One nap a day...still adjusting!

We have officially made the transition to one nap a day! Over the course of the last couple of weeks, Lilah was skipping her afternoon nap more often than she was taking one so I decided it must be time. We have been on the one-nap-a-day schedule for about 3 days now and things seem to be working themselves out. Lilah has been eating an earlier lunch at around 11:30am and then going down for her nap at about 12:00/12:15pm. Ideally, I would like her to be eating lunch closer to noon and going down for her nap at about 1:00pm. I will try to push her a little later each day and we will get there eventually. As with any transition, I need to be patient.

Of course, there are pros and cons to our new routine...

Pros:

+She has been falling asleep almost instantly because she is dead tired come nap time and she has been sleeping for about 2 hours which is about the same amount of time she was sleeping for when she was taking two naps.
+She is getting a solid chunk of sleep rather than two shorter stints which I think is more beneficial as far as sleep goes.
+We have a much longer chunk of time in the morning to get out and/or play

Cons:

-Lunch time has become a little more challenging because she is quite tired and, therefore, more fussy and less likely to eat a decent lunch (I am hoping this will change as we settle into our new routine).
-I haven't been getting through the shower and ready for the day until after noon which needs to change. I am planning on getting into the routine of showering before my husband leaves for work which should solve this particular problem.
-I am still adjusting to not having a break in the morning. The days seem much longer, but I am sure I will adjust as well.

Other notes:

-The change in nap schedule has had no effect on her nighttime wakings. I had hoped that perhaps giving up one of her naps would lead to longer stretches of sleep at night. No such luck!
-I have decided to drop her mid-morning nursing session and replace it with a snack. I am not ready to give up nursing, but because she would normally nurse when she woke from her morning nap it just seemed to make sense to drop that particular feeding along with the nap. She isn't asking to be nursed and doesn't seem to miss it. I felt as though she needed to be eating a little more solid food than she was so this should help with that as well.

This is only the beginning of a year of constant change! Hold onto your hats, hopefully it is not going to be too bumpy of a ride.

On a different note, it is becoming more challenging to find time to sit down and write these days, but stay tuned because one of my resolutions was to make more time to blog. I have a lot of ideas for posts and several in the works!

The Process of Dropping a Nap

I think it is safe to say that Lilah has officially dropped her 3rd nap. Over the past several weeks, it became increasingly more difficult to get her to go down for her later afternoon nap and on many occasions it didn't happen at all. On the days that she refused to nap, she would be exhausted by the time bedtime rolled around because she had been awake since the early afternoon. Keeping her up until bedtime and getting her to go to sleep at night was becoming very challenging because she was so overtired by that time (FYI - 7:00pm is our bedtime and has been for several months). At this point, we realized we needed to step in and 'manipulate' the situation in order to shorten the long afternoon period.

Let's rewind...For several months, Lilah consistently took 3 naps each day. Her first nap would be 1 1/2 -2 hours after she woke in the morning for about an hour and then she would take 2 more hour long naps after being awake for about 2 hours in between each. When the process of dropping a nap started (yes, it very much was a process because it didn't just happen one day), Lilah was still taking her first 2 naps early in the day which meant there was a very long stretch between waking from the 2nd nap and bedtime.

I started to slowly try to keep her up a little later in the morning and between her naps. At first I was only able to keep her up for about 2 1/2 hours in the morning and between naps, but now we have worked our way up to about 2 1/2 - 3 hours of awake time. Three hours seems to be her limit which makes sense because it is actually common for children of her age (8 months) to be able to stay awake for only 2 1/2 - 3 hours at a time. Her naps are now becoming slightly longer which means she is still sleeping for the same amount of time as she was before, but in 2 spurts instead of 3 (Generally speaking, it does not matter how many naps your child takes, but that they are getting about 14 hours of sleep each day on average. There are, however, huge variations when it comes to amount of sleep).

Our new schedule is working out much better. The longer awake periods between naps means she is now napping well into the afternoon and there is a shorter period of awake time between the last nap and bedtime. Bedtime has become easier and we don't have to work to keep her awake until 7:00pm.

An added bonus is that our nursing and eating schedule has also become a little more predictable as there is more time to fit in a nursing and breakfast and/or nursing and lunch (and sometimes even a snack) before it is time to go back to sleep. Prior to the change, it was often very challenging to get her to nurse and eat breakfast/lunch in the span of 1 1/2 - 2 hours during which she was awake. Getting out of the house is now a little easier too!

I am not looking forward to the day when Lilah decides to drop her morning nap. It is inevitable and will happen sooner than later. I guess I will just have to fully enjoy the time I now have in the morning for as long as I have it!

Happy napping!