleep in the pram but never for very long - and she's inevitably hysterical by bedtime as she's basically had two 45 minute naps. And she doesn't conk out with the motion of the wheels when I want her to - she has to be pretty far gone to sleep there - so usually around 230pm. I'm going to try your method of keeping the first nap very brief, and pushing the PM nap on half an hour, giving her lots of play time before she goes down - which I always avoided before thinking it made it harder for her to wind down... Out of interest, how long did you wait before putting your ds down for his first short nap? Did you let him play before? And what about the second one?

I'm worried about all this as she starts with a childminder next month for a couple of days a week and if I can't get her to have a good rest in the day I very much doubt someone else will have the patience - especially with lots of other children to mind.

Thanks again!

We had this and have just started the 'put down' bit of pupd and it has worked amazingly - i thought he might be reducing to one nap too but after trying this he has gone back to about 2hrs am and 1hr+ pm. I know you say putting her down isn't working though - are you definitely following the technique to the letter?

Just wanted to give another pov

I have tried that - go in every 5 mins or so and lay her down, tuck her in and tell her to go to sleep, but she thinks it's a game, sits back up and says 'dadadadadada'! This went on for 1.5 hours yesterday and ended in hysterical crying which I can't let happen. It just seems that she's not tired as surely all that sitting up and being put back down would eventually zonk her out - well it used to - I did it before and she'd finally accept it. Just failed with the morning nap too, so going for 11am and hoping she'll have a couple of hours. Tomorrow I'm going to try a bit later for her morning nap but I can't really put her down much later as we do a few things that start at 10am...

grace11, what will your CM do with your DD? Will she aim to put her down for 2 naps or 1?

DD's CM goes to different toddler groups in the morning, so was keen for DS to only have 1 pm nap. I was really worried about this, but then he seemed to need to drop his nap before he started going anyway. And he's happy on his routine now, so I feel that it was the right thing for him.

Oops, I have a DS, not a DD .

Agree with LotusPalm 11months is very young to make the switch to 1 nap. although it is not unheard of, at that age they are more likely to get OT from having to stay awake for so much longer. I started the transition with my son at around 12 months but he really couldn't handle 1 nap days every day until he was 15 months.

We did like LotusPalm suggested & cut the morning nap back to 30mins.
However, our routine looked more like:

WU: 6-6.30
AM nap: 9.30-10
PM Nap: 12.30-2.30 (as he got older this gradually got later - starting at 1pm, then 1.30pm & we capped it at 1.5hrs to make sure he was tired enough for bed.
BT: 7pm (this moved to 7.30pm as he got older & his PM nap got later)

You might find if you push the morning nap a touch later to 9.30am & cap the nap at 30mins, she will be tired for her PM nap by 12.30/1pm & you might not need to make the PM nap later just yet.

We shortened the PM nap to 1.5hrs as he got to 13/14 months & it enabled us to keep the 2 naps for longer. Another way of hanging onto them is to shorten the AM nap even more, so its like a 10/15min catnap to get her through to her big PM nap. The longer you can keep the AM nap the better she will handle the jump to 1 nap.

If you did decide to go for it (& there's no harm in trying) I would say start with an 11am nap, let her sleep as long as she needs & then because her nap is early in the day you might need to bring bedtime a little earlier, or she may be overtired by bedtime. When we first started we did 11am-1pm nap & 6pm bedtime. Then you can gradually shift everything later over a few weeks (we did 15mins/week) until she's napping after lunch.

HTH.x

While some babies are ready to drop to one nap around that age, it's by no means 'usual' i don't think - the average is somewhere between 12 and 18 months. My DS is 14 months and still has 2 naps most of the time (occasionally he just has the afternoon one). So i wouldn't be too quick to assume she no longer needs 2 naps.

It could be that you're putting her down for her am sleep too soon after waking up. At that age they should be able to go a good three hours without needing to go back to sleep (providing she's slept well at night). I would try leaving it another hour at least before putting her down for her am nap - so around 10am. Then move the pm nap back later as well - say 2pm?

Mine dropped to one nap on and off from ten months... I think I just muddled through and in the end he used to have one nap at 11am not after milk just out in the pushchair and then lunch after. This went on til he dropped it pretty much. It's a messy time!

Great, thanks so much everyone!

Probably just had the worst nap day for a while - it's reminding me of the newborn days - as she wouldn't go at 9am I tried 11am - bad bad idea but at least I now know she isn't ready for 1 nap. By 11 she'd hit melt down and there was no way to get her to settle in her cot. In a mad panic I went out with her in the pram and she fell asleep within 5 minutes - but only for 30 minutes. And she stayed wide awake for the rest of the day (still awake in fact).

RecursiveMoon, the CM is being a bit vague about naps (I think he wants her to fall asleep on the go in the pram as he's got two 18 month children to mind too). I'm hoping that he'll put her down for a brief nap after he gets back from school drop off, and then they can go to a playgroup or whatever and she can nap in the pram after lunch or, ideally, at home. We'll see - if he thinks she can manage without a nap in the morning he'll have to handle her in melt down mode as I did today - not pretty!

Omama, brilliant - thank you - I'll try it tomorrow. So around 930am for 30 mins if she'll go. And if this time doesn't work I'll try 945, then 10. I really want her to have her first nap done by 10 as we go to a great playgroup on Monday that starts at 10. I know this is a silly reason for wanting her to take an early nap, but I think it would make sense for the CM too - means they don't have to hang around too long in the morning.

Matana, I agree, I am putting her down very soon after her first nap, but this didn't seem to bother her in the past - she even slept until 745am and went down at 9am for her nap!! She loved that morning nap - as did I!! I'm actually waking her at 7am now to make sure there is a reasonable amount of awake time but I bet you're right - she probably needs 3 hours now...

Dycey I may end up doing the same as you if all of the above doesn't work!!

grace11, remember that your CM is providing you with a service that you will pay for (rather than doing you a favour), so that you feel that you can ask him things, e.g. how is he planning to accommodate your DD's routine in his day? I find this really hard with our CM, but we tend to muddle through. I didn't realise for ages (before DS started going) that she didn't want DS to have a morning nap, and it was really only chance in the end they made that okay.

Thanks RecursiveMoon - yes, you're right - but I just felt I was asking something abnormal with the naps as every CM I have spoken to doesn't seem bothered about them. I have said though that I want him to give her the opportunity to sleep first thing and early afternoon.