Early nap and lunch

[XxLana86xX]

Hey all little one is 20 months and fell into a routine of wakening 6am then napping 11/11.30 for a couple of hours! lunch is a struggle due to timings just curious what others do with timings?
I’ve tried pushing back the nap gradually but he’s then overtired and catnaps so it’s not an option yet!

Have you tried pushing all the timings back together, not just the bedtime? People often try to change schedules using just the bedtimes but actually our meal times (and other regular cues) are also important for circadian rhythms, ie our sleep-wake cycles. What happens if you don't get him up at 6 when he wakes, and delay breakfast half an hour? Then try to follow through the new schedule, delaying everything for a bit. If the LO was at nursery they'd quickly settle into a new schedule, so it is possible to change them! It just takes some time and consistency.

When we had that early nap, I split lunch for the little one, basically a mini-meal before and after nap. When is bedtime, though? I'd agree with trying to rotate his whole schedule around by about an hour unless you particularly need the 6am start.

so yeh his bedtime is 7/7.30 depending on length of the nap!
he can lie to 6.30ish in morning as we often leave him! Sometimes he’ll sleep on and off till then or just cry continuously which doesn’t help with his big sis next door 🙈

I'd try to move all the timings a bit later if you can – breakfast, snack, nap, lunch, dinner, bedtime, the lot. If you can lengthen the morning wake window even 15-30 minutes, that will also help.

When I've needed to do a schedule shift with mine, I've viewed it as a two steps forward, one step back process, so if it's just not going to be possible to make it to the new dinner and bedtimes, say, without floods of tears or little one falling asleep in their plate, I roll with it and try again the next day. If we made it 10 minutes later and I was hoping for 20, that's still progress.