My 15 month old has been a good sleeper for the last few months. She sleeps 11+ hours at night and was taking 2 naps a day that were 1-2 hours long. Recently she has stopped napping in the afternoon and was sleeping for about 2 hours in the morning only. In the last week or so, she is refusing to sleep even in the morning whenever our older 2 kids are home (which is every morning except Tues and Thurs). She is SO tired on these days that she will sometimes sleep for 20 minutes in the afternoon, but overall she is a mess.
I'm sure this is because she's figured out that the older 2 don't nap and she doesn't want to miss out, but it's getting ridiculous. Today I even tried to pretend tuck in my 3 year old so the baby would think she was sleeping too, but it didn't work. So after 20 min. I went in and rocked her (I can usually lay her in bed and she will go to sleep) until she was sound asleep. As soon as I tried to lay her down, she started crying and has been doing so since I left the room. She is obviously tired - she was just alseep! I know this is not good for her and it is also really draining on me since she is clingy and fussy when she doesn't nap.
Just for background, she already goes to bed at about 6:30 at night and it might be impossible for me to get her to bed sooner since my husband often works late and I am doing dinner, bath and bed by myself. She wakes up before 6:30am regardless of how early she goes to bed.
I should also add that I am driving kids to and from school from 8:30-9:30 am and 12:30-1:30 in the afternoon. Otherwise I would shoot for a 12:00ish nap. And yes, my other kids do quiet time in the afternoon while the baby is supposed to be sleeping and are not loud while she is down.
What do I do? She is NOT giving up naps at 15 months!
6:30pm is way too early to go to bed. I would say put the baby down later and then wake her up about the same time.
I would start putting her to bed later at night, mom. 6:30 is very early. Move the bedtime forward 15 minutes at a time. And instead of a morning nap, make it an afternoon nap - after you get back from driving. By the time you get her to an 8:30 bedtime, waking her at her regular time, she will nap in the afternoon.
Mine went down at 830 and got up at 6:30. I worked outside the home and daycare put everyone down for a nap about this time. It worked well. I stayed on daycare schedule on the weekends too.
You are right not to give up on nap. Change her bedtime - it will help.
Dawn
Most kiddos drop the MORNING nap at about 12 to 15 months.
6:30pm seems like really early bed time to me.
I would recommend putting her down for a nap at about noon to 1:00, just leave her in bed, let her cry it out. Once she is sleeping a good 2 hours or so you might try pushing her bed time to 7:00 or 7:30.
Be firm about the napping, do not lay down with her, have a little cuddle time before you lay her down, but don't rock her to sleep. Set the tone that "you will be taking a nap" and be firm about it.
Good Luck,
M
Don't put her down so early in the evenings. Let her stay up until 7:30/8:00 and that should get her to sleep in a little more in the am. That should make her less tired so early in the day and you can work on getting her to nap right after lunch (when her belly is full).
You can't make any one go to sleep but you can insist that she rest. "Suzy, this is our nap time. You don't HAVE to sleep but you have to rest. You have to lay down and have quiet time from xx to xx." When your older ones are home, they should also have quiet time (3 year old should do the same but if you have one school aged or above their quiet time can just be quietly reading or something).
I would keep her up later at night. My 16 month old goes down at 8:00 and sleeps until about 8:00, then takes a nap for about two hours in the afternoons. From what you say, she will wake up early regardless of when you put her to bed. That's ok. She'll be tired and will sleep better in the afternoon. Also, this may help her adjust her schedule so she WILL end up sleeping in a little more. Good luck!
I didn't read other replies yet but I would skip the morning nap at this age. Feed her lunch and then immediately put her down for a nap. Then she should sleep about 2 hours and be up so that doesn't run into bedtime.
Skip the AM nap and 6:30 is too early for a bedtime.
I would keep her up until 8:30pm at least, and only give an afternoon nap (from 1:00 to 3:00pm). At this age they need 12-14 hours a day. It is possible that she only needs 12 hours, so if she gets 10 hours at night (8:30pm-6:30am), then she can have a 2 hour afternoon nap.
Nope - she is overtired and that is causing her to struggle to fall asleep even more. Sound backwards? Its true! It happens to my son every once in a while.
It sounds like she is making the transition from 2 naps a day to 1 nap a day and that can mess things up too.
I always recommend the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. Especially for your case, it would be a VERY helpful read because he does discuss the different transitions kids go through at different ages/stages and going from 2 naps during the day to 1 nap a day is a major one! I HIGHLY recommend it. The most helpful book I have found yet!!!! :-)
As for not napping when your others are home, do you have a basement or other play area where you could take them to play so you don't disturb your napper? Or maybe take them outside while she naps? I do that when I have a morning napper (whom I babysit) and it seems to help a bit.
ETA - On the days when my son "refuses" (simply does not fall asleep) his nap, I still leave him in his crib for a considerable amount of time (hour and a half? 2 hours? usually as long as his nap normally is to still give him that down time). He still is tired and a beast to deal with, but if I leave him in there, sometimes he will eventually fall asleep.
