Is the transition from 2 naps to 1 usually this hard?

[TS123]

For months now, DS has had a hard time taking his morning nap. It used to be short 30 - 45 m then he'd take 1 1/2 h nap after lunch. Now, when I put him down in the morning, he'll cry and fuss and stand up in his crib (which is a new skill). I go out and push him around in the stroller and despite being on the verge of sleep, he never actually falls asleep. I finally accepted that he's probably outgrown his morning nap except, his one remaining nap is sometimes only 1 hour and he is so tired all day. I end up having to put him to bed so early and he wakes more at night crying and he's up earlier than before -- all of which I think is because he's getting really overtired. Is it normally this difficult when they first drop a nap? or am I not recognizing the difference between him not needing 2 naps versus him not wanting to take his naps? If it's really him outgrowing a nap, how can I manage better?

how old is he ?

You don't say how old DS is. My DS dropped his morning nap at around 18 mths (v. late I think), DD was around 12 mths. Are you putting him down earlier for his afternoon nap ? DS used to nap from 9:15 - 11:15 then again at 1pm. At the end his morning nap was 9:15 - 10am. Then when I dropped it, his afternoon nap moved to 12:30, occasionally 12:15 if he was really tired. If he isn't falling asleep in the buggy I'd say he is ready to drop that nap. But I would bring the afternoon one forward -- you may have to feed him earlier. Then he won't get over tired and hopefully sleep longer.

yes. I'm in the same boat with dd but she can't cope without her morning nap yet. It used to be 30/45 mins but is now 15 mins but if I don't give her a nap she goes balistic at about 11.30am but if she has 15 mins in the morning she can then go till 12.30 for a long lunch sleep. How old is LO? dd is only 6 months so long way to go I think tho she doesn't seem to need much day sleep.

I recall that ds1 went from 1 nap to 2 at around 9-10 months. As USAUKMum says, lunch had to be brought forward to 11.30am then he went to bed at about 12. Over time, I was able to gradually push lunch later, until by about 1 year lunch was 12 - 12.15 ish and nap was 12.45 - 3 (on a really good day!). This lasted until about 2.5 yrs.

It is quite difficult at first, because they get so grumpy when they're tired, don't they? But he will adjust and hopefully the afternoon nap will lengthen and you'll get some lovely time to yourself!

2 naps to 1 obviously!

Sorry to omit that info! DS is almost 13 months. My situation is complicated by the fact that he usually wakes at 5:30am and on a bad day it's 5am or even 4:50am. Surprisingly, he'll still fight that morning nap yet he'll want to sleep by 10am. I'll stretch him to 11am but by then, on some days, he's overtired and he'll cry hysterically in his crib. His naps on such days are shorter (not longer - which you might think in order to make up for the early morning). I've tried letting him nap at 10am and see if he'll nap again later but often he won't (even in stroller) then it's even harder for him to stay awake at dinner. HELP ME PLEASE! I'm so frustrated yet DH is exasperated and won't discuss it any longer with me. He says put the baby to bed later and we won't be up so darn early but I cannot bear to make poor DS even more exhausted than he already is! Please tell me this is a temporary phase!!

Hi. My ds is also 13 mths. He naps when he wants. Usually he sleeps 8 till 8am or 7am, then naps again around 10am-11am and then in the pm around 3. I always wake him by 4.30 so he will sleep in the night. He's got into this routine himself, and I won't break it unless I need to. Sometimes the naps change, but he always sleeps a good 11-12 hours in the night.

I was getting worried as most babies his age seem to sleep less than him, but he is a really cheery, active little chap, so i will just go with the flow for now. my best advice would be: put him to sleep whenever he seems tired, and see if he sorts himself into a 'routine'. i'm sure once you crack the overtiredness, the rest will fall into place.

It's always been my philosophy to let him sleep when he's tired and not worry about a rigid schedule. But it's difficult to get up that early in the morning. Also, it's difficult when I'm constantly worried about getting him to bed before he gets overtired yet no amount of trying has helped him sleep more. I think he needs more sleep. He rarely gets 11 hours at night and most of my friends say their kids sleep that much at night. He also naps way less than most. I think your little one is getting a normal amount of sleep and the evidence is in his cheerful disposition. Mine can be very whiny and clingy and easily upset. When you're getting up before dawn -- this behaviour really grates on your nerves. So we can be a bad combination .

