How do you manage routine on non nursery days?

[trrk]

My DD (12 months) has only been at nursery a few weeks (currently 3 days a week, moving up to 5 in a few months) but I'm struggling a bit how to manage routine on non nusery days so she'll get enough sleep and wake up on time.

Prior to nursery she slept roughly frm 8:30pm-8am with 2 naps during the day but timings could vary by up to an hour or more each day depending on when she woke up and how long she napped for which is quite variable at the moment. I've always been of the 'never wake a sleeping baby' camp so didn't wake her in the mornings or from naps.

Since starting nursery we have been trying to shift bed time earlier to between 7 and 7:30pm so she can get up around 7am. This was working OK on nursery days but on non nursery days she has been taking some longer than average naps pushing the timings later and eventual bed time later. Today was a particularly bad example as she refused to sleep in the pram while we were out for a walk at our local NT place and then fell asleep in the car on the way back so now we are looking at a super late bed time even though she needs to be up at 7am for nursery.

So keen to hear how others manage this? Do you try to keep the same routine every day or just go with the flow and deal with them being tired some days? I realise I'm super lucky to have a great sleeper rather than an early riser.

Personally, I just go with it. They sleep when they sleep. Nursery are pretty flexible allowing a longer nap during the day if they need it. I wonder if yours is about ready to drop down to one nap a day?

We went with the flow for a couple of months and then moved to one lunchtime nap, which was driven by nursery's routine. Once this happened bedtime and wake up were nearer 7 and we have kept to this routine on the other days.

Go down to 1 nap. Beyond 12 months they generally do ok on just 1 so I’d always aim for 1 after lunch, or sometimes before if I knew it would be a late lunch, and be pretty flexible with the timing. It’s far more complicated when you’re trying to schedule 2 but don’t want the 2nd to be too late.

Thanks for the advice!

I'm not sure if she is ready for one nap as her first wake window is still quite short (around 2hr) and she is usually ready for her first nap by 10am. It would be a long time to stay awake until bed if she didn't take a 2nd nap. She was also quite late switching from 3 to 2 naps. Her other wake windows are 3-4 hr.

Nursery would definately allow a longer nap if she would take one but so far she has only been willing to take 30-40 min naps and is finding the afternoons quite tiring. Maybe this will change as she gets more settled in. She is in the baby room for now where most of them do 2 naps.

I'm also not one for waking children as a general rule.

Mine started nursery at a similar age and had a similar schedule to yours. He was starting to drop to one nap at that time but wasn't quite there. We did cap the 2 naps for a few weeks just until he made the transition. It got over the problem of him not making it past mid morning but also not having the second nap end too late that it pushed back bedtime and having the knock-on effect the next day as we'd have to wake him for nursery.

Once he dropped to one nap consistently, his bedtime did naturally move to 7.30 and wake around 7 in the morning. It did take him a while to nap longer than 30 minutes at nursery when he'd happily do 2 hours at home. Again, just rolled with it.