Help! Really reeeally hard switching from 2 to 1 nap! 15mo

[Petitpenguin]

Has anyone else been through this really tricky phase and can offer me some advice? My NCT group all switched their babies into 1 nap at 9 months without drama 🤷‍♀️. Anyway at that age DS definitely wasn't ready. He's now 15 months.

Problem is that 1 nap days he gets absolutely shattered bless him, and I often think am I doing the right thing...?but on 2 nap days his wake windows are so long that we end up with a really late bedtime, like 8.30/9pm! It's not sustainable.

Today he went down at 10am as was clearly really tired and teething. He will nap for 1hr 15 mins (always) and so today he will wake at 11.15am. But then he needs a 4.5-5 hour gap so that would mean napping at 4ish - far too late, and this pushes bedtime later.

He wakes up at 6.30am religiously.

Any tips about how we move forward from here and crack the one nap? Thank you.

Keep him active for as long as possible in the morning. Early lunch and then nap after that.

It will disrupt his routine and sleep patterns for a while, and he will be cranky while he adjusts.

I just pushed the morning nap back by 10/15 minutes every day till it was about 11.30am. My DS would then do 11.30-1pm ish and be fine for a 7pm bedtime. While we were moving the nap I just put him to bed a bit earlier for a couple of weeks.

It takes afew days op. Took me a week for DS to be used to it.
When he gets tired occupy him, out in garden for fresh air.
If he's needing to go down earlier every few days move the nap back 15 mins till you hit your desired nap time.

Oh I had this problem. Mine was also about 15mo when I made the switch. I made sure I went out and would be in a park or something during his usual nap time, then put him down for a nap at maybe 11. I then slowly pushed that back and now at 18months he goes down at 1230.

Imo you cant do it without any grumpiness! They do get used to it - it took my DS maybe a week or so.

I've never tried to push ours from 2 to 1 nap a day. They naturally do this when they are ready. 9pm a late bed time... just wait for the teen years when they never want to go to bed at night or get up in the morning lol.

@Chelyanne

I've never tried to push ours from 2 to 1 nap a day. They naturally do this when they are ready. 9pm a late bed time... just wait for the teen years when they never want to go to bed at night or get up in the morning lol.

Mine didnt. He kept waking for about 2hrs every night between 2-4am because he was having too much day sleep. I had to force the issue.

My ds didn't fully go to 1 nap until 18 months old, he was the last in our group to transition. Sleep has always been (ams still is at 22 months) a bit of a minefield for us! But I started by trying to stretch him to 11, then 11.15, 11.30 etc. He'll get there op. I know it's hard but try jot to feel pressure because others have done it sooner. I felt exactly this and now wish I hadn't been so worked up about it! Xxx

Struggling with this too. My DS is 16 months and we tried 2 weeks ago for the 1 nap and he was just so overtired and caused nighttime waking and early rising. We went back to 2 naps and he's better at night again but refuses his afternoon nap sometimes. Its a hard transition, I hate it!

Keep him up til lunch time, early lunch at 11.30am if you need to, then nap time 12-2.

My first transitioned at 12 months and second about 15 months. Both were forced a bit. Second was no way ready at 12 months, each baby is different. However, we had a few occasions where he would fall asleep eating lunch, he gradually got better but it takes time. By about 17 months he could cope with being up a lot better. It just became really inconvenient with us as was so difficult to go out and do things and I have an older child too and was tied to cotnaps.