The March to 1 Nap: A Practical Guide to Baby Nap Transitions (4m-18m-ish)

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hey r/omegaxx19 - i hope you’re having a nice weekend and if it’s Mother’s day where you- happy Mother’s day!

I know it’s been a while since I first posted this! It probably took 6-8 weeks but we finally settled into 1 nap. In hindsight, I probably should have just stuck with 2 naps for a bit longer because I didn’t realize how much I could mess up by going to 1 nap too early. So it was about a month of shit night sleep and going back and forward between 1 and 2 naps, then there was a few weeks of figuring out wake windows but we got there..

So towards the end of 2 naps he was doing 14hrs total day sleep and then at the start of 1 nap he was averaging close to 15 hours. That has slowly come down back to around 14.15hrs. However, the last 8 days we have had EMW and I truly can not work it out. He was waking closer to 8-8:30am last week (I’d wake him at 8:30am if he was still asleep) and now he’s waking at 7am or this morning it was 6:45am. So the last few days he’s lost around an hour of total sleep everyday average 13hrs the last few days because he doesn’t make it up in his nap. When we first went to 1 nap he was doing a 3hr nap every few days and the rest was around 2hrs. The last few weeks the average has been 2hrs but some days it’s 1.5hrs. So he was doing around 12hours at night and ~2 hrs during the day. I’ve been putting him down between 7-8pm depending when he wakes from his nap. The earliest he’ll wake from the nap is 1:30pm (he usually goes down at 12pm) so he’ll go to bed at 7pm and he handles the 5.5ww before bed completely fine. If I push the morning wake window beyond 4.5-5hrs he gets overtired and we only get a 1-1.5hr nap.

Whyyyy is he waking early all of a sudden? How can I fix this?

Also, once I fix the early mornings I want to shift night sleep back to day sleep… is that possible? I would love to have a 11.5hr night and a 2-2.5hr nap (this is what we had on 2 naps). So 8pm-7:30am and nap 12:30-2:30/3pm.
 
@stageandgrace Total wake time was too long and bedtime was too late when you switched over. That’s why he’s waking up early. It totally common and a pain in the butt.

We basically had to do naps earlier and multiple early bedtimes a week to cap up. It’s just a slow, painful process—took a few months.

One thing that helped me is to never wake him in the morning and still put him down for nap at the same clock time (basically shorten first WW). Oddly enough he’d have an extra long nap then, and we can do a normal bedtime with still short total wake time.

Hold tight to your DWT and don’t expose him to light before then.

You’ll have to see where he settles on 1 nap in terms of his night sleep day sleep distribution. My suggestion is to not get too heavy handed and just focus on getting him good sleep. You likely will be able to get a 2-3 hour nap and 11-12 hour night but it’ll take some time. We didn’t get real stability in terms of nap time and bedtime fixed for >5 days a week until 20-24 months.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant Oh no, I think I’ve done something wrong. We did 1 nap on Friday Saturday and Sunday and it seemed to work really well. He kept waking up close to 8am so I thought we’d keep doing it as long as he woke late. Friday: wake 7:45. Nap 11:45-2:10. Bed 7:15. Saturday: wake 7:58. Nap 11:50-2:50 (I woke him up). Bed 7:30. Sunday: wake 8:08. Nap 12.05- 2:25. Bed 7:30. So the last 3 days he’s been hovering around 15hrs total sleep (on 2 naps it’s around 14hrs). He was doing 15hrs total sleep until 10months old but that seemed to rapidly decrease over 2 months until it settled around 14hrs.

Last night I think he had a split night? He woke up at 4:20am crying and I picked him up and rocked him a bit and he stopped crying so I put him down and he started crying again. This went on until 5:30am. I changed his nappy and gave panadol in case it was teeth (I couldn’t see any teeth this morning). So at 5:30am I took him into bed with us (I’ve never actually done this before but I was desperate) and he just played with the sheets and pulled my hair/ did not sleep (lol). So at 6:30am my husband put him into his cot and he fell asleep straight away. He woke up on his own at 8am and I freaked out so we did 2 naps today.. should I stick to 2 naps for a little while now and try 1 nap again in a few weeks?

It doesn’t get light here until 7am and has room is DARK. He’s slept through the night independently since 8 weeks old, of course he’s had random night wakes and usually he just needs a cuddle and goes straight back to sleep. He’s never been awake for that long over night and I’ve never not been able to settle him..
 
