[bo night]

My 14 month old daughter has never been a "good sleeper". She's up every two hours or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. But, she has almost always, except for a short time when she was around ten to a year, gone back to sleep when latched on.

Well within the last two weeks we've been cutting out the evening nap and she's been expanding her morning nap to last an hour and half to two hours. But she seems to be fairly grumpy and tired all afternoon and then exhausted by seven. I've been starting to put her to bed at eight, on this new schedule, and she goes out with just a short nurse. But for the past week, she's been waking at four, five, six for a couple of hours. She's clearly not ready to get up as she's exhausted and throwing herself on me and whiny. She doesn't seem to be in pain, just up and confused by it.

Should we reinstate the evening nap and keep her up later? Why is she grumpy all afternoon? HELP! I can't survive on so little sleep.

Thanks.

 

[Denise K]

There seems to be this awful stage when one nap isn't enough and two is too much. I remember it. Now we are in the stage of one nap is too much and none is too little (26 months), Which is a lot like it.

My mom told me some thing she'd read about getting yourself on a regular sleep schedule--that the important thing is to EITHER wake up at the same time every day, OR go to bed at the same time every night. We thought that might help, so we started getting DS up half an hour earlier, and not letting him (or us...) ever sleep in. It has helped a lot. Even if one day he skips his nap and is a wreck and goes to bed at 8--or naps for three hours and stays up till 10--the next day things are back to the regular clock again. I am not sure whether this would help you, but it was such a useful concept for us that I thought I'd pass it on jsut in case.

If I were you (maybe) I would try postponing the single nap until the afternoon. Set it in the middle of the day, or a little later. Keep her up by doing something interesting at her usual naptime, until the new schedule is set. When DS is grouchy all afternoon, it usually means he didn't get enough nap; and it's an awkward transition time, no matter what. But that afternoon stretch is so long to get through if the nap was too early....

In any case, it'll probably get better soon--your DD will settle in to one nap a day, with new bedtimes/ getting up times to make it work for her. Or she'll get that tooth in that's bugging her. Or she'll figure out whatever question she's thinking about all night long. DS is a short-stretch sleeper too, by the way.

Good luck.

 

[Parker'smommy]

I second that you should try and have her one nap be in the afternoon instead of the morning. The afternoon is just too long to go without sleep for them and then they are cranky all evening long. This happened to us too.At around 14 months Ds was kinda balking at going down in the afternoon until almost 4 or so and then if he did, he'd be up till 10 or 11. So, I just delayed his am nap, till 1230 or so and now he goes down for 2-3 hours. He wakes up refreshed and is tired by bedtime at 830. It was hard at first, as he was a little tired in the am and would sometimes go to sleep in the car if I was doing errands. But he got used to the schedule quickly and is very happy. I really like him taking only 1 pm nap cuz we can go run errands in the am or go do something fun instead of being stuck at home during naptime. Then I go take a nap too in the afternoon!! yipee!!!

 

[Embee]

I totally concur, that stage between two and one nap is a tough one... we went through it rather early at 10 or so months (DS was just flat out refusing the pm nap, and we were having to put him to bed at 6 because he would be losing it... wake time was 5-6ish, not a good thing!

. Sooooooo...

We moved the am nap slowly to midday, about 15-20 per day until it was about 11 or 12, and he'd sleep until 2-3ish)). We put DS to bed as early as he needed, usually about 7ish. As time went on, he got used to the routine and all was fine again. And as more time has passed, the midday nap has become an afternoon nap and bedtime is back to 8:30-9ish. Just more of those many transitions. Try some things out, hang with them awhile and wait a bit. I'm sure all will come together sooner rather than later. Hang in there.

 

[redsmama]

I share the same experience and one 12:30 pm nap worked like a charm (tho initially he was too tired to eat a good lunch before his nap and instead ate it upon waking).

 

[bo night]

thank you! i'm going to try moving the nap a little later and feeling her out. today she woke at seven, wanted to go down at ten, slept for an hour and a half and then took a half hour nap around four-thirty. we'll see how the night goes.

i'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Ivarson]

My son's pediatrician recommended that I put him to bed earlier, not later, in order for him to sleep in later and wake up happy....after a couple weeks of this, it started to work. Instead of putting him to bed at 8:30, I made it 7:45. Now he sleeps til almost 7am or sometimes a little later. He was waking at 5:30 or 6! This all started shortly after he went down to one nap instead of two. He'd go down fairly easy for an am nap around 10, but when I tried again at 3 or so, he sometimes wouldn't sleep at all. So, I slowly started to transition him to one nap - first waiting til 11 or so, then noonish - now he takes a pm nap around 1 (sometimes its only over an hour) - then he sleeps by 7:45 for a good night's rest. Just some suggestions.