Hey TS,

My DS also got up around 5 - 5:30 at this age. He was really ready for his nap by about 9am (but had to get DD to school), so 9:15 the earliest he could do. Can you try putting him down at 9? That will be about 4 hrs after he woke, so he should be tired. Then if he has 1/2 hr then, he can survive until noonish. What time does he go to bed?? My DC never sleep longer than 11 hrs at night (that is if they are really tired). Usually between 10 & 11 hrs. It maybe that he only needs 11 hrs at night, but needs to sort out his naps to be happy in the day if you see what I mean. My DD had a nap until 3, and still only sleeps 10-11 hrs at night. DS still going on his nap at 2.5. He currently has about 1.5 hrs.

one last thought how are his teeth?? Could it be teething pain is making it difficult for him to settle at naps?? Find my DC would be like that with teeth. More so for DS at these times would give a small dose of calpol (e.g 2.5mls) to dull any pain. seemed to work

Gosh, yes it must be a killer to get up that early. I think ds did this for a while (he was waking 4x per night till 10 mths) and I would give a feed or just settle him back down and then go back to sleep. Eventually he would also sleep...

will your ds nap late afternoon. i have put my ds down as late as 4.30 in the past as i would rather he was in a good mood and ate well (food times are a struggle!)- and then put him down late eg. 9pm. if you do that for a while, at least you may feel saner if you can sleep till 7 or 8 in the morning even if you do lose some of your evening.

yes, and have used the calpol too at teething times, great advice usaukmum! it def knocks them out

TS123 I'm sorry you are going thhrough this .DS was soo like this too. He was in bed for the night between 5.30pm and 6.30pm until he was 18 months old.

I found this so hard as it was difficult to get him to bed so early, We did try keeping him up later but he would get hysterical and cry so much it was impossible for me to do it.

He dropped his morning nap at about 13 months old with me though kept it with his childminder until he was nearly 2 years old.

I lost count of the days he fell asleep (When I say fell asleep - I mean I put him down for a nap as he was crying inconsolably and getting really agitated and upset - a sure sign he needed to sleep) at 10.30/11am for an hour or sometimes two. He would be fine until 2.30pm or so, then we'd start a gradual decline in temper until 4pm at which point I was never sure how I'd make it to 5pm let alone 7pm for bedtime.

What I did find was that as he slept better at night his naps got more consistent/longer and then he slept better at night - sort of a virtuous circle. He didn't stop waking at 5/5.30am until he was about 22 months old though.

I'm not sure what to suggest as I never really solved this he just grew out of it.

Lazycow -- that describes DS to a tee!!! I'm not alone. There is more comfort in that than you know! Yesterday was a bloody nightmare. He woke at 4:50am, wouldn't settle for a morning nap and by 11:45am I had been struggling to get him to lie down in his crib for an hour. He was hysterical and I had to lie beside him to get him to calm down and fall asleep. He slept 1 h 20min then was miserably tired all afternoon. He was getting a second wind at bedtime and then wouldn't settle. Then was up twice during the night and up this morning at 4:55am. I gave him a bottle and lie with him in the dark until 6:30am but he wouldn't go back down. I am out of my mind. I'm working and pregnant too . It's as though he can't sleep twice but once isn't enough. I'm thinking of persistently forcing a morning nap at 9am then he'll sleep in the early afternoon maybe and be good until 7 or 7:30pm??? Did you ever try this Lazycow?

Oh , USAUKMum - he is indeed teething but this has been going on far longer than the teeth coming in. I'll still try some pain reliever before naps to see whether it helps though.

One more question for anyone still reading: at 13 months do you think it's likely that I will squeeze 2 naps out of him? Because the way I see it - I have 2 choices right now:

1. put him to bed later so he's tired enough in the morning to have a nap
2. go with his rhythm and put him to bed as early as I need to (even at 6pm)for now until he can last longer on 1 nap or the nap gets longer.

I'm trying to remember exactly what I did when as DS is now 2 and his daytime sleeping is quite a bit better (though he doesn't like going to bed at night now - but that is another story!)

What I did do (though I'm not sure it really helped) was to make a decision that ds's naps were going to be a priority for a while. He almost never slept in the pushchair (even as a small baby) so that was no good - I decided he would need to go in his cot EVERY DAY for a nap. My rules for it were

1 if I had tried an hour and was getting nowhere I would get ds up and try again half an hour or an hour later.