@stageandgrace
He woke up at 4:20am crying
Click to expand...

Sleep debt still. Sleep pressure is light at that hour so your attempts to resettle him just riled him up. I'd just CIO. At this age some babies just can't be resettled by parents at that hour. We used to be able to get a contact snooze during EMWs but that stopped happening around 1yo.

2 naps will just add to your total wake time and worsen night wakings at this point.

Keep doing 1 nap, stop capping the nap and let him sleep as long as he wants. A really long nap will actually enable you to push bedtime a bit later and avoid problems with early bedtimes too often.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant Thank you soo much!! I’m feeling soo much better about this now. Yeah he’s really a champ sleeper, he started sleeping through 8-8 from 8 weeks old and never looked back. Plus he’s an ex 28weeker and I’ve read a lot that NICU babies can be terrible sleepers. So we definitely got very lucky!! Thank you again. I really appreciate it :)
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant Hello!! I was really looking forward to this but sadly your hard work has been cut off! Just wondering if you have any insights to this situation. My 5mo is now out of 4m regression, started taking longer naps now and WW has increase to 1.75 to 2.25h. I have taken the plunge 2 weeks ago to try 3 naps but for some reason she does not want to fall asleep until 3.5h after the last nap (1.75/2/2-2.25/3.5). I place her down at 2 to 2.5h but she fussed for a really long time before sleeping. I was advised that that isnt enough wake time in the first 3 WW hence baby was undertired requiring 3.5h to even out the last wake window hence I need to spread the wake time out. Over the last 2 weeks, we work our way up to 2 to 2.25 wake time. But she still does a 3.5h last WW (2/2.25/2.25/3.5). We tried going back to 4 naps as well. Both 3 and 4 naps doesnt seem to be working, plagued with false starts, night wakes and EMW. Not sure how to go from here.. and ideas? TIA.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant 645am wake up
First nap 2h, second and third half hour.
Bedtime has always been between 7 to 8pm
Naps indep sleep in crib
Has been needing to assist baby to sleep at bedtime on 3 naps because she takes sooo long to fall asleep and instinct tells me she is alr tired. She has all the classic signs, eye rubs, yawning, limb jerking, head shaking.
False start within 3h after bedtime
5am wakes
 
@another7 7-8p bedtime and 6:45 wake up sound reasonable.

She's closer to the 4-3 transition than she is to the 3-2 transition. 1.75 hour first WW seems good. I'd shorten subsequent wake windows to 1.75 hours if she's seeming tired and offer a 4th nap with assistance (stroller, contact). Keep it really short (like 10-15min) so it doesn't interfere with bedtime. With a 10-15min 4th nap last WW shouldn't be longer than 1-1.5 hours. Bedtime should not be later than 7:45 with a DWT of 6:45. Remember: fit last nap to bedtime and not vice versa; a short nap does NOT need a full wake window after.

This should help cut down the false start. Early morning waking may linger for a bit longer and that's ok--will get better with time. As she gets older the earlier WWs will lengthen more and more, and the 3rd nap will end late enough that you can just skip the 4th nap and make it to bedtime. Some days you'll need the 4th nap and some days you won't--don't try to force it and just go with the flow. I wouldn't expect last WW to be longer than 2.75-3 hours on a day with pretty robust naps at this age and based on what you are writing.
 
@another7 Keep doing those 4 nap WWs, but cap that last nap and shorten last WW so you have bedtime 745 and DWT 645. Try to extend the first three naps as much as you can. On days when third nap ends after 430, you can probably skip 4th nap and just bring bedtime up a bit to 715.

If even with this you're still having trouble after a week and kiddo is looking tired, skip 4th nap and do some early bedtimes.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant Hello sleep guru!

Thanks to your tips and methods, we've been smooth sailing over here. Not to say there haven't been any hiccups, but I've just managed to see a pattern and figured out how to deal with it, in a way that works with my LO. Your advice on not capping naps and watching cues was the game changer though.

Which is also why I'm writing - I've been waiting anxiously for your nap transition guide and wondering if there was more to this post? Our LO starts daycare in January and although they'll offer two naps, they run primarily on one nap between 12-2. My LO is high sleep needs and didn't transition to two naps until past 8 months, so I know he won't be ready for one nap at 12 months, but I also don't think he'll sleep when all the other kids are playing. In short, I'm trying to figure out how to prepare him for shortened naps come January when he starts daycare.

