Please help! 10 month old suddenly not settling for naps (undertired or overtired?)

[happymamma1]

My baby is 10.5 month old. He has self-settled since he was 5 months (we did gentle sleep training). We've recently transitioned to 2 naps as until not long ago his awake times were too short for 2. We went through the 9 month regression but we were then back on track (so I thought). Then his awake times extended and we managed to have a few days with 2 naps. In the past week he has struggled to settle for his naps, especially the afternoon one. He definitely needs 2 as he normally goes down for his morning nap 2.5 hours after waking up.
He has never shown his tired signs while playing (he would be happy playing until I realise he's very overtired, mistake of the past!), I need to take him upstairs (dim lights) 15 minutes before his usual sleep time and wait until he starts rubbing his eyes/yawning, then I put him down and he's usually asleep in 5-10 minutes. He has still been able to settle fine 4 mornings this week and most nights but the rest (all his afternoon naps and a couple of morning ones) he has not been able to settle: he starts by chatting etc, then he starts crying... I try to resettle and while this goes on he gets overtired. At that point there's no amount of patting, rocking etc that would send him to sleep, he would only fall asleep in the baby carrier (this has always been, for this reason I've always tried as much as possible to avoid him to get OT). But I am getting tired of carrying him as he's a big boy! And I need to figure out what is happening to his naps!

I wonder: could it be that he needs to extend his awake time further and he's showing his tired signs at his usual times out of habit?? So he is UT to start with, then he starts standing/jumping in his cot and as time passes he gets OT?? I haven't been able to test this theory and ignore his initial tired signs, maybe I should? Or is he OT because he does a lot of crawling/cruising so I need to reduce his awake times?? (although he's been crawling/cruising for over a month now...). I am so confused! At first I thought the problem was the sitting/standing in cot but he seems to be able to settle fine when he's put down at the right time.

Has anyone had a similar experience?? Please help with any ideas! Thank you!

I'd say he's UT, 2.5hrs awake isn't very long for a 10month old.
I know every baby varies but my (just) 10 month old can do 3hrs15 awake, 3.5hrs at a push.

I'd extend his awake time but in 15mins increments over period of a week (so first 3 days push to 2hrs45 awake. Next 3 days to 3hrs and then assess how he's been.

When I did this (at about 7monyhs) it took less than a week.

So if he's showing tired signs it could be a sign of bordom. Change activity (this doesn't even have to be for baby - something as simple as playing with the (plastic baby safe!) pegs as you sort the laundry is fun! (Or rolling the sellotape as you wrap ebay items ).

Finally nap wise at this age they only need about 2.5hrs so if he's had a super morning nap, may only need a catnap in the afternoon.

Thanks for your reply! I will try that. I am always a bit conservative with him re: awake times as he's very sensitive to OT. So it could be that we end up with UT as a result.

I didn't put all the awake times in my original post. They increase throughout the day: 2.5- 3- 3.5/4. So the first one (2.5 h) actually has still worked ok this week (this morning it didn't but he did sleep a bit longer at night, so maybe that could be the reason?). Anyway, the one that really hasn't worked at all this week is the 3 hours after his morning nap. I have started waking him up after 1h 15 mins as this was helping him to get a longer afternoon nap (until last week). So I thought 3 h would be ok especially as he does also rubs his eyes around then, but maybe I could try 3 h 15 mins and see if it makes a difference. I guess if he's clearly OT, at least I know! Before he started sitting/standing up in his cot, if he was slightly UT he would just chat to himself for a bit and then go to sleep. Not anymore!

Update: today he went down smoothly for his morning nap 2 h 35 mins after he woke up and slept well; then I aimed for 3 h 15 mins awake time before the following nap. He was showing mixed signs (UT/OT) or at least I was confused. He started rubbing his eyes so I put him down and he started jumping in his cot as he's done recently. For a change I decided to take him out of his cot and back to my bedroom (where we do the wind down). He was crawling on the bed for a while, happy, until he started looking more tired. So I put him in his cot, he chatted for 5 minutes and fell asleep. This was 4 hours after he woke up from his morning nap!! He slept until I woke him up 1 h 15 mins later (to preserve bed time).

So he went from 3 hours last week to 4 hours awake time?? I wouldn't think he was OT given he went down smoothly and slept well, right? I am still confused about his tired signs though... They used to be easy to spot...