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

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@fortyeight Thank you! Great to hear that things are going well!

I've been thinking of a blog or something, but maybe substack would be a better venue? I enjoy helping ppl on Reddit but honestly I just end up typing the same things over and over again: would be nice to have something to direct ppl to.

 

[fortyeight]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Totally get that. I read all your pinned posts and then was looking at new posts in the sub, and I wanted to respond to all of them with the same advice I had just read from you lol. Substack seems like the easiest way for you to get started writing and publishing your work, and you can also collect email addresses for subscribers and email them newsletters, etc. It’s all prebuilt and ready for you to deploy

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@fortyeight Thank you! Great to hear that things are going well!

I've been thinking of a blog or something, but maybe substack would be a better venue? I enjoy helping ppl on Reddit but honestly I just end up typing the same things over and over again: would be nice to have something to direct ppl to.

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant My go to sleep guru!! just wondering your thoughts on what my 11.5month old is doing.

Sleep trained baby. Sleeps 12-12.5hr nights (6/6:30-6:30) and 2 naps of roughly 2.5-3hrs. (Usually 9:30/10- 11ish and 2ish -3ish) high sleep needs baby.

Past 3 days he has refused his afternoon nap at 2pm. Lays in bed for 30mins then eventually gets upset and didn’t sleep.

1st day I tried my absolute hardest to assist him to sleep, it didn’t work but he ended up falling asleep in the car at 3:30 for 25mins. Went to bed at 6pm - slept 12.5hrs.

2nd day refused nap at daycare (first ever skipped daycare nap) once again hung out in bed for half hour but then got upset. Ended up falling asleep on a carer at 3:15 for 15mins. Went to bed at 6pm- slept until 6:30am.

3rd day - my mum put him down for nap at 2pm, once again- hung out for 20mins but wouldn’t sleep, she tried to get him to sleep but he wouldn’t. He took no catnap this day. Bedtime at 6pm again.

Would you recommend keeping on this schedule and offering afternoon nap? Or pushing his morning nap a little later and seeing how he goes on 1 nap. On the days he skips his afternoon nap (he’s had more days that just these 3- but this has been 3 in a row so seeming like a bit of a pattern) he has a WW of 6-7 hours and seemingly sleeps fine at night. (I am waiting for his sleep debt to come back and bite me in the butt though) but he seems ready to sleep after a 3ishWW in the morning. His sleep is so unevenly distributed though.

Sorry- long post. Any thoughts or insights are welcome.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover Sounds like the 12 month sleep regression. It's a good thing: it shows that your kiddo has been well-rested so far (so he has the energy to fight the nap) AND that his wake windows are getting a bit longer.

He sounds like my son. My son always has the shortest first WW and a looooooong last WW, and can easily stay up and party until forever if we let him. We went by the 3.5 hour rule: when the lower limit of his first WW reached 3.5 hours (wouldn't fall asleep before 3.5 hours no matter what, wakes up after one cycle happy and wouldn't go back to sleep despite being left for 15-20min), the upper limit of that WW reached 4.5 hours and we were able to push to 1 nap and get a decent length nap.

We took the route of pushing nap #1 to consolidate, and turning nap #2 into a bridge nap. What I would do:

-keep doing 1st nap on current WW, leave him for 15-20min after he wakes up so he has a chance to fall back asleep

-put him down in the crib for second nap for a full hour to fall asleep; if he falls asleep during the 2nd nap, you likely will need to start capping it esp if you start noticing him dawdling at bedtime and not falling asleep at his usual time

-if he doesn't fall asleep for second nap, get him up after one hour in the dark ("quiet time"), do quiet activities that evening, move bedtime up to 6 (can go earlier if he's acting super tired or you're starting to hear noises overnight or seeing early morning wakings suggesting sleep debt build up)

He will likely go back to taking both naps after a few weeks.

I wouldn't change the clocktime of either naps at this point. You could push second nap a bit later if you want to, but unless you cap nap very aggressively you may start getting bedtime resistance. I always try to keep bedtime consistent.

You can try one nap early bedtime days IF he wakes up after 6:30 (this will start happening as long as you are consistent with early morning wakings and do NOT get them up). In the beginning I wouldn't push the first WW more than 3.5 hours. As he gets older you can experiment pushing closer to 4 hours.

FWIW my son dropped his 3rd nap at 8mo and 2nd nap at 15.5mo, although after 12mo we did plenty of 1 nap days (either one nap early

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant This is al soooo helpful! Thank you.

I was expecting an EMW today after him only napping 1.5hr yesterday and then having a 7.25hr WW but he actually woke at 6:05 after going to bed at 5:55pm

I NEVER go into his room until 6am so I’ll keep doing that if the EMWs come back.

I did think it was too early for 1 nap so I’ll still keep offering 2.

I don’t think daycare will keep him in the bed for 1hr but he’s only there 2 days a week and he’s about to have 2 week holiday anyway.

He was on 2 naps by 6 months so thought he might transition early but I’ll keep offering 2 for a while longer.

Thank you again!!

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover > I don’t think daycare will keep him in the bed for 1hr but he’s only there 2 days a week and he’s about to have 2 week holiday anyway.

Yay to the holiday! Yeah it doesn't matter with daycare. I'd just ask them to offer it as much as they can. If bedtime is 6-6:30 he may start getting cranky around 3-4 so if they can just just keep it chill that should help. Feed him as soon as you can because he might get too hungry to eat. Definitely not time to wean anything at this point.

