sleep questions

So I always hear people say "sleep begets sleep" and that the more kids sleep, the more they want to sleep. That has never, ever seemed to apply to my kids, and I'm wondering if it applies at all to this age group (they are 16.5 months approximately). They have never been good sleepers or nappers.

I have noticed that since we dropped to 1 nap (at 14 months), that if they nap more than 90 minutes, it messes up their wake-up time in the mornings. One day last week, they took a 2 hour nap rather than their usual 60-90 minutes. The next morning, they had me up an hour early (5:30 instead of 6:30). Some days when they wake up from their nap, they still seem sleepy. I've tried holding them and letting them sleep more. Usually they will sleep more, but then they wake up really early the next day. Does this happen to anyone else?? It seems like they are only going to sleep a certain amount and that is it. No sleep begets sleep here for sure!

The other question is, I'm wondering if you all are flexible with nap start times. The last two days, Michael has been really sleepy at the end of lunch (11:45), when naptime isn't until 1pm. He would probably have gone to sleep if I would have put him down. Since it's warm, we played outside for awhile, which perked him up and then he was good until 1pm. When that kind of thing happens, do you all go ahead and put them down, or try to keep them going? My concern is, if I put him down early, he wakes up early, and bedtime gets messed up, which means another early wakeup, which starts a whole bad cycle of sleeping. Or so it seems to go for us anyway.

Thanks for any insight!

 

That never applied to our kids either, and quite frankly I got tired of hearing it! :lol:

I say definitely be somewhat flexible with nap times. When do your LOs wake in the morning? Our boys wake around 6:30am these days and they are easily tired enough to nap by 12pm, and they have been on one nap for several months. Though when we first switched to one nap around 15 months they were eating lunch at 11am and going down for nap pronto at 11:30am because they were SO tired! I will say that even when our boys have a really good nap, say 12pm to 2:15pm, for example, I've always been worried that they won't be sleepy enough for bed at 7:45pm. But to my surprise they sometimes yawn even more come 7:30pm even after having a 2+ hour nap. Those occasions are when I say "maybe, just maybe, that whole sleep begets sleep thing is finally working." But then the very next day they'll have a really crappy nap after a good night of sleep and remind me that "sleep begets sleep" never has really applied to our buys :-/

ETA that our boys were very early risers from 6 months to 18 months. Around 10 months they started waking between 4:30am and 5:30am. Then they more consistently woke around 5:30am - 6:00am until they were 18 months. Only since about 18 months have they been sleeping in until between 6am and 6:30am (and they do fine staying in their cribs until 7am). And we have been putting then to bed around 7:45pm for many months. We are not morning people at all and before they were 18 months old it was SO hard in the mornings! Thankfully things have gotten even better still just in the last 6 months. They tend to wake between 6:30am and 7am now, which is a much more reasonable time for us. So hang in there! It will take time to evolve, but I'm sure your LOs will start sleeping in later soon too!

 

My kids were terrible nappers as babies (3 naps a day, forget it!) and it took me until they were 6 months to really find their sweet spot for napping. I really think at this age, you do have to go with the temperament of the child and figure what's the trade off for you. Do you prefer them to sleep more in the afternoon or go longer in the morning? How are they waking from nap and bedtime? Are they in good moods or perk up pretty quickly? I would say if they wake well, I would keep your nap and bedtime schedule as is.
I would say in terms of being flexible with nap times, I have been at times, especially when the kids have been sick. My only rule is that they cannot nap past 4pm because if they go any longer then that, there is no way they'll be able to go to bed at their appointed time. I just think, like anything, you have do what works best for your kids and you.

 

I am so glad to hear someone else say sleep begets sleep didn't seem to apply for them either! Our boys wake up anywhere from 5:30-6:30am most mornings now. Some days they are totally perky until 1pm, other days they act like they want to go to sleep as early as 11am. It's so unpredictable that it drives me crazy! I don't feel like I can vary their naptime by 2 hours because we'd never be able to plan anything, KWIM? I guess I could try 12:30pm instead of 1pm and see if that works better for them. They go to bed most days at 8:15pm. An early bedtime is not much of an option, either, because then they will be up even earlier.

