Another nap issue ... from two naps to one

This week has be AWFUL for naps and I just don't know what I'm going wrong! I could just cry. Here's the situation:

Schedule:
Wake - 7:30-8:30 am
1st Nap - 2 hours from waking
2nd Nap - 2-2.5 hours from waking from 1st
Bedtime - 7:30-8pm

The one son is fighting me on the morning nap - If I put them down at 10am, the one will fall asleep and sleep for 2 hours and the other one usually stays up in his crib till 10:30-11am ... well by that time it's getting too late to take a nap so down he comes. So I thought I'd try the one nap in the afternoon so I changed our schedule to where we would eat lunch at 11:30 and then straight to a nap. Well the first few times I did that it worked great - 3 hour naps! But these past few days, not so much. The other son could still take a morning nap but I'm not waiting on two different nap schedules so I tried to keep with the one. Well, now that son (one who could still take the am nap) is only sleeping for an hour and than waking ... he cries and then wakes the other one .... I CANNOT TAKE ONLY AN HOUR!!!! :crazy: :blink: :wacko: So today I tried the two naps again and lets just say that didn't work for fear I may say something I would regret ...... :girl_devil: :headbang: So needless to say the one who fights am naps did not take an am nap and is now sleeping after lunch and the other one who fell asleep on me at the am nap (slept for an hour and then I woke him up with hopes to have at least a little overlapping with the afternoon nap) is now fighting the afternoon nap ... I put him up there and his shirt somehow got over his head so he started screaming and woke the other one ... Thankfully I was quick enough to get him and A fell back asleep .........I'm exhausted. So far, this stage is harder than the newborn stage.

I'm losing my mind. I go to school parttime online and am having a h*ll of a time getting any work done. I know, my choice but I still need my sanity!!! ... PLEASE HELP! What am I doing wrong in the transition? What did you do that worked??? Thanks!

 

:hug: Naps were always (and still are) so stressful for me.
We did the one nap transition at 15-16 months..both of the kids were boycotting the AM nap. I moved what would be their afternoon nap up an hour and kept that as our nap time. If the kids are acting tired, I would put them to bed a little earlier. I don't think you are doing anything wrong, it's hard when it seems like the kids are on two different nap schedules.
I would try to push the am napper a little later and the pm napper earlier, maybe by 15 minutes each day for both until you can get a good time where they overlap. In the meantime, is there anyway you can separate them for naps, like putting one in a pnp in your room...so that one who does not nap at that time can have some quiet time while you get some school work done?

 

I could have written this myself. Word.For.Word. I hope you get some great replies because I could use the advice also!

 

Mine dropped their afternoon nap first, which I hear is a little uncommon. Nevertheless, what we did was move morning nap a half hour later until we arrived at a comfortable time. This did make evening rougher, but we also moved up bedtime.

So our 2 nap schedule was something like this:
Wake 6AM
Nap 1 down around 8:30-9AM sleep for 2 hours
Nap 2 3PM until wake 1-2 hours later
Bed time 8PM

Here's our 1 nap routine:
Wake 6:00-6:30
Nap Go down between 10-11 depending on wake time
Lunch usually around 1PM to 1:30 (I give them a morning snack around 10, which helps hold them over for the late lunch)
Dinner 5PM
Bedtime 7PM

It will take them a while to adjust to the new schedule we used to call 6-7 PM hell hour, and we did find that occasionally they needed to go to bed at like 6:30.

 

I've been there! When I transitioned my kids to 1 nap I had exactly the same problem you are having....my DS still NEEDED two naps aand couldn't make it to 1 pm nap but my DD would just cat nap and then wake my DS who would then be a nightmare as he was tired! So eventually I asked myself why I was putting DD down when it was obvious she didn't need it....but I was so used to keeping them together...so then I started to just put DS down in the morning and then they both went for a pm nap.... (but I put DS am nap a bit earlier and the pm nap a bit later) which meant that DD was exausted by lunch time and in fact she did fall asleep a couple of times in her highchair when I was cleaning dishes....poor thing....but it worked much better this way...and it gave DD and me some one on one time....(although there went my coffee time)....eventually DS started refusing the pm nap and I knew then that I should try to transition him to one nap...he still would like a morning nap but if I give in to him in the morning...he will have a quick nap and then nothing in the pm and he will be a NIGHTMARE...so holding him off till after lunch is much easier...I did move lunch up a 1/2 hr though and both kids seem to do well with that now.....but I have to keep them occupied especially that hr before lunch as they get tired....so I try to take them to a different room in the house, put on a favorite cartoon, play ring around the rosie, etc... anything that will get their mind off of being tired. Anyways just wanted to let you know that I've been there, and it sucks, but it does pass..eventually!

here's our schedule:

7:30 -8:00 wake up breakfast
10:30 small snack sometimes
11:30/11:45 Lunch
12:30 Naptime
2:30-3:30 wake up...snack
5:30 dinner
7:30 bed

When one was napping and one was not this was our schedule:
6:30-7:00 wake up
9:00 DS nap (1-2hrs)
12:00 lunch
1:00 both nap (2hrs)
3:30 snack
5:00 dinner
7:30 bed

 

THat is EXACTLY what my two did. My DS would still sleep in the am and DD only in the afternoon. Once I realized my DS would not take an afternoon nap after his am...I put them one nap. Its still crazy somedays. We have been in this transition now for a couple of weeks.

