Naps…

[Hownowbrowncow1]

So DS is 11 months. Has always been a pretty awful napper, doesn’t settle on his own and wakes at the slightest sounds.

He wakes at 7/7:30 am with the rest of us has breakfast around 8:45 after the school run, then won’t nap until 10:30/11. Naps for an hour then the afternoon nap is out the window, he either won’t go down for it or it will be too late when he wakes up for a reasonable bedtime.

Any tips? Any magic tricks? I’m about to pull my hair out 😂

Is he ready to drop down to 1 nap? Can you keep him going in the morning so his nap is later? Or if he does go down for a second later nap, can you wake him early so bedtime isn't too late?

As above, if he can go until 10:30/11 can you push it a little further and drop him down to one nap? Two of my kids dropped to 1 nap per day at 12 months so you’re not far off that. While they transitioned to just one nap I would sometimes put them down around 11:30 after a substantial snack and then have some more food later when they woke up. Or if they seemed to be doing quite well we might have an earlier lunch and go down around 12. They would normally nap for 2+ hours at that point. Before they went down to one nap they were having a chunkier nap in the morning and the afternoon nap required quite a long walk in the pushchair before they dropped off and then only lasted 30 mins or so. As that nap got harder to achieve and was therefore getting later and later we swapped down to one nap. After a month or so of swapping around whether they had lunch before or after it they settled into it and I routinely put them down at about 12:30/1 for a good long time.

I’m starting to think he is! But if I let him he’d of gone to sleep at 4 for about an hour and a half so Does that mean he’d still need the two? If I was to put him in the car at 10:30/11 I think he’d fall asleep. He’d probs stay awake in his pushchair as he’s so nosey!

Definitely try dropping to one nap. My wee one was ready around 11 months, but we thought it was 'too early' and spent ages each day trying to get her to sleep. Finally made the switch after a couple of weeks, and going down and staying down for both nap and bedtime were much easier within days (it turns out it's a lot easier to fall asleep if you're actually tired...). You might find he needs an earlier bedtime for a bit whilst he's adjusting, but if he's ready, I think you'll know within about a week of trying.

That’s good to hear! I’ve spent half hour today trying to get him to nap, I know it doesn’t sound a lot but 30 mins in a dark room with a baby resisting is long 😂

Good point made above about an earlier bedtime maybe being necessary for a bit too. It’s hard if you have to be in the car in the morning though as you want to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep, so he’s ready for a good middle of the day nap. You can keep an eye and prod them awake more easily when walking round with the pushchair. Re saying he’d have slept at 4 for a good while so doesn’t he need the sleep? He does, but maybe look at one nap as consolidating his daytime sleep into one chunk. If he’d had a nap closer to midday he wouldn’t have wanted a long nap by 4, he’d have had it all in one go hopefully. And then maybe you do an earlier bedtime for a bit while he adjusts.