I believe we are in the process of transitioning to one day sleep at the moment, which is creating a few problems.
The first is that DH doesn't get home until 6pm or later, so Sam has dinner between 6:30-7 and has a later bedtime than most kids his age. It works for us, and he's always been pretty happy to sleep more during the day than most kids his age and it's the only way he's able to have time with daddy during the week, and he just loves his daddy...
However, lately he won't go down for his morning nap until 10am or later (he gets up around 7am). Yesterday he slept 10:30 - 2, had lunch when he woke up and then I had to wrestle him into another sleep around 5ish and he slept until 6:30... wouldn't eat dinner until after 7 and ended up not going to sleep until 9:30. We prefer 8:30-9 for him to go to sleep.
He went to sleep this morning just after 10am, and I'm seriously considering getting him up around 12:30 to give him lunch at a normal time and then get him to have another sleep (probably around 3 or 4 depending on how he goes) at a reasonable time in the afternoon and not push dinner and bed time out too late.
Do you think it would be mean to wake him up? Sure, it's great that he'll sleep for 3-4 hours during the day, but if he's going to do that in one hit, then I need him to stay up longer than 10ish, but there's no possible way that I can stretch him much further than that yet.
I know they say never wake a sleeping baby - but I almost feel like I need to in order to keep some sort of sensible structure to the day and a decent bed time!
personally I would keep the morning nap but cut it short at 2 hours.. then aim for a shorter nap about 30mins to an hour in the afternoon.. Prob no later then a 4-4:30 wake up time..
I think it is fine to wake him. By the sound of things it's far better for him to have 2 shorter naps a day than the one long one. I know you feel awful when you have to wake them from a sound sleep, but you gotta do what you gotta do. My DS is much younger than yours, but every now and then I have to wake him during the day so that he doesn't go much more than 4 hours without a feed. Different thing, but I understand how you might feel mean, but you're not!
We had almost exactly the same problem about the same age as yours!! DH used to get hme from work at 7 and when DD was having 2 sleeps she would go to bed about 7.30 8ish. but then it started to become immpossible to put her down for her afternoon sleep and then she would be sleeping till 5.30 and immpossible to get down to sleep at night and up till 9pm.
So we cut the afternoon sleep. For a few months she would go down at 10am and sleep till 12.30 1ish but by 5.30/6pm she would be getting tired and grumpy so we would just have some quiet time, a bfd, a lie down, a cuddle in a dark spot whatever. and this kinda charged her up for another hour or so. If we missed that quiet time she would be screaming by 7 and passed it and like you said,...no time with daddy!!
Now at 16 months she still sleeps at 10am till about 12.30 1ish but goes right through till 7.15. I know this doesnt really answer you question but i guess its just a transistion phase you have to work through. I used to wake DD for a while but i found it really messed with her night sleeps and i had to stop trying to control it as she was up every few hours in the night!!
Maybe try it for a while see if it works for you.
GL
Oh BW, it's tough when they start to drop the 2nd sleep. It doesn't always work, and some afternoons can be very very long!!
You know what works best for you and DS. I don't think waking him is a bad idea at all. I sometimes have to wake L because he goes to sleep at 11ish and he sometimes doesn't wake for hours...and hey, I need to get things done!! It's not mean, and if it helps you then it's good for everyone.
Just imagine ...soon he'll decide to skip day sleeps altogether - eek!!
By the time he drops day sleeps, Lenny, it will be DH's problem more so than mine! That's part of the reason that DH is staying home next year while I go back to work - I'll be getting home from work around 4pm so we'll be able to give him an earlier bedtime without him missing out on spending time with both of us. Also because DH has more energy than me, lacking all my funky health problems.
I woke him up, and while he wasn't too happy about it at first, he's happily tucking into his lunch right now and seems to be ok for it. If cutting his morning sleep short keeps him at two day sleeps for longer, then I think it's going to be better all around. I need the regular rest breaks myself, and by the time he's slept for a couple of hours I've managed to have a break and do a little housework so I'm starting to get bored without him.
I guess the true test will come this afternoon... If I can get him to sleep from 3-5 or thereabouts, I'll be happy!
I do wake my DD if she's sleeping too long so that she has meals at regular intervals during the day and also so that she will still have two naps. I don't find it's a problem but I've been doing it for a long time now.
The day continued quite well... He had a bottle just after 3, and I tried to put him down to sleep at 3:30 and found myself with a screaming, fighting child... But as soon as I lay down with him on the lounge he went to sleep instantly, so I guess he just wasn't comfortable with the way I was holding him.
He's slept 4-6 and is now babbling at DH. Called him daddad for the first time ever, too.
I don't know if it helps, but when i was going through this with DD, I used to wake her up by singing gently, and slowly get a little louder. Otherwise, she'd wake up in a nasty mood and I'd have one hell of an afternoon ahead of me!
I think it's fine to wake a sleeping baby - for the right reasons.
Not too mean at all. I have had to do this with a lot of babies in my time, especially around 10-14 months in that early part of the transition to 1 day sleep.
My classic solution is to wake them after an hour, then keep them up for their minimum wake span (every baby has one, the minimum amount of up-time they need before they go back down) at 10 months it's about 2-3 hours, then back down for as long as they want. I have had so much success with using this over the years, in various forms.
It sounds like it's a really good solution for you.
Glad it worked for you BW. So cute that he said Daddad!! that time at the end of the day is priceless and worth what ever you need to do to get it! hope it works out for you long term
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Would this be too mean?
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