Nap advice for 15 month old

[Newmumin23]

Currently having issues with my 15 month olds sleep. He’s never been a good napper but we’d got into a semi good routine with a short morning nap and long lunch nap.

He started protesting lunch nap, and waking early so I thought he was ready to drop to 1 nap. However it doesn’t seem to be working out . He’s always been an early riser so gets up around 6, he doesn’t seem to be able to last until 12ish for his nap. I’ve tried putting him down closer to 11.30 which does help but some days he’s only sleeping 40 mins and wakes up hysterical and won’t go back to sleep. I then put him to bed early 6-630ish , and he’ll then wake up at 530. Making it even harder to get him to 11.30. Some days I do add the second nap back in, even when I do this and he has a later bedtime he still wakes up 530ish, or he will refuse morning nap altogether. We seem to be in a constant cycle of early wake, short nap, early bed time etc. I don’t know how to get out of it.
The odd day he will sleep for 2 hours but maybe once a week.

Most of the time he’s sleeping between 40-90 mins. Which is making him constantly grumpy and spends all afternoon crying. He only seems happy if he’s slept for at least 2 hours in the day but I can’t work out why he isn’t doing this, he’s clearly tired. He does sleep through overnight.

Any advice on where I might be going wrong ?

I think he still just needs two naps. Perhaps try capping them if it's getting tricky to fit them in.

It’s the classic age for the 2->1 nap transition. I would persevere with 1 nap after lunch, serve lunch at 11 if you need to for a bit, expect it’ll be a bit rough for a week or 2 but he’ll come out the other side soon.

Following as in the same boat!

I think some days they'll have 1 nap and some days they'll have 2 when in the transition.

You could cap the morning nap to fit in the afternoon one. If they seem OK during the morning just try for one nap.

If they have 2 naps you can do a later bedtime (which is annoying tbf). They usually only manage 10-11hrs overnight so think about what time you'd like them to wake up and adjust bed time accordingly? Just suggestions here I guess and you'll have to find what works for you.

DD sleeps 8/9pm-7:30am-ish at 18 months and that's with one 1.5-2hr nap from 1pm-ish.

Urgh the 2 to 1 naps is horrible. I remember it well...!

I used to do a really early lunch. About 11 then he went down for a nap after that.

Not every day was the same. Some days 2, some days 1... bit of trial and error.

I would take each day as it comes for a while. DS sometimes woke up after 15 minutes buzzing to go, some days he would sleep for 2+ hours. My golden rule was anything after 2.30/3 and I had to wake him

It goes fast - you're doing great mamma.

It takes a couple of months for this transition and I’m not sure there’s much you can do apart from wait it out. Mine sometimes did one or two naps for a couple of months, depending on when they woke up. If they did an early nap then I would cap it at 45 mins and then try for a second nap later in the afternoon. On the days they had a later nap then it would also be a later bedtime. Sometimes they woke up later, sometime they still woke up really early. Eventually they settled into consistently doing one long nap after lunch without being overtired.