Heres our routine

wake 7 or 7:15
play
11:00 lunch
11:30-12:00 go down for nap
My DD is a short napper so maybe 1.5-2 hours
my DS will sleep for 2-3 hours, I try and sneak her out and let him sleep
they are usually up by 2:30
we play, run errands
5:00 dinner
5:45 baths
6:15 or so..a snack
6:30 in bed
asleep by 7

They have been sleeping 12 hours, sometimes more.

Just stick with what ever routine you come up with. Thats what Im doing and its slowly panning out! There are somedays where we have bad naps, thats when we leave the house and run errands..LOL!!

GL!!

 

MMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEE TTTTOOOOOOOOOOOOO! PLEASE HELP!!!

 

I thought around 15 mo? that we were going to have to do 1 nap a day, but then they went back to 2 naps. we finally just made the transition to 1 nap a day during Christmas - around 20 months.

we used to have the 2 hr wake time in the morning then 3 hr wake time after the 1st nap - similar to yours. what we ended up doing was lengthening the wake time... it became 2 1/2 hrs and then 3 hrs for the morning wake.

original sch. 12-14/15 months.
7a wake
9a nap for 2 hrs
11a wake and lunch
2p nap for 2 hrs
4p wake and dinner
7p good night.

then it went to a 10a nap for 2 hrs and a 3p nap for 2 hrs. they still went to bed 7p to 7:30p, maybe 8pm

now w/1 nap its:
7:30a wake, lunch 12:00
12:30p or 1p nap for 3 hrs
4pm wake
7-8p final bed.

good luck.
I did hear that when you make the transition you should do some fun activity for at least a week during their normal nap time so that they are distracted and can learn a new schedule. Ours still hit a really fussy time between 11a and noon when lunch is... but they are falling asleep for the nap and nighttime much quicker.

oh one other question/comment, before we went to the 1 nap a day, I noticed that it would take ours sometimes 40-60 min. to quick "talking" and settle into a sleep... Unless they were wailing/crying, I would let them chatter and fuss a bit... but now that they are a little more tired out, they go to sleep quickly.

 

Well, today ended up being a one nap day. Went something like this:

7:30am wake
Attempted to give one nap at 10:00 ... the one who usually takes a am nap SCREAMED his poor little head off... so down they came
Lunch at 11:30
Straight to nap at after - 12:00pm

Well they ended up only sleeping for 1.5 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grrr. They were CrAbBy for the rest of the day ... so early to bed.

So if I'm going to try this one nap thing ... how do you get them to sleep longer?? They are going from 4 hours of naptime a day to 1.5??? ( geesh. :headbang:

I am starting to see that it's a day by day, trial by error. *sigh* :gah:


edited for spelling and correct my smiley guy, er, not so smiley guy! hehe

 

Oh Boy. I am sooo sympathetic, because my gang are going through the same transition. I thought it was a little too early for them to go to one nap (they are 14 months), but they were having a 1 1/2 hr am nap, & virtually no pm nap, so here we are. I was so mad - I had just got them onto a great schedule, and now I have to readjust again!!

Here is our current schedule:

6:30/7am - wake, bottle of milk (I know, I know it should be a sippy... ardon: )
8am Breakfast
9:30am - maybe a snack, depending on how they ate at breakfast
10:45/11am - Lunch + sippy of milk
12:00 - Nap
2:30 ish - snack with sippy of milk
5:00 ish - Dinner
6:00 ish - Bath, then bottle of milk, then books
7:00 - Bed

I have found that the later I put them down for their nap, the shorter it is. So I make sure that they are in bed by noon, although sometimes they will chatter for 20mins before they fall asleep. Today they napped for 3 hours each. It was blissful, but not typical. When I started out, they maybe napped for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Now, it is usually 2 to 2 1/2, & we've been on this schedule about a month.

Good Luck!!! Hope this helps! And tomorrow, just because I posted about my good little nappers they will sleep for about 30mins & spend the entire day screaming. That always seems to be how it goes around here :wacko:

 

I'm noticing that too (bold part) ... I'm going to try the one nap deal for a few days and see if their naps get a little longer. I really don't want to work around two naps so I'll give it a shot.

Isn't that always how it goes??? Karma. Grrr. Things finally settle in, you rave about it and the next day it goes to pot. :shok:

 

[Isn't that always how it goes??? Karma. Grrr. Things finally settle in, you rave about it and the next day it goes to pot.]
I know, I know!! Both of my girls napped for 3 hours yesterday, & I was so excited....this morning, they both woke up with the sniffles that progressed to a full-on cold throughout the day. Sigh. But they did take another 3 hour nap...I cannot win!! :headbang:

Incidentally, one of these days I will figure out how to properly quote people in my replies...

 

Yesterday was a one nap day for us too and it didn't go too badly!! Oh please oh please let this transition be smooth... um yeah right!

 

It took mine a couple of weeks to stretch their one nap to almost 3 hours, those days when they were taking short naps, I put them to bed earlier. Good luck ladies! :hug:

 

Nate is really fighting 2 naps, and either Jack is following suit or Nate is just so loud he can't sleep. <_< Jack gets super cranky/clingy when he's tired, so this is getting rough, especially in the evenings.

Yesterday I had the bright idea of getting out to the outlet mall during what would have been their morning nap; unfortunately they fell asleep for like 10 minutes in the car ride home, then wouldn't nap after lunch (they chattered and squawked for 45 minutes). We ended up putting them down AGAIN at about 3:30 and they slept over 2 hours, just in time to wake for dinner. :headbang:

With 2 little tykes who have totally different sleep needs, it's a really tough transition. I've been putting them to bed 1/2 hour early on the days when they don't nap well, and so far we're all surviving. Good luck to all of us! :lol: :grouphug: