14 mth old just gone to one nap, but too short...

[balletmoo]

My 14 month old has been trying to drop his morning nap for some time and suddenly, as he recovered from a bout of chicken pox, it has suddenly happened. Thing is, to get him through the day he needs 2-3 hours of sleep during the day. He manages a nap of this length every other day but it alternates, as today, with a short one of just over an hour. It's as though he hasn't quite "got it" yet.

So I wonder what the collective wisdom of mumsnetters is in these instances: do I keep going and put him to bed uber early? Or do I let him have a late nap and accept he'll be up late? If he doesn't nap well during the day he is litterally up all night, waking every 90 mins or so...

Thanks!!

On short nap days I would put him to bed early...his night waking might be due to being overtired.
What time does he go to bed?
My DS is 17m and has been down to one nap since 12m but like yours is a bit hit and miss. He goes to bed at 7 but half 6 if really knackered.

Thanks for that... He goes to bed at 7:00-7:30 normally, which works fine, but if I attempt that tonight he will def be overtired! I'll give 6pm a go and see what happens. His sleep has been all over the place since he started trying to drop that nap and it's only now starting to settle down so I don't want to disrupt him too much with a late nap and a late bedtime if experience shows it won't work...

If he's only having one nap, he'll need it much earlier than he had the lunchtime nap before.

At the end of the two-nap phase, DS would wake at 7am, nap at 9.30 or 10 and again at 2 or 3pm, and go to bed really late (maybe 9pm). When I dropped him to one nap, he woke at 7, napped at 11 and went to bed at 6.

I'd put him to bed earlier every night and seriously earlier on short nap days.

Agree with above. During the transition to 1 nap, I was feeding DD lunch at 12 and she would fall asleep in the middle. She now eats at 1115 and started napping just after. It's moving back slowly now to about 1pm but over 2 months or so. There were days in the transition early on when she crashed at night by 6pm.

We dropped the morning nap slightly differently - so I'd take DS out if possible and engineer it so he could have 10-15 mins power nap in the pushchair/car then his usual post lunch nap. On occasion he'd wake early so I'd be able to put him down at home for 15-20 mins. We had this for a few months (but he dropped the AM nap later - around 18-20 months).

Thanks all, I appreciate the advice!

I started DS' bedtime routine at 5:30 as he was clearly shattered, and he was sound asleep by 6pm. We'll see what the night brings!

To clarify, pre-drop DS was awake 0600-0630, would be quite happy until 1000-1030 when he would generally nap till 11:30-1200 with a second afternoon nap around 1400-1500, although that was starting to get later and later, pushing his bedtime later and later too. Then he was ill and since then (admittedly not very long!), he's be bonny as anything till 1200ish (I've been giving him lunch around 1115-1130) when he either conks out for 3 hours or only 1. And they seem to alternate.

So I thought I would nip it in the bud early and get your advice, which has been fab. Thanks.

Incidentally, do you find the very early bedtimes = early wakings? I'm quite prepared to deal with that, but I'm just curious.

Again, thanks all!!

An earlier bedtime often means a decent or later wake up time. This is because if they are overtired then they can have restless sleep so in theory you should be ok.
Dropping a nap is often tricky I have found but probably the best thing is to try and stick to the same routine.
If your DS is struggling then definitely do an earlier lunch or give it to him after he wakes up.Sometimes we go out in the garden for a bit to eek out some time and get some fresh air!

Yes, early bedtimes almost always meant later wakings for us.

We still do lunch after DS's nap as it suits us better. He has a snack beforehand.