Today ends my 2-week experiment with Little Bug’s naps. :)

I’m glad I did that because it’s given me some very useful info to better figure out what her sleep needs are at 14.5 months old, because, believe me, her sleeping needs have been pretty much a mystery to me for the past 2.5 months!

But now I think I am finally cracking this case! :)

On average Little Bug has been taking anywhere from 30 – 45 minutes to fall asleep when laid down at 10:00am and then 2:30pm. Nap lengths averaged 1 hour. Total of hours napped per day averaged 2 hours. I saw this trend many days: If Little Bug took a shorter nap in the morning (say 30-60 minutes max) she would take a longer afternoon nap (1 hour to 1 hr 45 mins max).

Yesterday was interesting. It was Sunday so, because of church, Little Bug skipped her morning nap. We have a 45 minute drive after church because we go spend the rest of the day with Dave’s family at Dave’s parents’ house. Usually, Little Bug takes a cat nap during this time. Yesterday, I decided to try my best to keep her up. I sat in the back seat with her and kept giving her interesting things to play with. She was sooooooo sleepy and yes, cranky, but we made it without her going to sleep.

We ate lunch and then I put her down for a nap at 2:30. She went right on to sleep and slept until 4:30! I put her to bed a little early last night since she had missed her morning nap and she went right on to sleep and slept 11.5 hours.

After that successful day yesterday of only ONE nap I kept debating in my mind back and forth whether I was going to just go cold turkey and move to one nap today.

In the end, I decided not to. Based on my experiement, :) Little Bug still needs a little catnap in the morning to be able to cope with life and not be a cranky pants. I don’t feel going cold-turkey on dropping the nap would be best for Little Bug at this time.

So for now, here is the plan:

I’m pushing naptime back 30 minutes. So now I will lay her down at 10:30 & 3:00. I will get her up, no matter how long she’s been asleep, at 11:30. Then for the 3pm nap I’ll get her up by 4:30 so she will be ready for bed at 8:30. I think sticking to two short naps is what she needs for now. When Little Bug completely stops sleeping for one of the naps, we will drop the morning nap and have one afternoon nap. My guess is this will happen in the next month or two. I really hope by the fall time change we are already on only one nap.

Here is something that shows babies/children thrive off routine:

Our naptime routine is to read books and then go to bed. This morning I told Little Bug it was time to read books. Then she looked up at me and said, “Yeah, Yeah” which is her way of saying, “Night, Night”! She new what was coming next!

Independent Playtime is going AWESOME!!

We are up to 9 minutes!

She has not cried or even said, “Mama” during the last few sessions! AND when I told her it was time to go play with toys in her room she actually pointed to her room asking to go!

I put the gate up as she is watching and she goes off to play with her toys.

This morning I was able to go to my room and get dressed without having to get Little Bug out of the cabinets or tell her a thousand times that pulling the toilet paper off the roll is a “no-no” because the books I have in there for her to read while I am getting dressed are completely boring, apparently. By the time the timer went off, I had made my bed and gotten dressed!

Since I was in my room and could peek on Little Bug from my door, I did! :) Just like Babywise says, Little Bug was sitting there on the floor with a toy concentrating and focusing on it. It was adorable!

It was definitely hard to hear her crying at the beginning of implementing IP, but just like sleeping training her at 3 months, it is so worth it now!

- Elaine