Switching a long morning nap to the afternoon

[ssjj]

Hello

Wondered if anyone had any tips to share...?? My ds is 10 months and mostly until about 6 weeks ago we were following a loose gina ford routine for food and naps... So a short morning nap and longer one after lunch. Then i had to start waking him from his morning nap and would spend the whole of the second nap worried he wouldn't sleep, which did happen... So I left him and let him do what he wanted, which worked out as anything up to 2 and a bit hours in the morning and then a short nap in the afternoon but this was getting later and later and I found it harder to read his tired signals...

Now my dd is starting school and im going back to work and I can't have the naps this way round as he will end up not having the second nap (childminder or me will need to do the school run) and also childminder tends to do activities in the morning so he won't be able to sleep then for long either.

So need to switch them and it's not going terribly well! I've started waking him again after 45 mins in the morning and then finding he is struggling to go to sleep for the second nap and also not sleeping very long....I think his clock is just all messed up and I know from experience that this is all trial and error, but I still find it stressful and just needed to hear some other experiences!

Anyone else had this experience and any tips to share???
Thanks

both mine dropped to 1 nap around 11 months. You could try pushing the morning nap later and later until you end up with 1 nap around lunchtime.

With ds I tried the gently gently approach then gave up and kept him awake until 11/11.30am and then let him sleep. He either had a snack before the nap and lunch after (2ish) or he had an early lunch and a snack after depending on what we were up to. I then managed to push the nap later and later until it was after lunch around 12.30/1pm and that's where it stayed until he gave up naps at the age of 2!

Thanks for the idea. I had thought about doing this but just that it was too early... Gonna try and eek out for another couple of months, then probably do exactly the same with just one nap at 1130. Thanks x

A bit different as DS never had a daytime nap routine he just napped randomly it at all. But once he started nursery he began to have a routine. I never managed to get him into one, but because he was with other children he decided that he wanted to copy them and so started napping after lunch. This then carried over into the days when he was home (he only goes twice a week). So from that I would say maybe leave it and see how he fits in with the childminder. You may find that in a different environment it will be much easier to alter nap times than at home.

DS was such a horror when it came to sleep that I lived by the "never wake a sleeping baby" which has morphed into "never wake a sleeping toddler!"