Thank you for saying this. Our boys have been early risers from day one. It has just been the last few months that they have started ever making it past 6am. Many, many days I was up at 4:30 or 5am with them, which was NOT fun!!

Well, they are usually very happy when they wake up in the mornings. I would prefer them to sleep longer, but they are usually up and ready to go for sure. If they are just laughing and playing, I leave them alone until 7am, but some days they do fuss and I get up with them so DH can sleep until he needs to get up and get ready for work.

While I like long naps to get things done, I would prefer a shorter nap and later wake-up. But when they wake up from naps, sometimes they are very cranky and act like they really want to sleep more. If I leave them alone for a bit in their room on their own, they do not go back to sleep, though, and will only sleep more if being held. So that doesn't seem like a good solution either.

I guess I may try a slightly earlier naptime and see what happens. I just can't seem to find the right solution.

Thanks for your input, ladies!!

 

My little munchkins went down to 1 nap at just 11mths and off course in the beginning their nap was really early..... I assumed that because they went to 1 nap so early that by now at nearly 2.5yrs of age they'd be after giving up their naps altogether but thankfully that's not the case. DS will sometimes fight his nap but for the most time he naps 5/6 days for usually 2hrs (although all this week he is doing 45min naps which he never done before). DD never misses a nap (1.5hrs average).

IMHO I really do believe their nap time is too late in comparison to when they wake. My LO's wake at around 8am (on average) and usually nap by 1:30pm (at the latest 2pm). I can't imagine how your Lo's are able to go 7hrs from wake up time to nap time. Even now my Lo's would be exhausted.

At the moment our schedule at 2yrs5mths is:
wake 8am
Nap 1:30-3:30pm
Bed 8:30pm (asleep usually by 9:15pm)

Gl, let us know what happens

 

That's my whole point, though. My boys are not typical sleepers, and I'm trying to find out if anyone else has been through this situation with kids who don't sleep as much as most and how they have dealt with naps. My boys do this:
wake 6:30am (appox - some days 6am, NEVER later than 7am)
nap 1-2 or 2:30pm
bed 8:15pm

My kids have never, ever slept more than 11 hours at night, PERIOD. Most nights, they are sleeping 10-10.5 hours, and napping 1-1.5 hours. So 11-12 hours total sleep. They have two even chunks of time in their day, just like your kids, but our chunks are 6.5 hours, whereas yours are 5-5.5 hours. My boys were staying awake in 5-6 hour segments by 7.5 months old. The 2-3-4 schedule that many people do never worked for us because they could seem to stay awake longer than most kids their age. Most of the sleep things that I see and hear people talking about haven't worked for us (and I've tried lots of them!).

I do think maybe I need to make their nap 1/2 hour earlier on days that they wake around 6am rather than 6:30am. I'm wondering if that is the best solution, but I'm also open to other ideas, which is why I posted this. Some days they want to go to sleep early, others they are still going strong at 1pm.

I have a good friend whose 2.5 year old goes to bed at 9pm, wakes at 7am, and doesn't nap. I hope we aren't heading there in a hurry (mainly for selfish reasons, because I need that free time in my day!)

Anyway, I do appreciate your post, so I hope you don't take it that I don't. I just am trying to figure out what to do with two toddlers who are clearly not typical sleepers. I would dearly love for them to sleep 12 hours at night and nap 2-3 hours a day like some kids, but at this point, it just seems like that isn't going to happen. At least we are past the days of them waking me up at 4:30-5am, which we did for many, many months!!

