i am DONE with naps

my LOs go down about 2-2.5 hours after waking without a fight. they nap about an hour, sometimes a little more.
their afternoon nap at 2 is no more. they've been rolling around, standing, talking, crying for 1 hour now. everyone says to leave them. if i leave them, they dont sleep until i actually go in there at 4 and remove them from their cribs.
not sure what to do. im very frustrated and feeling like i am DONE with naps. :headbang:

should i move their morning nap back and do 1 nap a day?

 

:hug: Naps are so frustrating! How long has this been going on? Are they working on a new milestone? I think 12 months might be too soon to go to one nap.
One of the things I did was institute quiet time (no TV, low voices, etc) before naps to help them to ease into sleepy time. I hope this phase passes for you quickly :hug:

 

this has been going on for about 3-4 weeks.
they fell asleep at 3. but it's nuts here! i lay them down and we read some stories in very low-lit light in my bedroom. the lights are off; only lights are through the curtains. one LO constantly re-wakes and needs to be soothed back to sleep too.

 

I would try moving their morning nap back. What time do they wake up in the morning? When we first went to 1 nap it was around 10 am. I did a really early lunch and then they went for a nap afterward.

 

they wake up around 730 and then they nap at 10.
if i push the nap back, i dont want them napping at around 4 and sleeping until 6. i'll never get them to go to bed around 730.

 

So they get up from their morning nap around 11 and what time do you put them down again? 2-3 hrs was the max between nap times here, it's possible they are already overtired and then have trouble settling down.

How much light is coming through their curtains? Are they the room darkening curtains? I covered the window in aluminum foil and then put poster board over top of that to darken the kids room this spring, they were having trouble with their afternoon nap as well. It totally solved the problem.

I really agree with not going in there, even some quiet time will do them some good in the afternoon.

We switched to one nap at 13 months and it was a very rough transition for about 3 weeks, but it was necessary due to my older kids baseball schedules.

 

Oh I just read you are reading some stories before hand, that works great for some kids, and not great for others. Try giving them something to drink/eat right before nap, and then lay them down, turn on lullabies and white noise if you have, and walk out. No talking or playing. You never know what will help until you try it. And you have to try it for a few days to see if it's going to work, just trying it one day isn't a definitive trial run!

 

Try one nap a day for a week and see how cranky they are. Weisbluth says some kids give up afternoon nap early. I would start by moving the morning nap back to 1130 and see if they nap long enough (until 1 or 2) to go until 730pm. I'd say for as long as you tried, they may not want as much nap time. You could also shorten the morning nap to 45 mins and see if they do an hour in the afternoon. Kids this age need about 14 hours of sleep total. So if they are napping 2 hours in the morning, they are getting all their sleep.

 

OK! the kids do about 12 hours at night.
from about 730 or so to 730. sometime this varies about an hour.

they go down 3 hours after they wake up from their morning nap.

 

I think I would keep their morning nap at 10 a.m. and move their afternoon back so that they are going down at 3 p.m. Maybe they aren't tired at 2 p.m. As babies get older they can handle more wake time between naps. They might only take an hour nap at 3 p.m. and I bet they would still go to sleep at 7:30 p.m. for you if they only sleep an hour. You could always make a policy that they can't nap past 4:30 or whatever time you choose.

 

I tend to agree with this, but then again we've also been struggling with naps ourselves lately and our LOs are around the same age (though they are preemies). so I'm no expert! After a couple of months of dealing with 30-45 minute naps, last week I decided to not put our boys down until they had been up at least 3 hours, or a little less if they were rubbing eyes, yawning, etc and acting really tired. And so far their naps have been better (45 min - 1 hr, occasionally 90+ minutes). We don't have a set wake-up or nap schedule, but I have had much better luck with them going down about 3 hours after last wake up. And this evening Colin slept 90 minutes until 4pm and still went down to bed easily at 7pm (well we started feeding him then and he was out by 7:20pm). GL! Nap schedules are still a mystery to me though and I just kind of cross my fingers every time we put them down for a nap!

 

My boys have dropped to one nap on most days. When they started fighting the second nap, I stopped the first nap in order to keep an afternoon nap. We get up at 6:30am and they nap from 12-2 and then go to be at 6:30 pm.

 

before they go down for their naps, they eat lunch. EYE rubbing, yawning, ear pulling...all the signs of being tired!
we then lay down, read some books and head to bed

 

Naps were the hardest thing for me during the first year. For us it has gotten better during the SY. My 45 minute napper (DS) now takes much longer naps. Don't give up!

 

Have you tried just putting them down after they eat? If I read to my boys right after it would be too much for them. They would be overstimulated. All they want is to go to sleep. I will put each in their crib with their favorite animal and put a little music on. If one of them is screaming and is out of control, I take him out and I have a PNP in my living room and we will try a nap in there.

My boys are not on a strict eating/napping schedule. For days they will be fine and then someone won't nap. I really leave it up to them. It is a bit harder on me, but they are not the same kid so I have to realize that there are going to be some differences!

Mine typically take 2 naps a day...and one of my boys will often take a very short catnap in the late afternoon as well. They are horrible if we are out for the day...but when we are home they are usually pretty regular about naps/food.

I have been struggling with nap time for a few weeks. They seem to be boycotting naps. But one has just learned to pull up on everything and would much rather do that than anything else and the other is not far behind! I keep telling myself things are bound to get better soon....Good luck!