Thursday, March 10, 2011

Dropping a nap

Well. We've been having issues in the house with sleeping.

The girls used to go to bed around 6:30/7:00, then something strange happened and it started getting later and later. At some point last week they were up past 10:00! That is just insane!

So the thinking started......on a typical day they would get up between 7-8 and take a nap from 10-12, then they would take their 2nd nap from 3-5. This is where the issue is.....

Their 2nd nap is just too late to be a nap in my opinion.

I had two options to fix the problem, one was to get them up earlier. That however would require me to get up earlier and I usually don't go to bed until at least midnight sometimes 1:00am so to have them sleep until 8 is perfect.

My 2nd option was to push their morning nap and get them to one nap day. We've been working on it for the past 4 days and some days are better than others.

Monday they napped from 11:30-1:00 and went to bed around 7, Finn was back up around 8 and Gillian around 9. I finally got them both back to bed for the night around 10ish.

Tuesday they had a dr's appt so they napped in the car from 12-2 and went to bed at 8. They never woke and slept through until 8 the next morning.

Wednesday they napped from 12-2 and went to bed around 7:30 Finley was up off and on for most of the night starting around 9ish, Gillian got up too at one point and Gary finally got Finn down for good around 2am. Both up at 8am.

Today they napped from 12-3 (yippee! 3 hours) and I put them both down at 7ish because they were acting tired. Gillian went right to bed but Finn refused too. I finally went in after about 30 minutes of her whining wondering if she had a dirty diaper. I picked her up and smelled her and there was nothing but she was signing "diaper". She hates to be wet so I brought her in the living room, changed her and let her lay out here for about 20 minutes. Then she started saying "night night" so I brought her back to her room where she played with her gloworm for 40 minutes before falling asleep.

Now I know for a fact Finley is teething. She is definitely getting her eye teeth and the doc said something about her cutting molars. I thought she had them all already though (except her 2 years) so I'm not sure......I can't get in there to look so I don't know. Either way I am pretty sure that is playing a huge part in her crankiness and I may be having a hard time deciphering between tired cranky and teeth cranky at this point. Poor kid is getting Tylenol every night for the past 4 nights because she's in so much pain. I'll be glad to see the teeth come in and hopefully her sleep to go back to normal!

Anyone else transition their kids to one nap around 15 months or am I pushing it? Would you try something else?

4 comments:

Mandy said...

We started around then but we still have a 4 pm "quiet time". It's an hour where they go in their cribs and I veg out. They don't always nap but they can "rest" for a bit so they can make it through till bedtime.

Jill said...

My girls dropped to one nap at 10 and 11 months, so no, I don't think 15 is too early. It's rough at first but then it's kind of nice because it was nice and long (3+ hours) so it made for a nice long break during the day.

Trish said...

My girls went to one nap around a year old because of their new mother's morning out class from 9-1, where they don't nap. However, they usually fall asleep in the car on the way home (around 1:30) and sleep until about 4ish? Sometimes later, sometimes they wake up when transitioning from car to crib and refuse to go back to sleep! Then, to bed by 8, usually wake up around 7:30 in the morning! I liked the 2 nap system better and they sometimes still take a short morning nap on the weekends...

Dana K said...

The boys haven't actually fully transitioned yet. They only take an afternoon nap at daycare, but at home that's not the case. I have been trying to figure out how to transition them at home. They also get up at 6:30 am and go to sleep at 8:00 pm, so its been hard trying to figure it all out. I guess I'm just going to go with the flow on this one and hopefully they'll just start doing it on their own!

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