Drinking from a cup/naps

need a little advice please...my girls are almost 13mos now and i've pretty much transitioned them down to 1 nap a day (one only requires one a day)...my issue is this, when they drank from bottles they would drink and fall asleep resulting in their naps...when i weaned them over to cups recently i left their schedule the same way which means that they generally fall asleep in the AM while drinking milk...

i would like to get them to take their nap around 1pm every day instead of 11am, which would cut down the amount of time they would need to stay up until bedtime (7-7:30pm)...they are very inconsistent nappers, sleeping anywhere from 45min-2hrs a day...so because they like to drink their milk mid-morning and then fall asleep i am having trouble keeping them awake until after lunch...so how can i get them to move their already once a day nap from 11am to 1pm without having baby-meltdowns?

 

My girls were still taking two naps a day at that age. I remember that once they went to 1 nap a day (around 18 months), it was still a couple of months after that until they were able to make it past 12. My girls get Sippy's of water for nap/bedtime. I never tried to force nap issues at all. I have always let my girls take the lead on when they needed sleep. Amazingly they both put themselves on the same schedule, so it worked out for us. Good Luck!

 

My twins went down to 1 nap a day around 22 months and even now they can't last until 1, not even close! They are in bed by 11am and no later then noon or else they take an awful nap because they are so tired.
If you don't want them to fall asleep while drinking the milk then maybe you could try water instead and have them sit in their high chairs while they drink it. Mine used to fall asleep with bottles and when we switched to sippies we made sure they got their last sippy in their high chair and not in bed. It's so hard to do and the first couple days were rough but it's so nice in the end. GL!

 

My two did not go to one nap until 15-16 months. Like Krystyn, I let my two take the lead on when to go to one nap. They started boycotting their morning nap, so it was easy for me to move their naptime up from 2pm to 1 pm. If you want to move them to one nap at 1 pm, I would try keeping them up 15 min-30 min later until you get to 1 pm.
As for the milk, I agree with Krystyn and Brigette, I would give it to them in their high chairs before you take them up to nap. Good luck!

 

We didn't switch until 15 months or so and tried to keep the schedule the same with lunch at 12:30 and nap from 1:00 - 3:00. That didn't work because they were exhausted and too tired to nap well. We eventually started giving lunch at 11:00 and they take a nap at noon and sleep until 2:30 or 3:00 so, for us, moving it up just had to happen. Maybe down the road a bit we can move it back some. We just had to keep them very entertained and keep them awake for a couple of weeks in that in between time when they got sleepy. They wouldn't fall asleep, will only do that in their cribs, but got very fussy and obviously tired. Still, though, they had been resisting their morning nap for a while and then not sleeping well in the afternoon so we knew it was time and unfortunately that means earlier nap.

 

We didnt change to one nap until 15 months and that was because my LOs started nursery. Like K&T´s Mom, above, I used to do lunch at 12pm then they´d sleep 1-3pm but they´d be so cranky that they wouldnt eat as they were so tired and it became a battle. I just moved their nap earlier and they now go to bed before lunch! I put them down around 12pm and they go to sleep around 12.30pm fora couple of hours. They then have lunch anywhere between 2-3pm (which is the Spanish timetable) and are at nursery for 4pm. They eat better then too. They eat quite a bit for breakfast and have a late morning snack so that keeps them going till lunchtime. It works well for us though most Spaniards sleep post-lunch! :lol:

As for the milk, mine have theirs in cups and drink throughout the morning when they want it. I leave them on the table where they can reach them. This works well for us as they are often too full from breakfast to drink it straightaway. I also add cereal to their milk as they have such a long gap between breakfast and lunch and it keeps them going. DS often drinks his just before nap time. Mine go to bed at 9pm and are up at 9am.

In your shoes, I´d let your babies guide you plus push the hour gradually. GL!

 

You have to do it gradually. We also went to one nap around that age but did not get to 1:00 for a few months. When I knew they did well with 11:00, I would keep them up until 11:15 for about 2 weeks. Then a few weeks later, added another 15-30 minutes. I think it took about 3 months before we finally got to 1:00 and since then have taken a good 3 hour nap daily.

As far as the milk, I would offer it throughout the morning in a sippy. This way they won't associate milk with naptime.

If you start doing this now, hopefully you'll be at 1:00 before summer and you'll then have the entire morning to enjoy the weather.

 

I would second the gradual thing. but like the others have said, mine didn't start doing a 1 nap a day consistently until the 20th month. I thought around 16 mo. I would have to switch but was able to get back on 2 naps a day. Mine are great nappers though, and very consistent. But they started boycotting their 9am nap, so I just moved it gradually to 10a, then I tried to keep them up until 11a when I started their 1 nap nap. Now I've gotten them to stay up and do lunch around 12:15p and be in cribs ready for nap at 1pm.

With that said, they are pretty cranky around 11a still, and would probably happily take a nap... but for us they were getting too much daytime sleep, so that's why we switched to 1 nap that was shorter than their 2 naps.

good luck figuring it all out. I find that sleep and food timing is very important, but hard to figure out.

I can't help with the milk thing, because mine never fall asleep while nursing. But the high chair idea sounds good.

 

thanks everyone for your tips and advice! at this point they don't really drink their milk in the highchair for some reason so i think i will try giving them their cups throughout the morning...and i'll try and move lunch up to around 11am and then see about putting them to bed around noon or 1pm and see how that goes...they are also not good with putting themselves to sleep during the day which is where the cup of milk comes in to help otherwise i'm patting 2 babies to sleep in 2 different rooms! i know i shouldn't be "helping" them to fall asleep but it's definitely been a challenge to change this...i used a sleep program with their nighttime sleeping which worked great and they sleep 7pm-6am every day putting themselves to sleep at night just fine, but daytime is much harder...so maybe this will all help with this issue too...

oh and can i just add that i noticed a correlation between not sleeping much during day meaning less sleep at night too? i know it sounds backwards but giana only slept an hour all day yesterday and was up at 5:30am today! up until last week she was sleeping 1.5-2hrs and alana was my 45min-1hr sleeper and then they switched it up on me...they have a tendency to do that ALOT...not sure if it's because they're mirror image twins or not but they like to be opposite! lol! anyway thanks again everyone...hope it works!!!

 

yeah, interesting about the less daytime sleep didn't mean more nighttime sleep... Health Sleep Habits Happy Child talks about that. "sleep begets more sleep"... go figure... but I think the idea is that they need to be rested to get into a good REM sleep or something.

you sound like you are doing a great job, I'm glad you're able to get them down at night w/o assistance, maybe you could work on one at a time to pat them to help them sleep for daytime?

 

well actually the trick at night time was to NOT help them fall asleep in anyway (i used the sleep sense program)...it was tough at first letting them cry it out in the middle of the night, only going in every 10min to let them know it was still "sleepy time"...the longest bout was 1hr 45min, although it wasn't always continuous...but like the book says they will eventually go to sleep...i think it was easier at night though because it was dark...daytime is harder because they see me and don't understand why i won't pick them up...i think i am just going to have to change up my schedule, try and somewhat mimick the nighttime routine, and put them down sleepy but awake and then be prepared to have lots of screaming for the foreseeable future...lol...thanks!