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SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE…

Once we come out on the other side of this, I will write a post with the details of how on earth we got through dropping the last catnap. Until then, however, I have no advice!

Since Caroline was about 5 months old, she’s been fighting the last catnap of the day. She would eventually go down for it, but it was a struggle. I would occasionally try and extend her wake times during the day so that we could push her schedule out and drop the catnap. This would always backfire and ruin her nice long naps. So, we’d give it a good shot for a few days, but then we’d go back to the old schedule. She wasn’t ready.

She is now approaching the 7 month mark, and this week she has suddenly decided to boycott the catnap all together. She normally puts herself to sleep, but this was resulting in a screaming baby. I tried rocking her to sleep- she wouldn’t have it. I tried holding her through the nap and laying down with her- wouldn’t have it. Nothing is working. Her last nap ends at 2:30, and with no catnap she simply cannot make it until her 7pm bedtime.

“Mama there will be no catnap today just FYI”

So, since she is giving me no choice in the matter, I have again tried to lengthen her wake times and push out her schedule. I have also moved her bedtime from 7 to 6pm. We have incorporated a quiet time in the evenings that helps her make it through. All havoc has broken loose in this house, however. She is overtired, so her naps are about 30 min long. She is still refusing the catnap. By the time bedtime comes she crashes in SECONDS. That is- until last night. Last night was our 4th day powering through this craziness. She wasn’t having it, and she would not sleep. We were up until 11pm with this silly girl last night trying to get her to sleep.

She might be teething on top of this which is an unfortunate time to do so- but you can’t pick when these things happen. She has had all of the teething symptoms now for 3 months, but she has two added ones now: she is pulling at her right ear and tilting her head in that direction, and she is clearing her throat all day long. This could be teething, but there are no swollen gums, no teeth poking through, and no additional signs. This could be allergies for all we know. I do know it is not an ear infection. We took a trip to the doctor yesterday just to make sure. 

So the adventure continues. Since she is dropping the catnap on her own, her schedule simply has to change. Today we took an extra long walk as a nice distraction to keep her awake for the extra time. Caroline never sleeps on walks, she is always wide awake looking around. Today she slept, of course! 

Our previous schedule was:

7 nurse and solids

9 nap

11 nurse and solids

1 nap

230 nurse

430 catnap

5 solids

630 nurse 

7 bed

Here’s the schedule we are now trying for:

7 nurse and solids

930 nap

1130 nurse and solids

230 nap

4 nurse

430/5 solids

530 nurse

6 bed

That’s the goal, but honestly anything later than a 1pm nap, and anything longer than these little 30 min naps throughout the day will feel amazing right now! We are just trying to work towards this schedule, but we have to do so fairly quickly because she can’t make it from 130 to 6 like she tried to do yesterday with no nap. So for now, I am following her cues, and trying to stretch her just a little bit here and there.

I am plugging along. I figure she will have to eventually just get used to the new schedule if she is going to refuse the last catnap. Hoping that something clicks soon, though, because evenings have been a hot mess. Since she hasn’t napped well all day, and is not napping in the evenings, she is so overtired and won’t let me set her down. She is so tired she won’t eat dinner, much less let me cook it. 

When we are on the other side, I’ll let you all know what finally clicked, and what allowed us to move forward with no catnap. Until then…keep your fingers crossed that this phase is soon coming to an end!

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