2 Whatever it took to get him to sleep I did (lie down with him, hold him, cuddle, breastfeed, nothing worked consistently but I tried it all)

3 If ds fell asleep and woke up after less than 1 hour or if he woke up crying instead of waking happy I left him to cry for as long as I could stand (sometimes 2 mins, sometimes 10). Often he fell asleep again and slept for up to another hour. I left him to cry because I had reached the end of my tether and I found that my efforts to calm him actually made things worse and he cried more if I got involved. If I couldn't stand to let him cry I'd go to him but that usually meant sleep was over for that nap.

4 I got him in bed by 6pm at the latest every night (not difficult to do as he was so knackered)

5 He was waking regularly at night but I didn't do much about that except let him cry for a few minutes before going in - sometimes he would go back to sleep, sometimes not.

Once I stopped worrying about the early starts and concentrated on getting ds to be well rested by improving his naps things got better - even if it was only my mood.

Actually he did improve after a while and it may have been what I did but I can't say for certain. I would suggest trying to be as relaxed as possible about it but I found this impossible myself and to my shame found myself shouting 'GO TO SLEEP NOWWWWW!!' at the top of my voice on more than one occasion

I didn't try and persevere with the morning nap as at this age it seemed pointless - even though it had takem me about 6 weeks to get him to take a morning nap when he was 6 months old.

Given how early your ds is waking it may be worth trying for you though as a temporrary measure. I would try and get him to go back to sleep 2-3 hours after waking up, that way he isn't too overtired. I would only let him have a short sleep though and then try for a lunchtime nap as well as an early bedtime. At his age the morning sleep is likey to drop soon anyway so you may prefer to have him sleep a longer time just before or just after lunch.

Oh yes I did also take him to a cranial osteopath once a week for 6 weeks. I'm not sure if it helped but I was willing to try anything.

Also in reply to your plea ' Tell me it is just a phase' For my ds it was just a phase (albeit a 2 year one) as he now sleeps pretty well for his naps unless he is staying somewhere new.

Ds has always found it difficult to switch off so he needs a fairly consistent routine as anything new or very different (eg a visit to Granparents this weekend) sends him into a frenzy of excitement and his sleep goes to pot very quickly as a result - hence the two days at my parents house where ds took no nap at all for two days in a row and was awake at least twice each night. There was nothing wrong he was just over-excited.

I would go with the second one of your options as it just makes more sense to me.

One other thought the time he is waking in the morning is a classic light sleep time. Could it be that something is waking him from the light sleep. My DS's room is next to our boiler and we found that it was waking him changed the settings and he slept until 6:30 .

USAUKmum - That is really true - I had forgotten that. We live next to a railway and when we had double glazing put in Ds did 'miraculously' start sleeping until 6am/6.30am more often/

Thank you thank you thank you!!! Lazycow, that is the most comprehensive and reassuring message I've read in a long time in regards to this. My DS is exactly like yours -- very excited, easily thrown off his schedule. I always have him in his cot for naps since he sleeps poorly anywhere else. In fact, DH and my mother expressed concern that I never get out because I spend all day worried about the timing of his next nap. I am truly neurotic about his sleep and I know I have to relax because 90% of this has nothing to do with what I'm doing. The other thing is that I've gotta "do whatever works" and not worry about fostering bad napping habits. Some days I stubbornly fight him to go down in his cot when I think I should just help him relax and fall asleep anyway I can. I totally agree with everything you've said, I'm going to accept the early mornings and put him to bed as early as I need to, and accept one nap. (And also stop worrying about what people say when I tell them how early he goes to bed because they just don't understand). As far as I can tell, there isn't anything consistently happening at 5:30am to wake him up. Perhaps in the spring, when the clocks change or we move to our new home, there will be some hope that he sleeps later!

ah yes the comments about how early he goes to bed - I remember those. Honestly it will get better. As I said ds was in bed by 5.30/6pm from a very early age. My parents would always suggest that it was too early - mostly because they wanted to eat with him which they couldn't do as his tea was usually at about 4.30pm. One day I kept him up though and the hysterical crying convinced my mother I might have a point!