Thank you 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
 
@ninjatastic Hey glad to hear from you, and glad to hear things are going great!!!

I didn't have time or energy to retype the nap transition post, and honestly I'd like a better venue for some of my observations re: sleep (honestly a book format probably works best). Don't really have time to do that and I'm thinking maybe I should defer it until we have a second (leaning that way right now) so I'm not just basing everything on one baby. Anyhoo.

Re: your question, I think the biggest question for daycare is how exactly they plan to offer two naps (environment, schedule, any assistance). You can decide a game plan then. I made a daycare sleep guide that may be of help and there I shared our schedule for my son when we started daycare at 12mo (they only offered 1 nap 1230-3, my son was very happy with 2 naps at home on 3.25/3.25/4 WWs). Take a look and I'm happy to answer any questions!

Until then, definitely just focus on getting him well-rested. Don't transition anything about his schedule except if you want to shift DWT (the nap guide outlines why and how). One thing that helped us massively is carefully tracking his sleep requirements before and knowing that he needed ~13.5 hours of sleep in 24 hours. My sleep consultant told me that sleep requirement drops about 30min from 12mo to 18mo, so that helped me fine-tune day to day. Basically what'll happen is that your kiddo will take on a massive sleep debt during the week and won't be getting enough sleep most daycare days, but you can't just shift bedtime early everyday because in that case you will end up with split night or early morning wake ups. So it's a lot of days without enough sleep, and then massive catch up days (early bedtime or 2 nap days on weekends with greatly shortened WWs). It's basically a tug of war between early bedtimes to shorten total wake time and reasonable bedtimes to maintain circadian rhythm.

What makes the process earlier is that toddlers are definitely more resilient to sleep debt, and early morning sleep is more consolidated, so it didn't end up as hard as I thought it would be. My son transitioned successfully to 1 nap at 15.5mo. We had early morning waking around 5a about 1-2 times a week in the few weeks leading up to the transition (did CIO for those and he always fell back asleep before DWT 8), and some bad night wakings immediately after starting daycare, but all in all managed to protect our night sleep.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant Thank you so much for responding above. We actually ended up delaying daycare until 18 months because we found an amazing nanny and I also couldn't imagine dealing with his sleep debt madness.

We are however suffering again because of DST (I think) and a bout of some virus. For the past 3 nights, he has been screaming bloody murder the minute he's been put down to bed at normal bedtime (7:45pm), and crying until 9pm. At this point or even earlier I intervene because he's working himself into a sweating, hyperventilating frenzy and won't even calm down for another 30-40 min with me. Should I be pushing bedtime later and then slowly bringing it earlier to account for the time change? Is his before bed WW too short? It's so hard to tell if he has a sleep debt now because he's able to fight sleep.

He sleeps through the night once he falls asleep by 10pm, but it's only a 9-9.5 hour night which is much too short for him, and I want to get him back to 8pm bedtime at the latest. He is still on two naps (2.5-2.75 / 3 / 4-4.25) ranging between 2.5 - 3.5 hours of sleep (longer if night is shorter), and falls asleep almost instantly for naps.

Sorry for bugging you again, I really appreciate your wisdom. It's been tough not getting over emotional when he gets like this. I snapped at him tonight and felt so bad after but it's just so hard dealing with the shrieks.

Thank you
 
@ninjatastic Yeah it’s the time change + last WW naturally getting longer. I’d push bedtime to later to eliminate the crying and help him fall asleep calmly, and then start shortening the second nap gradually so you can bring bedtime up again.
 
@ninjatastic Any time sleep is derailed he’s gonna be sleeping less and build up a sleep debt. That’s just….. math?

Undertiredness is a made up term. There’s absolutely zero way kid can have frequent night wakings from “undertiredness”, bc when the kid is awake he/she isn’t getting sleep and therefore getting tired. Honestly any time I see anyone using undertired as an explanation for anything other than long sleep latency (taking a long time to fall asleep) or a nap being shorter than ideal I lose interest.

Also any kind of erratic ness in sleep, esp him being asleep when circadian rhythm is yelling at him to wake up (sleeping in in the morning, falling asleep an hour before usual bedtime, an extra long nap) are all ways that his body is telling me he’s got a ton of sleep pressure on board.
 
@knowledgeisnotignorant As someone who just implemented your advice and saw IMMEDIATE, monumental improvement, would you consider a substack or something for your guides and observations? I’d throw all my money at you and become a diehard subscriber ;)
 
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