Nap trouble -please come and tell me about your 12ish month old's naps and going from 2 naps to 1!

[RitaMorgan]

So, ds went from being an awful napper to a brilliant one at 7 months, and since then has needed a nap every 3 hours in the day. For the last few months his day has gone roughly

6.30am - up
9.30-10.30ish - nap
1.30-3.30ish - nap
7.30pm - bed

The last few days he has had a morning nap and then not wanted to sleep in the afternoon at all. Today he slept 10.15am-11am, and then refused to sleep at 2pm, instead collapsing where he was playing at 3pm. I guess I'll let him sleep til half past and then get him up.

So, does this sound like he needs to drop to one nap? I can't really let him have two naps with 4 hours between them in the day or he'll be going to bed too late, unless I only let him nap for 30 minutes each time.

What are other people's 11-13 month olds doing? When did you drop a nap?

Hi RitaMorgan, this is now my favourite current thread!

Until recently, DS (11 months) did something like this:

6am Wake up, BF
7am Breakfast
9am Nap (1hour 15mins)
10:30am BF, snack
12pm Lunch
1pm Nap (1hour 15mins)
2:30pm BF, snack
5pm Tea
6:30pm Bath, BF, cot

But now I think that he's trying to drop a nap. He goes to sleep for his 9am nap as usual, but then goes to sleep really late, if at all, for his 1pm nap.

He starts going to a CM soon, and she'd like him to only have a pm nap. At first this was making me really anxious, but now I think that he's trying to drop a nap anyway.

I've started to limit his am nap to 45mins, and this has kept his 1pm nap a bit closer to 1pm than it would be otherwise. I had someone round doing some work on the house this am, so I let DS sleep for 1 hour - this was a big mistake as he didn't go to sleep this pm until 2:30pm (he's still asleep now). I'm now planning to limit his am nap to 30mins.

It feels awful waking him up , so I do it as gently as possible. And he's fine when he wakes up .

Sorry for the ramble, I think DS might wake up soon!

, sorry, you got DS's whole routine as I wrote it out for a different thread earlier.

We have successfully dropped to 1 nap a day just this past few weeks! We did it by pushing back the morning nap in 5 min increments until DS could last til 9.30am before morning nap, then lo and behold - he has started sleeping in until 7.30 or even 8 am in the mornings (AMAZING!! Not 5.30am starts any more!) and then was fine for a nap around 11am until 1 ish. So:
Wake 7.30
Nap 11 - 1
Bed 7
Bloody brilliant after months of v early starts!

I'm already trying to limit the morning nap to 45 minutes (though it sometimes ends up an hour) as ds was waking at 5 and sleeping for 2 hours in the morning - it has kind of worked as now he wakes at 5.45 and then comes into bed with me for a feed/doze til 6.30am. I wonder if I should try to limit it to 30 minutes before dropping it completely?

The other thing that complicates this slightly is that he is at nursery 9am-1pm. They have lunch at 11.45, so realistically he could either sleep 9.30am-11.30am or wait til he gets home and sleep 1.30pm-3.30pm.

Which nap would you go for?

I do exactly the same thing - I plan to let DS sleep for 45mins, but then I think 'Oh, just 5mins longer...', or 'I can't rememember exactly when he went to sleep, so I'll give him 5mins longer.', or 'Is he really trying to drop a nap? I'll give him 5mins longer.' .

But today has confirmed that he really is trying to drop a nap, so I'll feel more confident that waking him up is the right thing to do now. 30min 9am nap as of tomorrow .

Have you read 'Healthy sleep habits, happy child' by Marc Weissbluth? It's a terrifying read, but (if you manage to wade through it) it has some good data about sleep, naps, times etc. I think he says that most babies drop the am rather than the pm nap, which I suppose makes sense as it's more in the middle of the day. So, I think a 1:30-3:30pm nap would be better for your DS, but I'd worry that he'll be really tired in the late morning and might fall asleep in the pram / car on the way home from nursery.

What about having a 30min am nap for a while, and seeing how that goes?

I'll post DS's nap times tomorrow, it'll make me stick to my 30min 9am nap plan .

The rest of today was a bit of a mess - didn't manage to wake him up til 4.30pm this afternoon and he's only just gone to sleep now!

