Great night sleeper, horrible napper--is this normal?
Apologies for the long post!
My son is just about to turn 10 months old, and we're roughly two months into the 8-month sleep regression--and it's hitting his naps so hard. He's always been a good night sleeper. For context, we were Snoo users until 6 months old and could count on 1-3 wakes per night once he hit 3 months. This got more regularly down to two, and we also kept a dream feed going until 8 months (combo fed but almost EBF for the milk part of his diet). For the past 6 weeks or so, he's finally been doing the legendary 11-12 hour sleep stretches at night in his crib without needing to feed at night or otherwise waking up.
However, as good of a night sleeper as he is (I chalk that up entirely to temperament and luck, and I definitely do not take it for granted), he has always struggled with his naps. We finally had a great-for-us stretch in January and February of this year when I could nurse him to sleep and transfer him into his crib for 2-3 naps a day without issue, but even then a victorious nap length was 30-40 minutes. Then the regression hit, and we're lucky to get one nap, and sometimes they're 20 minutes. The combo of pulling up to stand in the crib and separation anxiety means that he hasn't fallen asleep once in his crib during the day for close to two months. He just screams the whole time, or, if we're lucky, explores the crib instead, but he will not fall asleep, even if he's been showing all the signs of fatigue ahead of time. Initially, the regression also affected his ability to fall asleep in the crib for bedtime sleep, at which point (8.5 or so months) we tried a very gradual CIO for day and night sleep, which worked for night sleep but has not for naps--so I know he can, in theory, fall asleep independently, just apparently not in the daytime.
At his 9-month checkup, our pediatrician shrugged and said that because he gets so much night sleep, naps are "just going to be a struggle" for him. She's more concerned with total sleep than if he naps. But the days he doesn't nap well, he's a mess, and I've certainly never heard of a 10-month old who only takes one nap (and definitely not zero!)
I have tried CIO, nursing to a dead sleep and transferring (he still wakes up if it's me transferring, it very rarely works with my husband or our nanny), and contact napping after a failed CIO, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I am admittedly unclear on how CIO works with naps, specifically how long to leave them crying, but I try for 20-30 minutes before intervening and offering another option. Doing that twice a day is very taxing and affects his bedtime, but I'm willing to keep trying if it seems like the right option. We use the same routine for naps as bedtime (dark room, sleep sack, books), though I have been experimenting with nursing either before or after the nap as part of this regression. Sometimes I can get a contact nap right away if he passes out nursing, but it's rough losing the crib naps.
Because of how irregular his naps are, I don't really have a schedule to offer, but we offer two total naps with 3.5 hours of awake time before the first nap and try to end any nap by 3.5 hours before bed. His bedtimes have become wildly early because of the accumulated fatigue, though, so he usually ends up doing a 6p-5:30a sleep or even sometimes a 5:30p-5:30a on the days naps barely or don't happen. Those days, he's a mess, and I can tell he needs these naps, but he just won't take them.
Is he magically going to age out of this problem, or am I missing something more problematic here? Anyone else had such issues with napping while nighttime sleep is largely fine? He's meeting all his growth milestones, leaping up in weight, and we've ruled out ear infections and gotten a clean bill of health recently. He has eight teeth but certainly more are on their way.
So grateful for your thoughts!