 

I hear ya. Our boys will turn 2 in 2 weeks and they only sleep 10-10.5 hours at night (never a 12 hour stretch like other moms I read about). But I have always found that our boys can't go as long in the morning before sleeping as they can in the afternoon. So when they wake around 6:30am they always seem ready for nap by 12pm (or 5.5 hours). Whereas they can easily go 6-7 hours in the afternoon before bed time (like when they have a bad day of napping). I know you said that sometimes they seem like they can go until 1pm until nap time, but I wonder if that is just the "over-tiredness" kicking in and giving them a burst of energy? I agree with what you already said though, try and move their nap from 1pm to 12:30pm. Give it several days to see how they do. And who knows, if you have success with that you might even try moving it back to 12pm. All I know is this momma likes her boys napping from 12pm to 1:30 or 2pm :lol:

 

Thanks. I will try it starting on Monday - we have a bit of a wacky weekend, so I figure it's better to wait until I have a few days where I can be consistent. My fear is they won't sleep as long if I put them down early (which has happened in the past), or be totally cranky by bedtime. They definitely are "morning" kids - much happier in the mornings than afternoons. But I guess the only way I will know for sure is to try!

 

I don't have much advice bc our sleep varies depending on moods, weather and seemingly everything under the sun . I am lucky that most nights we're sleeping 11.5 hours. We're going to bed at 7 pm, sleep by 715. We nap at noon for anywhere from 1 hr 15 min to 2 hr 20 min, mostly somewhere in between!

We were EARLY wakers for a long while too, so I feel your pain! To be honest 630 is still too early for me and that seems to be where we are at now. Good luck

 

Today our boys had really good naps. They were put in their cribs at noon and were asleep within 5-10 minutes. Colin woke up at 2:10pm, and Brandon kept sleeping until 2:30pm which is when we went in to wake him. I know some parents never do that, but I'm still nervous if they sleep TOO long they won't want to go to bed at their usual time. So C slept 2 hours and B napped for nearly 2.5 hours. Well around 6:30pm I noticed them yawn occasionally. And we put them in their cribs at their usual time of 7:45pm and they didn't fuss at ALL. They talked a little bit and rolled around some (which is usual) but they were asleep a few minutes after 8pm. So I guess the point of this post is to not fear an early nap that lasts 2+ hours. Hopefully your LOs will still go to bed easy then too. GL!

 

i'm reading all the responses about how 6:00 or 6:30 is too early to wake up....wow, we'd love that in our house! our twins (21 months now) wake up on average between 4:30 and 5:30 every morning with 5:30 being LATE. depending on which wakes up first (boy is great about playing with his books/water bottle but my princess starts screaming immediately), i can usually keep them in until 5:20 or so. they go in for a nap around 9:30/10am and fall asleep by 10:30 and will sleep anywhere from one to two hours. They're in bed by 6:15 and sleeping between 6:30 and 7 every night. I've tried adjusting their schedule but they've pushed back and so for now we're just dealing with the early mornings..

 

Well, yesterday they did take a very long nap. We had a meal after church so they played hard - fell asleep on the way home (1pm) and didn't wake up until about 3:15. They went to bed fine at their normal time, but the talking/playing/mild fussing started around 5am. Yuck. I finally got up with them at 6:15 so DH could get a bit more sleep before work. It really seems like long naps consistently backfire on us! Not in terms of bedtime - they usually go to bed fine, but the earlier wake-ups seem to be the result.

Well, keep in mine that my kids are going to bed at 8:15, so two hours later than yours. So they are sleeping about the same amount. I agree, 4:30-5:30 is WAAAAY too early. I was able to push our boys' bedtime back an hour by taking advantage of the time change this spring, which at least has them waking up a little bit later than previously. I don't want to push their bedtime back anymore because I really need time in the evenings to do housework, work for my grad classes, etc. With them going to bed at 8:15, I can barely get everything done and myself to bed at a reasonable time as it is. I still wish they'd sleep until 7 or 7:30 in the mornings, but it doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon!

 

sleeping till around 5am IS post taking advantage of the time change! But, my nanny once told me that babies tend to follow their mom's schedule and since i leave around 6:30am for work, i guess they like to get up early to have playtime with me before work.....so why they cant sleep late on the weekends like i want to i'm not sure! But, going to bed early does help my ability to get household chores and extra work completed so all in all i'm not complaining too much about their schedule.