I might just see how he goes in the morning tomorrow and play it by ear as to whether or not to do a short am nap or nap after lunch.

The after nursery nap is going to be a nightmare - DP picks him up and I meet them at home and need to breastfeed ds before he goes to bed.

Ours was too (9-10am; 2:30-4pm; 8pm-TBA).

I loved having a reliable routine, but now everything's changing !

He slept alright last night (woke up once at 3am because he'd lost all his dummies - cue me scrabbling around in the dark looking for them) - awake at 5.45, into bed with me for a feed, up at 6.15am.

He did alright til 10am and has since been tired and grumpy and occasionally lying down on the floor for a rest I'm giving him an early lunch now and am going to see if we can get a little closer to 12 before nap time.

We had a rubbish night then day!

1:00-2:30am awake
7:45am up
10:20-10-50am nap
3:00-3:45pm nap
8pm sleep

It all feels a million miles away from our previous routine (and it included a couple of feeds to sleep which we don't usually do any more) .

How did you get on for the rest of the day, RitaMorgan?

It sounds like he still needs his morning nap.

DD2 looked like she was going to drop hers at around a year but then went back to it and has only just stopped having it at 18 months.

I would suggest trying to cut it to half an hour and then putting him down for his big nap a little earier to make up for it.

I don't really understand the whole "morning nap" thing - why do they get so tired so soon after their longest sleep?

But both my girls were big into heading back to sleep a couple of hours after waking in the morning.

We had similar with the 45 minute naps - I think if they are too tired they can only stay asleep for one sleep cycle.

I finally put him to bed at midday, he woke at 12.45.
Got him back to sleep at 1.15pm, then I woke him at 3pm (in retrospect should have let him sleep I think?)
He fell asleep at 7pm, woke at 7.45pm and has a bad cough that has been disturbing him since.

I had to feed him to sleep for his nap too, and again at 7.45pm. Not that I have any problem feeding him to sleep, but generally he self-settles so I think it indicates that he was tired/wired.

Hmm... tomorrow will be a nightmare as we're going to the beach with my sister so he'll be sleeping in the car/not sleeping at all!

My DD who is just 1yo has only just taken to napping and now seems to enjoy 2 good naps per day.

6.30am up & milk
7.30am breakfast
10.00 am milk & nap
11.30 awake
2.00 - 3.30 nap
7.00 bed

She now sleeps straight through. Had been thinking about dropping a nap but she's so busy when she's up and about that she really needs it.

Thanks for all of the comments - I think that yesterday was put off track by DS waking up so late in the am (usually he's awake at ~6am).

Today's plan:
6am awake
9am nap for 30mins (so far so good...)
1pm nap for 1 hour +
7pm asleep

I hope that you all have a lovely day at the beach, and that your DS's cough is better, RitaMorgan.

This all sounds so familiar! DS (12 months) has been exactly the same - going to sleep for his morning nap later and then being impossible to get down for an afternoon nap. We do go for a one nap strategy at the moment when we can, but it doesn't always work. To complicate matters he has just started at nursery, where he will be for two mornings (8-1.30) and one full day per week. Amazingly nursery are able to get him to sleep, but obviously as far as they are concerned he sleeps when he's tired. So on Monday and Tuesday at nursery he slept from about 10.40-11.20ish at nursery, but then I couldn't get him to sleep till after 4pm on Monday and not at all on Tuesday, so he only had 40 minutes total all day. Today, on the other hand (at home all day), he has had 2x 1.5 hour naps - I think because it's so hot.

No idea what to do from here. On one-nap days I give him lunch at about 11.30am so that he can then sleep from 12-2 or so, but that isn't going to work at nursery. Am hoping it will all sort itself out!

So much for today's plan.

What actually happened:
6am DS awake
9am nap for 30mins (I woke him up)
2:20pm put him down for a nap, and he SCREAMED until I got him up again (~5mins; he wasn't even soothed by me being there / rubbing his chest etc)
3:00pm nap in the car for 30mins
7:15pm cot, SCREAMED, removed clothes, cot, SCREAMED, Calpol, waited 15mins, cot, SCREAMED, fed to sleep eventually at 8:20pm.

He's sobbing in his sleep as I type .

I don't really know what to do - I'm meant go back to work next week, and DS is meant to go to a CM.

Is DS 100% over-tired?
Does he want to be fed to sleep all of the time now?
Does he actually want to drop the pm nap not the am nap?
Does he not need the am nap at all, and it's kindof throwing everything else out?

My new rubbish plan:
Email sleep specialist, and hopefully talk to them on the phone tomorrow.
No am nap tomorrow, only a pm nap.

Sorry, I meant to say Hi, Woodlands! Arg, it's so difficult, isn't it?

It's so frustrating! FWIW, I figure that when they are starting childcare - so with a CM for your DS and at nursery for mine - they will probably still need two naps as it's so much more tiring for them with a strange environment/lots of exciting activities etc. So nursery days we are still going to aim for two naps. If he only has a morning nap I won't panic all afternoon - I now know he can cope so long as he has a rest (in the buggy/car seat or snuggled up with me for a feed/watching Tv).

Tomorrow could be interesting - my mum is going to be looking after him for 5-6 hours on a Thursday (while I work from home) and tomorrow's the first time. SHe's coming at about 9.30 and taking him to a toddler group from 9.30-11.30. So either I could get him to have an early nap and wake by 9.30 so I can answer the door (may well give her a set of keys!), or I could get her to try to keep him going till an early lunch at 11.30. I'll see what time he wakes up at in the morning.

DD has her 1 birthday next week and her sleeping pattern is generally:

07:00 - wake
11:30 - nap
13:00 - wake
16:30 - nap
18:00 - wake
21:00 - bed

trying to sort her routine out so she goes to bed earlier but there is no way of keeping her awake when she wants to sleep at 16:30 so we've given up a bit as this pattern seems to work.

We're lucky though that DH is a SAHD so don't have to fit into a specific pattern apart from waking at 7am so I can breastfeed before work!

That's interesting, PogoBaby. And your DD is still getting 13 hours sleep, which is about the same as DS usually gets, hmm...

So glad I found this thread, having exactly the same problem! DD is 10 mo, which I thought was a little early for dropping down to 1 nap (but then she dropped to 2 naps early as well, so at least she's consistent).

If I push her and keep her busy she can stay awake till lunch time, and then has a good nap that sees her through till bed time. But after a few days of doing this she gets more and more desperate to have a 9am nap, and when I let her, she then refuses the 1pm nap, and usually wont take it at all at any point during the afternoon and then is hysterical at bed time. Can't win!

Sorry I don't have any useful advice for you ladies, no idea how to solve the problem myself yet. Fingers crossed it all settles down for everyone soon!

Hi, MissRedIndie. When your DD only has 1 nap, what time do you put her down, and how long does she sleep for? And how does this compare to when she used to have 2 naps?

I'm trying our 1st 1 nap day today - DS went to sleep at 12:10pm and is still asleep at 2:10pm ! Actually, I might have to wake him up at 2:30pm as we're going to visit his CM...

Well, DS's 1st 1 nap day seemed to go well:
7am awake
12:10pm nap for 2hours 20mins
7:50pm asleep

Yesterday was predictably difficult as we were out all day - a couple of 10 minute dozes in the car, then a 2 hour nap on the way home 5pm-7pm

Then he went to bed at 9.30 and slept through til 7.30am - unusual for him to sleep right through and wake after 6am!

Today he had one nap 12-1.30ish, went to bed at 7.30pm, so we'll see...

I am feeling that 1 nap is the way to go, just need to get him to take his one nap after 1pm.

Hi, RitaMorgan. Aw, it sounds like your DS was tired out after his day trip .

I think that 1 nap is the way to go, I hope that DS does too.

sounds positive achtung and rita!

Bad nap day here - kept him going till 12, then fed him, but he fell asleep while I was feeding him, but then woke as I tried to put him down (I was working from home and my mum was looking after him, so i really needed to get on) and then he just screamed until we eventually gave in and got him up again. My mum tried on and off to get him down till about 2.30 when she took him to the park, whereupon he fell asleep in the pushchair and stayed asleep till I had to wake him at 4ish (if he sleeps past then he won't sleep at night). Grr!

First proper full day at nursery tomorrow, 8am-5.50pm - eek! I wonder how he'll get on with no BFs and two nursery naps.