Please help me transition from 2 naps to 1!

For those of you that have had a successful transition from 2 naps to 1, I need your help! My girls are fantastic sleepers at night- we go down anywhere between 6-6:30.. depending upon how the naps were that day. They are sleeping less and less in the morning, but they seem very messed up by the time the afternoon nap rolls around and then the afternoon nap is hit or miss because they are overtired. This is really hard timing because I am due with #3 mid August and need them to be adjusted if possible to the 1 nap a day.. any advice?????????

 

You are at a hard stage. They will probably be cranky in the AM, but try to keep them up for as long as possible. This may mean not going anywhere in the mornings if your kids are prone to falling asleep on the go. It's perfectly fine to do the morning nap every few days during the transition. I realized that you don't have to be rigid about it. The other annoying problem that I have is that one twin often wakes the other twin too early from from the PM nap, and then of course there is no second nap to make up for lost sleep. That's life I guess Congrats on your upcoming birth!

 

What helped us to make the transition was to offer the opportunity for catnaps earlier in the morning and in the late afternoon in addition to the long nap. The trick is to find out how long or rather short a catnap has to be to take the edge off the extreme cranky tiredness without endangering proper naptime or bedtime, for us 10 minutes usually worked. The hard part is having to wake a sleeping baby, something I hate doing. This catnap opportunity was usually on the go - in the stroller or rarely in the car. The time in the stroller was also a chance for quiet-time instead of a short nap if they needed it. My babies relaxed outside, think park or woods rather than busy street or shopping if you can.

We also started the transition with an earlier midday nap (i.e. before lunch after a substantial snack) and an earlier bedtime and then slowly pushed naptime and bedtime back to where we wanted to be as they adjusted to the new routine. I think we started with an 11 am to 1 pm nap and are now at 1 pm to 3.30 pm which just works better for us.

GL and try to get some rest while they nap during these last weeks of pregnancy.

 

Just had one more question.. would you still have them take some quiet time in the morning?? I have been putting them down for morning naps and they either play or catnap on and off for about an hour..

 

Nate started fighting the am nap first, while Jack still needed it. What I did was to put Nate down, and if he slept, great; if not, I went and got him before he disturbed his brother. Within a few weeks, Jack was fighting the am nap, so we went cold-turkey (this was at about 17 months). We just kept them up playing and doing interesting things (no driving because Jack would *always* fall asleep in the car and miss lunch). We moved lunch earlier (sometimes as early as 11am if they seemed really sleepy). There were quite a few lunches where they fell asleep in their high chairs!

It took a while for them to get really good at napping in the afternoon; for a few weeks after we transitioned, they were only taking about 1 hour naps, which meant for cranky boys! It eventually settled out, and they have consistently taken 1.5-2 hour naps since then. Sometimes Jack (my champion sleeper) will go 3 or 4 hours; one time we had to wake him for dinner after 5 hours! :shok:

I wouldn't do any quiet time in the morning, because I wouldn't want them to risk falling asleep and messing up their afternoon nap, but that's just me. ardon:

Hope this helps!

 

I did it cold turkey...no quiet time or cat naps in the morning but that was more for me then them...I like routine and structure so once I decided (or rather, they decided) they were ready for one nap a day I decided on the new routine and stuck to it.

The nap started out at 12:00, right after lunch but some days they were down by 11:30 because they were just exhausted. Like a PP said it took them a long time to get a longer nap, eve now it's maybe 2 hours at best (still with several wake-ups too much to my annoyance!) but my kids are horrible sleepers so I'm just trying to accept it . When we started there were MANY days where one or both would only sleep for 45 min which meant a very early bedtime!

The key for me is to keep them busy and fed..if they get bored or hungry they get fussy, even now when we've been doing this routine for more than 6 months now. If I take them out I try to stay very close to home so they don't fall asleep in the car. It's nice that it's summer now because doing things outside should help to keep them stimulated and awake.

GL!

 

[quote name='E's 3' date='13 July 2011 - 07:16 PM' timestamp='1310598980' post='1803038']
When we started there were MANY days where one or both would only sleep for 45 min which meant a very early bedtime!

[/quote]
Yes, I forgot to mention that on bad napping days we bumped bedtime earlier! :good: This really helped reduce the crankiness the next day.

 

Regarding morning quiet time during the transition: I did this (including the opportunity to catnap) but it was pretty short, more like a peaceful break for all of us rather than leaving them alone in their cribs.