For about a week or so now, I have been limiting their morning nap. Usually I don't have to wake them up but every once in a while I do. Also, I moved them into the same room for naps as we will be decorating the spare room for Tater Tot. So, I'm not sure if the difficulties I'm facing are because of the nap transition we're doing (gradual as it is) or because they are napping together. As I write this, I can hear Collette gabbing away. It's 2:20 and they went down around 1:10. A few weeks ago, they were napping for almost 2 hours in the afternoon so I feel like things have gone awry.
One side of me thinks that perhaps they are ready to less gradually take away that morning nap and I should be a bit more aggressive. Maybe I'm still letting them sleep too much and it's affecting their afternoon nap. The other side thinks its just a result of Collette napping in a new place, she will get used it, and I should stay the slow and steady course.
My goal is to be on one nap by the end of March, but the sooner the better, IMO. So, wise ones - thoughts?
I went with shortening the morning nap when the afternoon nap started to be shorter than I desired. But my guys took a 30-45 minute nap in the morning until they were 19.5 months old. And I almost always had to wake them from that morning nap. Buba stopped taking the morning nap first, but he wasn't skipping it consistently so I kept putting them both down so at least Tiny could get her nap. But the first time Tiny skipped the morning nap, I declared that we were down to one nap, and we never went back.
ReplyDeleteOnce we dropped the morning nap, I started doing all our activities out right after breakfast. So, we'd get out between 9 and 11am, then come home and play, have lunch and go down for the nap between 12:30 and 1pm. We didn't have any trouble with them staying awake in the car, but I think part of that was because we'd waited so long to ditch the morning nap. They were more than ready for just one.
Good luck! I can't wait to hear how things go!
That was the approach we took, of course. How late/long are you letting them sleep in the morning? By the end of the transition, my kids only had 45 minutes to rest/nap in the morning. I had to be pretty militant if I wanted them to nap in the afternoon. Good times!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure my situation helps or relates, as I have only transitioned a singleton to one nap a day. I didn't intentionally shorten or wean Jackson from his early nap, mostly because it didn't effect our day that much. 1. He slept anywhere and everywhere, so he still took long naps in the car, out in the stroller etc... we did always make sure he had at least 1 nap a day in his crib. 2. It was much easier to get in and out with 1 baby, and to feed, dress, change one baby and so on, without throwing our schedule out the window.
ReplyDeleteI so dreaded going down to 1 nap, but once we did it, I learned to love it. Jackson dropped the morning nap on his own at 14 months for about 2-3 weeks and then all of the sudden picked it back up again, he just would not stay up past 9:30-10am. Then at 18 months he dropped it for good. We never could keep him up past 11:30 though, so we had an odd schedule, since he's nap until 3-3:30 regularly... weird, I know!
Part of me agrees with Reanbean, if you wait it out, they'll be more "ready" and it may help. However, I also am a big rip-off-the-bandaid advocate. Wow, this didn't help at all... do what you feel is right!
Keep napping them in the afternoon separately if you can. I'm considering putting Penny in my bedroom for naps (in a pack n play) so when Spyder comes all 3 kids can nap separately. I think it makes a difference. I did notice the afternoon nap shorten but once you get rid of AM nap your kids will sleep later in AM and take a 3 hour afternoon nap. :)
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