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?

Woo hoo for eating and sleeping with the CM! Glad to hear it went well.

Nursery just get the children to sleep when they're tired, and for DS that tends to be about 10-10.30ish. Trouble is, that doesn't fit very well with me - I'd rather he either had one nap early (9ish) and one after lunch, or keep him up till 11.30-12 and go for one nap. Can't really ask them to do that though, as I know Ofsted etc say children must be allowed to sleep when tired, and I have to work really hard to get him to sleep at 9 nowadays. The problem is that he sleeps till say 11.30, but then won't be ready for another nap till 3ish.

I'm sure it will settle soon. Apparently when I was his age I used to sleep 9-11ish and that would do me for the day.

Well, yesterday he had epic amounts of sleep - he woke at 5.45am so had half an hour or so from 8.45-9.15, then he slept in the afternoon from 12.45-4pm! I have got some sort of bug so was feeling rotten, so I had a lovely long nap too. Then today he only had one nap, 12.30-2.15.

Thanks, Woodlands . I'm really pleased that DS seems to be okay at the CM so far.

How are you feeling now? And how is your DS?

Hi all,

We're doing ok here...actually quite good. Hope you are too. I have embraced the strategy of letting DS have a kip (15-20 mins) in the moring when he gets stroppy and sleepy about 3.5 hrs or so after he gets up. Then I wake him, and go do something active, eg the park, then an earlyish lunch and he's down for a sleep at 12.30.

And wonder of wonders (touch wood) this seems to mean that he is now sleeping through til....6am this morning. Ta da! I really really hope it lasts. The only problem with this is that by 12 he is getting really grumpy and tired and doesn't go down very well, but yesterday at nursery he had a 1.5 hr nap (which is great for him at nursery), so I'm very very pleased.

It seems a bit interventionist and I feel mean waking him in the morning, but its a small price to pay for 6am wake up instead of 5am.

Hope all is well with everyone else.

Well, we're having a terrible time at the moment. The night after I posted (when DS had slept 2 hours) he slept 6.50-6.30 - amazing! But since he hasn't napped enough in the day and his nights have gone to pot: harder and harder to settle and earlier and earlier wake ups (it was before 5 when he woke today, and he didn't go back to sleep). I'm feeling a bit down about it all tbh as I don't see how he's going to be able to sleep enough at nursery. Luckily it is only 2 days a week - I will carry on with 2 naps a day on the other days.

Glad to hear some positives from everyone else - abigailj that is excellent news!

Hi RaisingMrC, sorry to hear your having a tough time. I was really really worried about nursery to because DC can be a bad daytime sleeper but he seems to have worked it out ok after a couple of months/6 weeks. Hope it lasts. even if he only did two small naps and was red-eyed at the end of the day he seemed to manage - there is so much to keep them entertained there.

Really interesting thread...My nearly 1 year old is down to 1 nap per day. Sometimes it's AM and sometimes PM. Seems to depend on what we are doing that day. It doesn't bother me when she naps but if she has 2 naps all hell breaks lose and she doesn't go to bed till about 10pm.

I'm finding it strange to focus our activities more on keeping her awake than getting her to sleep. Yesterday she has a morning nap at 10am for 1 hour then went to bed for the night at 615pm. I figure if she sleeps after 3pm there is no way she's going to bed until very late.

That's interesting SoottySweepandSue - sounds like your problems are similar but at the opposite end of the day to what ours have been, which is that if DC napped twice for a decent length (which he did until recently) he happily went down at 7pm, but then was up for the day at 5am, sometimes before.

Today I kept him up til just before 12. He was falling asleep on me at 10am, so I whisked him off to the park. We had an early lunch at 11.30, then he was literally falling asleep in his high-chair. So, off to bed. It's 1pm and he's still asleep :) keeping my fingers crossed

Interested to read this thread. Was going to post a similar one. Dd2 has never been a great sleeper/napper but has recently started sleeping through. She wakes up at a respectable hour (7-7.30) but is a bugger to get to sleep. She likes to go to sleep in the morning but it's getting later and later and not enough time to get an afternoon nap in. Yesterday she slept 10.30 till about 12 then didn't want to go down in the afternoon till she got really crabby at 3.30 which was too late. Today we are going to try and power through till lunch. That's fine unless we go out in the car then it is impossible to keep her awake.