It did change though - The clocks went forward and the evenings got very light when he was 18 months old and all of a sudden we had a week of him really resisting bedtime - something he had never really done much (though he did cry through overtiredness). We stuck to a 7/7.30pm bedtime though and after about a week he settled down at night. Nowadays I have trouble getting him to bed before 8pm and I have almost forgotten what it was like trying to get him fed, bathed and in bed so early.

Also dropping the morning nap will give you more time to do things. I found being home for both naps very restricting.

Lazycow . . . if you're still reading. . . I had another question for you (since my DS sounds like a carbon copy of yours and you've been so helpful so far):
Ds's naps are a problem because he wakes up prematurely. He starts crying and even after 10 minutes alone he won't settle himself back to sleep even though I know he hasn't slept enough. I don't relish leaving him for longer than that because I don't think it's likely he'll fall back asleep. This doesn't seem to be a problem with my MIL who cares for him 2 days per week. She says he sleeps 2 - 2 1/2 hours at her place. I'm so frustrated by this because it proves a) he does need more sleep than he gets at home with me and b) he IS capable of sleeping more. Did you experience this with ds? Perhaps not but do you think it's because he's overtired? (though MIL says she puts him down same time as I do). Or is he actually doing this willfully - I mean - is it a learned behaviour with me that I have to somehow get him to "unlearn"?

TS123 I just wanted to offer my sympathies! I think Lazycow has been spot on with her advice. I also wanted to say that all my three have gone to bed very early for the first 18 months ish and yes early risers but it seemed that was how it was for them. I have a 14 month old now and she is waking at 5 ish, due to teeth and central heating noise maybe but she then naps at about 9am and I wake her after about 25 mins so that she will go to bed again at 12.30pm for an hour and a half. She then has to go to bed at 6.30 because she is tired. DS was going to bed by 6 when he was that age.

I just wanted to say, yes the clocks in March is always a good one, it is difficult with your first I think but try and remember that your ds won't be 14(?) months forever and it will get better. Also, so much of your thread rang true for me, the neurotic feelings, the DH, the naps obsession. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. AND IT WILL GET BETTER!. Also, being pregnant and coping with 4.50 am starts - crap isn't it? The good thing is though that after that, so long as the digital clock says 5 something you are satisfied! HTH.xxxxxx

Thank you so much Elf!! I get so much support and reassurance when I know that I'm not "doing this" to DS ie. messing him up by putting him to bed so early (so many people seem to think I'm the problem rather than DS is just an early riser). The last two days, I've "forced" DS to have an early nap at 8:30am for 30-45 minutes so that he can stay up for lunch then nap again at 12:30 or 1pm -= just like you were doing. I hope it works. (I have to rock him in my arms and he cries and pushes me away but then once he's almost asleep I can put him in his crib and he'll have a short nap). It's a battle but if it helps him stay rested, I'll do it. Nothing is worse than waking at 5am with a cranky baby all day. Thanks again for your sympathy and support.

Hi TS123

Sorry I didn't reply to your post earlier but I had a couple of days off work and I tend to post on MN at work (don't tell the boss!!)

As to your question on naps at your mums house - I remember when DS was still fighting naps with me yet he would go to sleep like a lamb at the childminders house and would even sometimes point to the bedroom to tell her he was tired

I asked my cm at that time if he cried at nap times and she said - 'oh no - I just tuck him in in tight and he goes right off to sleep'

Well I tried the 'tuck in tight' bit on my days at home and all I got was a lot of screaming and frantically kicking off of covers.

I think they fight sleep with us for various reasons, the main one being that they want to spend time with us more than they want to spend time with other carers so resnet the sleep more. Also I think the more upset we get the more it becomes a power struggle with them. We have so much more invested in whether they sleep or not than their other carers that they somehow sense this.

In the days when ds was waking after less than 1 hr of sleep there were a couple of occasions when I left him to cry longer than 10 mins - I hated doing it but I had got really desperate. When I did this he did go back to sleep eventually but I'm not sure the stress I experienced was worth it tbh.

I think what you are doing at the moment seems right - I remember the back arching and pushing me away as I tried to cuddle or rock him to sleep. I did it anyway as I hated to let him cry himself to sleep as well as leaving him for a while if he woke up.

If you can crack the short morning nap and longer afternoon one - with a bit of luck in a couple weeks it will get easier and as he gets better rested he may sleep better at nght.

Once he is better rested at night and during the day - you can start to think about dropping the morning nap. At the moment he does seem over-tired particularly if he doesn't sleep well at night.