at what age did your dc move from two naps to one???

[luvaduck]

...and how do you know when is the right time to do it?
Ds is 11 months and starting to wake a bit earlier in the mornings but not always

He currently has two naps - one mid morning for 1 and half hours, and one after lunch 45 mins

I think we're not quite ready but just wondering when others did it, and how you knew to?

thanks!

(ps have seen the other nap thread but slightly different question so didn't want to hijack it)

[Cosette]

DS was about 14 months, and his 2 naps were getting shorter so we decided to consolidate into a single early afternoon nap of 1.5 -2 hours.

He's now 23 months and still generally having a solid 2 hour nap.

We just didn't put him down for the morning nap, and moved his 1pm afternoon nap to 12ish and that did the trick. He tends to go down now between 12.30 and 1pm straight after lunch, and depending on what time we get back from morning activities.

[luvaduck]

thanks! v helpful

[twelveyeargap]

The "aim" I believe, is that a child moves to one nap around lunchtime. 11 months would be quite young to move to one nap. It's usually 13 to 18 months, but of course, not always.

The thing you need to do, imo, is to "protect" the afternoon nap. If he starts resisting the afternoon nap, then you might need to think about waking him early from his morning nap, (I had to do this for a while - not allow it to go over 1 hour) or moving the morning nap later and later until it's at say, 12 ish.

You don't want him sleeping from 10 or 11 til lunchtime, resisting a second nap later and being deranged by 4pm because he's so tired.

Just keep an eye on it over the next few months.

I found there were a few weeks where I had to distract DD2 at about 10am when she seemed knackered and wanted to go to bed, but I knew if I let her, then she wouldn't sleep again in the afternoon. A little snack and a drink boosted her energy enough to get her to 11.30 or 12, then she slept for a couple of hours and had a late lunch. She now makes it to 1pm ok, so we can have lunch earlier.

[FeelingDeviant]

at around 11 months DD dropped morning nap.
but only if at nursery or doing some activity where she fought sleep as she was too interested.
she would then have to nap at about 12 or melt down

At 14 months, she will still nap in morning occasionally (depends what time she wakes in morning)

[luvaduck]

hmmm. thanks all. the problem twelveyeargap is that he has his long nap in the morning - have tried waking him early from this but he still only sleeps 45 mins in the afternoon.

i think i'll just have to cut out the morning nap one day and do as you suggest in your last paragraph (not yet though)

[zebedee1]

DS is 14 months and he has started to show sleepy signs later and later in the morning so I have been putting him down a bit later each week. At 11 months he was having his morning nap at about 9.30 and an afternoon one. Now he's down to 1 nap at about 12.00. We just went with putting him down when he was sleepy. He did sometimes need a "power nap" at about 4pm to get him thru till bedtime but it didn't seem to affect his night time sleep.

[ten10]

My DS went down to one nap gradually between 10 and 14 months old.

Somedays he would have one and some days two and then only one.

but I have never really consolidated two naps into one, instead he still has a morning nap going down at around 10am for around 2-3 hours, which is about the same time he used to go down before, just he sleeps for a bit longer

but no nap in the afternoon

this seemed to be the way he wanted to do it, so I went with it and it works for us.

[Jojay]

I can't remember exactly when ds went to one nap - I think it was around his first birthday.

His morning nap just started getting later and longer so I stopped putting him down in the afternoons.

He's 20 months now and usually has a good 2 hours from about 11.30 am. He has a good snack at 10.30 - 11ish and lunch when he wakes.

[luvaduck]

thanks for this

BUT
how do you know when they are ready to drop a nap????

[LullyMummaOfOne]

My Ds went from 2 naps to 1 long sleep at about 1 year. he is now 2.5yrs and still has about 1.5 hrs every day normally mid morning.

He just fell into this routine, it seemed the best thing to do. However i did notice that his 2 shorter naps we becoming longer and he wasnt sleeping as much at night so thats when i decided to combine both sleeps into one.
Good luck

[SpecialOffer]

My son went from 2 to 1 naps at 12 months. he just really started fighting the morning nap and refusing to sleep no matter what I did! I then moved his afternoon sleep, which was 1:30 forward to around 11:45 and he now sleeps around 2 hours (bliss!!!)

[Stephano]

Thanks for asking this question luvaduck, I was just wondering the same thing. My dd has just recently started to fight her morning nap. She used to go down 3 to 3 1/2 hours after waking up in the morning. Now she's been doing 4 to 4 1/2 which obviously throws out the afternoon nap as she's not tired enough so that ends up being later and then that screws up the evening sleep time.
She's only just turned 9 months old so I'm now thinking that it's obviously a blip and not her needing just one nap. Thanks for the info.

[RhinestoneCowgirl]

DS was just over 12 months, I can remember him having 2 naps on his birthday (one during his party ) but things started getting erratic shortly after that.

His morning nap started getting longer and later and he often wouldn't go down in the afternoon. What I did was to offer him some lunch at about 11am and then get him into bed double quick. He quickly got used to this and was soon having a long after lunch nap. After a few months he was able to go longer and tended to have lunch around 12, nap around 1.