When just one wants to drop a nap

Alex is trying to drop down to one long nap a day, but Sam isn't ready at all. (Sam has always needed more sleep.) When you were going through nap transitions, did you separate them? Right now they're both getting too little sleep - Alex will fuss loudly when put down for a second nap so Sam doesn't get enough sleep and Sam will wake up after an hour and fuss so not let Alex sleep enough in that one nap. How did you manage or did your LOs transition at the same time?

 

When it became clear that Nick was no longer going to take a morning nap, I stopped even trying so that he wouldn't wake Alex. So after breakfast, Alex goes down for a short nap. Then after lunch, I put Nick down first and keep Alex up about half an hour longer. This way they end up waking at about the same time.

 

Thanks, we'll try that today!

 

I'm lucky in that my guys don't keep each other awake with their fussing. Nate dropped the morning nap at least a month before Jack did (like your Sam, Jack has always needed more sleep than Nate). At first I would put them both down for the morning nap, and listen to see if Nate would fall asleep. During the transition, it was like 50/50; sometimes he'd drop off and sometimes he wouldn't. After 1/2 an hour of babbling/fussing I knew he wouldn't go down, so I'd "rescue" him silently and play while Jack napped.

After a couple of weeks, Nate was consistently not going down for the first nap, so I just stopped trying, and put Jack down while letting Nate play. After about a month, Jack started fighting his morning nap, so we fully switched to one nap!

Good luck with the transition!

 

[quote name='Nate and Jack's Mom' date='08 May 2010 - 05:27 PM' timestamp='1273364849' post='1632023']
I'm lucky in that my guys don't keep each other awake with their fussing. Nate dropped the morning nap at least a month before Jack did (like your Sam, Jack has always needed more sleep than Nate). At first I would put them both down for the morning nap, and listen to see if Nate would fall asleep. During the transition, it was like 50/50; sometimes he'd drop off and sometimes he wouldn't. After 1/2 an hour of babbling/fussing I knew he wouldn't go down, so I'd "rescue" him silently and play while Jack napped.
[/quote]

I've been trying the same - putting them both down for nap #1 and letting Alex get back up if he doesn't fall asleep, but if I go in to get Alex, no matter how quiet I try to be, Sam wakes up!

Yesterday was an utter disaster. We let Alex skip nap #1 then he fell asleep in the car and wouldn't settle down for nap #2! Sam took a fine nap #1 but was kept awake by his brother instead of nap #2. They were just inconsolable the rest of the day ... Ah well, trying again today. :}

 

I'm sorry things are rough. :hug: This is just a temporary transition period, and it will get better soon, I promise! Hang in there! :youcandoit:

 

:hug: I'm sorry yesterday was so rough!

For us I have 1 that really needs to be on schedule, my dd could have easily still done 2 naps a day but Jake was ready to switch. So I switched to 1 a day when ds was ready because he was the one that really really needed the schedule. Dd was tired and it took a while for her to transition but it made a world of difference. We've chosen to not seperate them because I think that would be more difficult, so when one changes the schedule we change the other ones as well. It takes a lot of work and sometimes a couple weeks to find the right combination but once you find the right one it kind of clicks.
For us the trick about transitioning was the keep the nap early. Mine still go down around 11am and sometimes they stay up and talk but they now sleep at least 3 hours. GL I hope something works soon! :hug:

 

When we dropped from 3->2 I separated them and it only lasted 2-3 weeks and then the second boy was ready. I found that trying to force a baby to sleep (or stay awake) only made us both stressed out. I was lucky and before it made me too crazy it worked out.

Now that we're going from 2->1 (I think, 3 days in a row now) they seem to be on the same page luckily.