 

You might try pushing the nap back until 12 to avoid it getting in the way of bedtime. My son's sleep habits got better and better over the second year of life, so there's still hope for your kids to be "good" sleepers! Actually, they don't sound all that different than my twins right now, who are the same age. Mine sleep from 7:15 to 6, and if we are lucky they nap from 12-2, but sometimes it is more like 90 minutes, and on a bad day only 60.

 

Well, we tried the 12:30 nap for four days and it seems to have backfired. Not in terms of bedtime or fussiness in the evening - they have been fine with that. But, instead of sleeping 60-90 minutes, they are now only napping 30-50 minutes before waking up and will only nap beyond that if held (I tried leaving them for awhile to see if they would go back to sleep on their own and they wouldn't). And it hasn't helped their early wake-up time or anything else either. I've given it four days and it's getting worse each day - first day was 50 minutes, then two days of 45 minutes, and today only 30 minutes. So it seems like we are going on the wrong direction. Ugh! I'm so tired of naps always being so hard and unpredictable around here - we can never, ever seem to get anything consistent and it drives me crazy. :wacko:

 

Hey K!

SLEEP SUCKS.

But since you asked for suggestions, and not someone to state the obvious, here's my 2 cents (since once again our twinkies seem semi-in-synch)

We still do 2 naps, so I give that caveat, but we are in that transition phase which I think puts us in-line with you in trying to figure out - when and how long to nap. Some days my girls nap on 2-nap schedule, but some days they want to stay up past their normal AM nap time, which makes things funky for the afternoon nap, thereby leading to the conundrum - (A) let them nap late and go to bed late and risk throwing the next day out of whack, or (B) skip the nap, go to bed early, and risk waking early?

What I have found works best for us is to try to stick to scheduled wake-up and bed times regardless of what happens during the day, and let the naps be more flexible. On the days when a nap doesn't occur at a regular time I try to compensate by doing something that lets them zone out and be quiet, but which isn't truly a nap. For example, I have swings in the back yard, so I will load them up in the swing in the middle of the long stretch and push them for 20 - 30 minutes. Sometimes they doze, sometimes they stare, sometimes they just enjoy the ride. Or I take them on a wagon ride (same results as the swing). This helps them with the long stretch, without making bed time, and wake-up time that much different.

That said, my girls never sleep more than 10 hours at night, regardless of whether I exhaust them during the day or if they nap on an ideal schedule and every star in the heavens aligns perfectly. I think we are just stuck trying to get through this until they are old enough that we don't have to get up with them when they wake early in the morning. My friend's 3 year old knows that mommy and daddy don't get up until 7. If she gets up before then, she has to play in her room until they come and get her. Get this - IT WORKS! OK, her daughter is gated in, but the point is, my friend is sleeping like a normal person. Fancy that?!?!

A-

 

I still think our kids must be related.

We definitely have a consistent bedtime - that rarely changes unless we have something going on and are a bit late getting home (which I try to avoid unless I just can't). It's the wake-up times that are so weird....on Tuesday they slept until 7am. This morning I was up with Michael at 5:45 - I decided to get up and get him so that Gabriel could sleep (he slept until 6:45), and DH could get a bit more rest before work. Michael did doze a bit while I held him, so that helped make today better (less fussing, etc.) I am noticing, though, that Michael pretty much always wakes up first, both in the mornings and from naps. The two nap phase was really hard for us towards the end for the very reason you said - sometimes they didn't want to sleep in the morning until later, which messed up the afternoon and bedtime. It is much easier with only one nap, I just wish I could figure out what time worked best! Maybe I just need to stop fretting about it and just deal with it. :unknw:

Anyway, thanks for the support. It at least helps to know I'm not alone with all the craziness with naps and sleeping. I can't wait for the day when I can sleep until 7 or even 8am!! :lazy: