Is my 13 month old ready to drop to 1 nap a day?

[hopingforapeainapod]

I don’t know whether my 13 month old needs to transition to one nap rather than two naps a day. Currently he wakes up about 6.30am, has a nap around 9.30am and a nap around 3pm, and goes to bed about 7.30pm. His naps last around 3 hours in total. (I’m lucky he’s a good sleeper and he has always been a relatively high sleep needs baby).

However over the last week or so he has been waking up in the night about 1 or 2am suddenly super awake, and has taken literally hours to go back down (he normally sleeps through!) He’s not really interested in milk so I don’t think he’s hungry.

Yesterday he really resisted his afternoon nap - would just not go down - so we decided to skip it all together and he went to bed about 6.15pm. However same thing - he woke up at 3.30am and didn’t go back down til almost 5.45am, eurgh.

I don’t think he’s teething. I wondered if it was his 12 month jabs which he had about 5 days ago but the first time this happened was actually before his jabs so I’m not sure… husband thinks we should crack on with trying to transition to one nap a day but I’m not sure he’s ready for 4-5 hour wake windows yet.

Just looking for any advice really!

That second nap is really late, so I'd try and push the first nap back to about 11am and then have an early bedtime. It still may take about a week for him to get into the new routine but I definitely think it's time to go down to one nap. As long as he's awake again by about 2.15-30pm he should still be ok for bed.

You could definitely try prolonging his wake window in the morning and try 1 long lunch time nap and see how that goes? It is tough though knowing, especially with a good sleeper.

I don’t think so, no. Usually when they are ready to drop a nap they become hard to get to sleep at bedtime.

It does sound like his sleep times are all upside down. If he is going to sleep 3-4:30pm, then going to bed at 7:30pm, it’s no wonder he’s awake several hours in the night.

I’d try to shorten or bring forward the afternoon nap. Force it to be 1-2pm by driving around in the car or going for a walk or something.

That said, they do this being awake in the night for hours thing when the brain is doing lots of consolidation with learning, especially around mobility. Is he recently cruising or walking or trying to walk?

Thanks all. It’s a strange one because even with a late afternoon nap he doesn’t resist going to bed for the night at all. I think I’m going to try stretching the morning wake window and going for a long lunchtime nap and see how it goes - he can often sleep for 2 hours + in the morning (I cap it at 2 hours and often have to wake him up) so maybe he is ready for one mega nap?

He’s been walking since 10.5 months so I don’t think it’s that no - although he is babbling loads (particularly at night when he wakes up) so maybe there’s some developmental stuff happening around speech? He is incredibly physically active during the day and easily tires himself out running round everywhere which is why we have struggled to increase his wake windows before.

Can I ask what helped? Did you go down to 1 nap? We're going through literally the exact same thing currently refusing his afternoon nap. Settling well for bed and morning nap but awake 4am every morning! He has his morning nap 9:30am and sleeps 1-2 hours depending on the day!