> He was on 2 naps by 6 months so thought he might transition early but I’ll keep offering 2 for a while longer.

Hm, now that you mention it, if your kiddo is high sleep needs (needing 15 hours of sleep a day) his final 1-nap WWs may just end up being something like 4/5, so he could be closer than you think (in the beginning the WWs will likely be shorter just to catch him up from end of 2-nap schedule, so you might end up doing 3.5/5 or something). You'll just have to play around and see. The earliest successful 2-1 nap transition I've seen around here and IRL was 13mo but it was an average sleep needs kid. The traditional thinking is that higher sleep needs kids drop naps later but yours obviously didn't go by that =P

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Well they happily held him for a little catnap the other day and he only woke up because dad got there to pick him up- blows my mind that he was just asleep outside with other kids running around. Strange things happen at daycare!

His mood seems surprisingly good with the missed naps- but he falls asleep so quickly and has had some post bedtime wake ups (within 2hours) .. he’ll sit up, have a cry, seem really confused and fall back asleep. So I know the WW is too long for him.

He just went better on 2 naps because he’d sleep 2 long naps and have early bedtime. He sleeps better with a 6/6:30pm bedtime.

I was going to try him on 3.5-4/5-5.5 when we do make the switch to 1 nap but I’ll keep trying him on 2 naps for at least another month. I don’t want to mess with his good night sleep!

But at least I know he’ll be ok on 1 nap over the holidays as I know that some days we just won’t be able to give him 2 good naps at home.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover Agree with your interpretation of your kiddo's WW 100%. Sounds like you have a plan. Good luck!

 

[burdman]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hi! I just wanted to tell you that all over the internet, you are by far the most helpful person when it comes to baby sleep. I haven't been able to resolve all our issues, but your posts give me a sense of power to navigate my 15 month's old sleep in a more thoughtful way, instead of following suggestions that require me to keep him up till 11 30 AM even if he wakes early at 4 30 AM, sending him into a spiral. Thank you!

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@burdman Thank you so much for your kind words! Yeah the 2-1 transition is a really tricky one. Reddit ate the rest of this post where I posted some strategies but yeah, keeping a tired 15mo up for 7 hours ain't it!!!

 

[burdman]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Yeah. I realize that now. We have been using some of your strategies to see if we can make a change. Toddler sleep seems to be harder than baby sleep for now.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@burdman Good luck! It been harder and easier thus far--harder because the old tricks of soothing (I used to just contact for a bad early morning waking or for a nap I want to extend, and could usually get LO to go back to sleep) stop working, and you really just have to be very mindful and consistent about CIO (check-in's just really don't work for us for night wakings or early morning wakings anymore); easier because sleep is more consolidated and they can handle sleep debt better without waking up. My LO's daycare nap has been bad for forever now, but he'll crash through the night for even 12-hour stretches, so we're surviving even though he's just chronically under slept.

 

[burdman]

@knowledgeisnotignorant For us, sleep debt is a real thing. We went from 11hrs to 9.5 hours by keeping the nap time same on emw. We have him at home so we have some control, but the trial and error is soooo hard. Once he started with 9.5 hours, coming back has been so hard. But working on it.

 

[jschutonline]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Thanks for putting this post together!

I definitely struggled with the 4-3 month transition. We tried this around 4.5 months when first two naps had lengthened, and I wasn’t comfortable with capping every nap for 45 minutes to make it to a reasonable bedtime (9.30!). My LO was also taking longer to fall asleep so definitely needed longer WWs. Basically it took 3-4 weeks of crying at bedtime, false MOTN wakes!! I’m slightly scarred from the whole experience

I think I struggled with all the strategies:

• Keeping the same wake time (cold turkey). On 4 naps we were on 10-10.5 hours, but it meant WWs were too long so we have meltdowns at bed time.
• Gradually lengthening WWs across 3 naps, but it meant not enough total wake time and early bedtime. So we had false starts (really awful!), split nights and early wakes due to undertired!
• Lengthening WW across 4 nap until there isn’t time for last nap, so last WW was cut short. The last nap was already 20 minutes and my LO needed a full WW otherwise would roll around for 30 minutes and then get really upset.
• Micro nap. My LO refused these completely, he far to curious to sleep when he’s not tired.

I think what worked was time and maybe switching between 3/4 naps for a “reset” day. Interested to hear your thoughts!

Btw - I think your post may have been cute short!

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@jschutonline Yup Reddit ate most of my post... and I don't have a backup. I'm pretty annoyed. Maybe I'll get around to it again some day.

Totally agree with you that switching back and forth and TIME. We didn't switch back and forth for 4-3 and ended up with some really bad night wakings bc LO was getting too exhausted on the 3-nap WWs. We did plenty of switching back and forth for 3-2 and 2-1 and the result was much better. Honestly nothing came close to the trauma that 4-3 was so I hope it's the same for you guys and it will just be smooth sailing onwards!

A few observations in response to your post:

1. not enough wake time is generally NOT a problem, but bedtime too early can be a problem; how early is too early really depends on the age; at 4mo a baby may only be able to do a 10-hour night, but by 3-2 transition most babies can do 11-hour nights, and by 2-1 transition most can do close to 12-hour nights; in order to get to a reasonable bedtime, usually longer naps are a better solution than long total wake time during a nap transition
2. with my LO the last nap needs to be cut

 

[jschutonline]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Ah that sucks! Hoping 3-2 is a bit more straightforward too! I think I’m much better at spotting for signs for over tiredness now. We’ll see in a month or so I guess!!