The 2 to 1 nap limbo

[user40816]

Can anyone advise how to manage the "not quite ready to drop to 1 nap" phase? DD's (10m) wake consistently approaching 4 hours for afternoon and evening and it's meaning with a reasonable amount of nap (2.5-3 hours in total) that bedtime is getting pushed back to mean 10 hours of night sleep. I know she's not ready to go down to 1 nap yet but it's almost getting difficult to fit in 2... I don't even want to think about another couple of months down the line when this gets even harder!

Drop the nap, bring the morning one as late as you can stretch it, bring bedtime forward by 30-60 mins.

Avoid the car or buggy in late afternoon!

Don't get hung up on "wake windows", they are just a starting point, not science backed.

Thanks for replying.

It's not that I'm going off of guidance regarding wake windows, I only used it as a phrase to describe the amount of time I know she can tolerate between naps without getting overtired. I've been finding whereas it used to be 3-3.5 hours a month ago, if I now start to wind her down at 3 hours it won't be till 3.75-4 that she'll actually drop off, hence I know her "wake windows" are lengthening.

Extending her in the morning is a no go though, not at the moment anyway. She can only manage 2.5-3 hours in the morning absolute tops because her night sleep quality is poor (compared to day) so she wakes up first thing tired usually. Then she has a long nap as her 1st and just a quick refresher in the afternoon.

I'm hesitant to reduce her morning nap by more, so maybe we'll just have to roll with it for now till she can go longer in the mornings.

Yeah, it's tricky.
We were stuck in an early waking cycle at this point which meant pushing back the morning nap just never worked. I used to let them sleep however long they wanted in the morning and then usually they'd have a v short afternoon nap to get through to bedtime.
It took about 4/5 months of this before we got to about 11.30 for nap time, which is now the long lunchtime nap. So I just waited it out until they could stay awake for longer.

I found poor night sleep was a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy if I let her catch up during the day. We did a short morning nap then long afternoon one - eventually that got shorter and shorter so when she dropped it she didn’t miss the catch up sleep in the same way. You could try cutting it down by 10 mins every few days and hope that starts to consolidate things for when she is ready to drop it.

Yeah it's tricky. We just had to surf early wakes for a while (and cap the morning nap) until she dropped the 2nd nap.

For both my DC we did the morning nap in the pram, usually lasted 40-60 mins and then the afternoon nap in their cot (approx 2 hours). Gradually I reduced how much I would let them sleep in the morning until they basically showed they didn’t need it at all (around 14 months). Not sure if that’s helpful but it’s worked with mine :)

I remember this with my 17 month old. We were struggling to fit in the two naps and by the end he was awake in his cot for up to an hour and only had time for a 30 minute nap so it wasnt even worth it. In the end we just bit the bullet and dropped the 2nd nap cold turkey. He woke up at 7ish, we gave him an early lunch so he was in bed for 1145am. Currently he is sleeping 1145 - 245 and that will see him thorugh until his bedtime of 630pm. It was a struggle for about a week but theyll always need time to adapt - theyll get there eventually. xx

How do you know she's not ready for one nap?

How long are her naps currently?

Babies normally drop to one nap at 12-15 months. 10 months would be quite unusual…

A good routine for 10 months is
9.20-10: nap 1
1-3: nap 2
7: bedtime

My DD is 11 months today and has been on one nap for a while. If it's a day where we're out in the car it's 2 short naps around 9.30 and 2.30 with a bedtime of 7.30, but if we're at home it's one nap around 12 for 2 hours and a slightly earlier bedtime. She's not a fan of daytime sleep and it's been tough, but this is working OK for us at the moment. Usually averages 11 hours at night.

Ah I see what you mean. Sounds like you have a plan anyway. Good luck!

Because on days where we have been out of routine due to whatever we've had on and she has subsequently gone way over, she will become very obviously overtired and distressed; she's only recently come to tolerate 4 hours awake. Plus her night time sleep is no where near solid enough.

