Has anyone successfully "shifted" their kid's schedule?

[bananapancakes]

I'm coming to the realization that I'm never going to get my 7-7 magical sleeping unicorn baby and that L will likely only be a 10 hour sleeper for awhile. I've been reading Ferber (thanks rugbywife!) and it seems like a 10 hour night is not actually that far out of the norm. He also mentioned shifting sleep schedules and I think I'd like to try it. 

A typical day for us is something like: up at 5:00 and nurse, breakfast at 6:00, nap 9-9:45 (I would love to extend this somehow), snack at wake up, lunch at noon, nap 2-3, snack at wake up, dinner at 5:30, nurse before bed at 7:00. Up until yesterday, I also nursed before naps but I'm hoping we're done with that now. He usually falls asleep fairly quickly at 7:00 and he's pretty happy at 5:00 am so I do think this is his "natural rhythm" but I'd love to be able to bump it back a bit. Even to 7:30-5:30 would be awesome.

Ferber talks about shifting every part of the day (feedings and naps) by 15 minutes at a time until you reach your desired schedule. Has anyone done this successfully? I think the hardest part will be not nursing him immediately upon wake up in the morning. He wakes up crying (I imagine from hunger), nurses, then is happy as can be when he pops off.

[curbsideprophet]

How old? Have you tried dropping the morning nap?

[bananapancakes]

May 25, 2015 6:19:16 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

How old? Have you tried dropping the morning nap?

13 months and yes, we've done just one nap a few times but he still only sleeps for an hour and is then just cranky for the rest of the day.

[auntie]

I used Ferber to tweak DS's schedule. Pretty much everybody does something similar if the live in a place with DST.

To start, I'd ditch the morning nap. At a year, most kids do well with a single afternoon nap. Ferber used to say the "natural time" for a one nap child was opposite the middle of his nightly sleep- for an 8-8 sleeper like DS was- that's a nap sometime between 1-3pm. When DS dropped to a single nap around 11 months, he actually slept longer both during his nap and overnight. Being more physically active probably played into it too. As a toddler, DS routinely napped 2-4 hours without it impacting his sleep overnight. And he was the worst infant in terms of sleep.

As for waking up hungry. I don't know. It could be hunger, thirst, not being able to entertain himself or missing you. DS was most attached to his wake up nursing, but I think it was more about being on my lap than hunger. It was easily replaced with a cuddle, a sippy of water and a story when I weaned him at 15 months. After an hour or so, we did breakfast. This didn't change when he was weaned.

You could try moving the later meals/naps and see if it helps.

[bananapancakes]

I'd love to go down to one nap but I thought it was still a bit early. Everything I've read says 15-18 months. I'd much rather he take one good nap than 2 crappy ones but when we do try to do just one nap, he still only sleeps for an hour.

[irishbride2]

I just move it to where I want it to be and power through a few rough days if they happen. I think often people on here overthink it. Kids are more adaptable than you think. It's us parents that aren't

But I've always been more flexible on schedules than most of this board but seemingly more rigid than my friends IRL lol so who knows.

[gibbinator]

It's basically what happens every time DST starts and ends right?
Anyway yeah, shift everything, meal times, nap times, etc. Don't get discouraged when the first couple days don't work out. Even an adult takes a few days to get used to the new time and we know what's happening.

Both my kids are 10hr sleepers. Ds1 only recently started sleeping 11-12hrs when he stopped napping.

[zarapipe]

I would give the one nap thing a good week or two. Can you leave him in his crib till 6am or so or does he go crazy?

[Deleted]

When you did one nap what time did you do afternoon nap?

My dd dropped to one nap a bit Before her first birthday. I had to slowly push her morning nap back to get there. So I pushed it back a bit until it was at noon. That was the perfect time and she would sleep 2-3 hours. It took a while to get there and evenings sucked for a while but I think in all transitions that happens. When she dropped naps all together she was a beast in the evening and I was convinced she wasn't ready but she just needed time to transition.

[rugbywife]

We have shifted multiple times. Our goal has only ever been to get her to go down well and then to stay down.

We are also strive for flexibility...we have a hard time with very strict times because it makes the rest of life difficult.

Here's our schedule, DD is almost 14 months

Up between 6 am and 7am (I honestly completely varies)

Nap between 12 - 2 (we try to be stricter about this now)...BUT, the nap sometimes is only 1.5 hour - some days has been 3 hours

Sleep between 7pm and 8pm (this is decided mostly based on how long her nap was, what time she woke up and how active her afternoon was).

Most of the time I would say she is sleeping 11 hours at night and 1.5 hours during the day, as an average.

We did find the switch from 2 naps to 1 nap made a huge difference, as did going from 6pm to 7pm and then being open to going to 8pm.

[thebreakfastclub]

At day care they would have just shifted to one nap at the 12 month room transition. I would stick with it awhile longer.

[shelbyann]

We did the 15 min shift successfully but my kid was much younger at the time and we were going the opposite direction, so maybe not relevant to your situation, but it did work well for us.

Also I'll ditto everyone else about trying to get him on one nap. DD was a 45 minute napper until we dropped to one and now she usually goes for a couple of hours. It is glorious and makes my days with her so much more enjoyable. There were a few rough days when we first dropped but so worth it!

[bananapancakes]

I was all gung ho to give one nap a try today but I totally caved. We were getting ready to go to the early years centre. I was going to keep him there 9:30-11:30 so he could be distracted and then lunch at 11:30 and nap at noon. While we were getting ready he was crying and rubbing his eyes. He looked so pathetic and tired. H is now putting him down for a nap.

I'm so not a "rip the bandaid" person. I think I'll try this shifting thing to hopefully get him sleeping until 6:00 instead of 5:00 then try the transition to one nap in a month or two. Keeping him up for 6 hours seems more doable than seven hours.

[bananapancakes]

Yeah, he fell asleep almost instantly and slept for 80 minutes. He needed that nap. We're going to try the "shift" for a little while.

[Deleted]

With Layla, we shifted 15-30 minutes every few days. And you have to be patient.
She used to wake at 530am but some days, it was 5am or even earlier.
We also followed Feeber and made her be awake right away. Out of her sleepy room. Lights on, doing something productive so she was awake.
Sometimes we would watch TV, but sitting on the couch , not wrapped up with me in my bed.
And same at night. Awake and lights on until time for bed.