I would disagree that 6:30 is way too earlyto go to bed. Especially since she isn't napping much. My DS goest to bed around 6:45/7 and sleeps until 6:30/7.
Have you tried having her crying it out? I hated doing it but my DS now goes to sleep pretty easily for naps. I would agree that at 15 months they still nee their daily nap. Best of luck.
Around 15 months or so my son's sleep habits changed some....He went from 2 naps to 1 longer one around 11am to about 1pm and then he'd have lunch...I think he went to bed at night around 7ish..
yes, definitely keep the nap ....mine started to "outgrow" it around age 3(it was a gradual process tho)
Good luck
Have you tried skipping the a.m. nap and only doing an afternoon nap? My kids were all down to one nap by that age (the first one dropped the a.m. nap at about 14 months - the other two at about a year).
My kids schedules were rise around 7:00 - lunch around 11:30 - nap around 12:30 or so. Bedtime by 7:00 (or earlier if I could swing it). When transitioning to one nap, I think we even did an earlier lunch so that they were not so tired. Like lunch at 11 for the first month of only one nap - that way they were down for a nap at noon and could sleep a few hours. My oldest would sleep as much as 3 hours in the afternoon - and still go to bed at 7:30 or so.
A 6:30 bedtime seems appropriate to me.
I would go straight from lunchtime to afternoon nap time - clean up, read books, lay down.
With my boys, I would let them have one little car to drive, but they had to be lying down with it. My daughter (the third child) was the hardest, and I did rock her to sleep on occasion. Or, I'd let her have just one soft book to look at in her crib.
Good luck. I'd keep at it! She still needs a nap.
I would try to keep her up later in the evening. 6:30 sounds like a really early bedtime, especially since she is fighting naptime.
My kids gave up the second nap by 6 months, but it didn't seem to phase them. My son gave up naps pretty much altogether a little bit after he turned 3. He will still nap occasionally, but it usually is when we have had an overly busy schedule or he is sick. Doesn't happen often. My daughter will be 4 in April. As hard as she tries to give up that afternoon nap, she can only go for a couple days before she crashes. Usually at an inopportune time like 5pm!
At any rate, here are some things I did when they were younger. Morning time involved taking a walk/stroller ride and independent play that kept them busy like free play with toys, playing outside or dancing to music. I began to give baths after lunch (especially for my son who was 16.5 months old when sister came home. His afternoon nap routine got really messed up for awhile.) The bath was soothing and helped him relax. Afterward, I could give him some milk and get both of them down for a good 2 hour afternoon nap most of the time. We also spent some time in the afternoons taking a ride in the car because that helped them fall asleep too. Good luck!
HTH,
A.
Her sleep schedule is not like most kids her age. She may need you to adjust your thinking to a more effective schedule. If she were in child care she would not have been taking 2 naps past the age of 11 months. They would have weaned her off that by then.
She would not be waking up then laying down again a few minutes later to take a nap, she would not be tired yet and she would be very busy with a morning schedule.
She would be up all morning, playing, doing crafts, circle time activities, all sorts of things to keep her active and having fun. They she would eat lunch around 11 and go down for a nap as soon as she was done eating and cleaned up. Toddlers usually take almost a full hour to eat.
Then she would be going directly to her cot to lay down. Most toddlers are asleep by the time their head hits the pillow. She would sleep until about 2:30. That's when most child care centers start getting things ready for school kids to arrive. Some centers will allow the child to sleep until they wake on their own though, their philosophy is that if the child needs rest they should be allowed to rest. So they don't wake them up, they let them sleep. I always made noise and turned on the lights to wake the kiddo's. This way if they were at all ready to wake up they did. If they didn't wake easily I did let them sleep maybe an extra 30 minutes. The school kids made a lot of noise when they came in so no one could sleep through their arrival.
Around that age, and sometimes slightly older my kids quit taking naps. It did mean an earlier bedtime of 6:30/7:00. It took them a week or two to adjust and then it was nice. I liked having my evenings to myself a lot more then the few hours of sleep they would take during the day.
Typically children that age only need 10-12 hours of sleep, while it is believed that 12-14 would be optimum. Just like adults not all children need that much. In fact the norm is 10-12 hours. So if that's the case, your DD is meeting her needs at night and in one fell swoop.
I agree with you, do NOT give up that nap despite advice below. At 15 months she should be sleeping 11-12 hours at night with a 1-2 hour nap during the day. This is a toughy as it sounds like she is ready to go from 2 naps to 1. Typicall I would recommend putting to bed right after lunch but this doesn't seem to be an option for you. Only advice I have would be to try to shift her schedule later, by 15 minutes or so every couple days so you can get bed/wake time to be 7:30, and then try to put down for nap at 1:30. But try checking out the website Babysleepsite.com they have a Mastering Naps free e-book and lots of other articles that I search through like they are going out of style. If all else fails I would let her cry, she could just be testing you. But good luck!