One nap, usually her first is 1.5-2 hours and the second is up to 1 hour, but often 45ish minutes.

Yep. This is what routine-led sleep consultants advise

If it were me I would shorten that first nap right down. Maybe initially 30 min with a longer nap later in the day.

If she's ready, shorten the first nap to 20 min, then 10, then cut it out altogether

The thing is she's compensating for her night time sleep in the morning; I have to get her up in the mornings else she would sleep an extra hour. She will literally sit up at wake up time and fold herself in half forwards back to sleep if I were to let her.

Wednesdays are the only day where a short morning nap happen as she will fall asleep in the car on the way back from swimming. However when this happens and she only gets 30 minutes (because she wakes up when the car stops), she will be very cranky and rubbing her eyes after only an hour.

Her naps that I've detailed aren't managed by me, as in she naturally wakes after those times. So given what happens on Wednesdays when circumstances reverse her two nap lengths, she really doesn't tolerate it well which is why I'd be very reluctant to try and force it as I understand why the first one is naturally longer, even though that's a less common way of doing it.

What time is she getting up in the morning? Is there a reason she can't sleep the extra hour that she wants?

I might be tempted to push the morning wake window as long as possible (3-3.5h), even if it means she's a bit cranky for a few days. We did that with DS and I think it contributed to him consolidating his night sleep into (slightly) longer blocks, which then allowed him to do a longer first wake window more comfortably and to reduce his daytime sleep needs. He's on 2 naps (9mo) but the total sleep time is more like 2-2.5hours across both naps, so they still fit.

She doesn't get up till 8/8:15 ordinarily so an extra hour would mean nap 1 wouldn't start till 12ish. 😬

My ds has never napped to any kind of schedule. He’s 18 months old now and still awake with no nap at all today and he’s been up since around 9am 🙈

And we’re still on mostly 2 naps with my 21m DS (19m corrected); he is taking a reeeeeealy long time to adjust down to 1. In that, he CAN do 1/ day but then is super tired the next day or two days after and then doesn’t sleep as long at night which then means an early wake up (530/545) so then needs 2 naps/ day again.

His morning nap is usually capped at an hour, depending on wake up time, so if a 530 wake up then he’ll typically have an hour - hour and a half in the morning and then can still do an hour and a half, even two hours in the afternoon (especially with the 1 nap day the previous day).

Its now making it tricky for toddler groups / classes as they’re at 930am generally so we’re going to be forcing a one nap day from after Easter with one of his classes and then I think he’ll naturally fall to it then too.

This is a long winded way of saying that sometimes I don’t think they’ve read the books (!) that say they should be ok 1 nap/ day so may take more time than you think (or in my case want), to get to that point. We’ve been flip flopping for months like this!!

My three all dropped down to one nap around 12 months, and you are not far off that. I’m not sure of your exact timings from your posts above, but two of mine had the bigger nap in the morning so your dd could wake up, have her morning awake window, then have a chunky nap. Then we would wake the from their second nap after 40 mins or half an hour, so it just tided them over for the afternoon without bedtime getting pushed really late. And when it got to the point that settling down to sleep for the second nap was practically taking longer than the nap itself we dropped it. As others have said, push the morning nap as far as your child can cope and then bring bedtime forward if necessary. There’s always a good few weeks of flux and things working some days and not others. So I don’t think you’re going to figure out the perfect solution because her needs for sleep will be changing with each day and week. You’d be aiming for one nap starting at 11:30/12. And as they adjust and get a bit older you can push that to a prompt start for the nap after lunch, around 1 or so.

I'd cap the morning nap to max 30 mins, that's the only way we managed to keep two naps. Plus by shortening the first nap the second nap improved in length which then made the afternoon better and in turn night sleep too.
When it then became impossible to fit in, we just had to stretch her, there were a lot of early bedtimes for a while but she adjusted fine.
We are now in the nearly dropping naps completely stage, often not tired enough for a nap, too tired and falls asleep late afternoon if she doesn't have one.