Does anyone have a toddler 1yr plus who still has 3x 30 min naps?!

[jaffa19]

I have posted many times about many sleep issues! This time it's short naps. He's 10mo and we have finally pretty much night weaned and he's sleeping through 5 times out of 7 which is amazing. Until this point, between 8-9mo he had been reliably napping 30 mins in AM and 1.5hrs at lunch, sometimes followed a pm catnap.
Now we are back to 3x30 mins. (930am, 1pm and 4pm) So he's waking refreshed and happy after a long nights sleep, but by bedtime is exhausted and exhausting. I've tried extending the nap in his buggy but this no longer works. Oh and he's almost crawling, if that makes any difference.

My question, I guess, is this: Do all toddlers just end up doing a long stint in the middle of the day, or do I need to do something to encourage it? Every toddler I've ever met has napped for a couple of hours in the middle of the day but I can't help feeling I'm going to be in this same routine for another year!

Gosh things change so quickly, it's not going to be the same in a year! Fwiw Ds is 14 months and still has two short naps.

DS was a short napper but they got longer about 12months ish iirc- about same time as he learnt to walk. Still not the mythical 2 hr jobs but regularly 1 hr plus

I really hope they lengthen sooner or later - it's exhausting hardly having a break all day - not to mention that I have to walk the buggy around the houses to get him to nap in the afternoon.

I keep reading that they need x amount of sleep for development, and most kids do seem to have a decent length nap in a day.

What time does he wake in the morning & what time does he go to bed? This may have a bearing on things.

Have his naps been at 9.30 & 1.30 for a while? IMHO, the gap between his AM & PM nap looks a little long. My DS is fairly low sleep needs & at same age he would nap 9.30-10 & then have his afternoon nap from 12.30-2.30. As he got a little older the PM nap pushed out a bit towards 1pm.

For us, 30min naps are usually a sign of overtiredness, so I wonder if you try bringing the afternoon nap a little earlier to 12.30/1pm but no later, whether you might find the PM nap extends. You want to get it back to at least 1.5hrs, ideally 2hrs, to enable him to last through to bedtime without needing that 4pm nap, as there is going to come a point where that starts to intefere with his night.

If he absolutely refuses to go down for his PM nap any earlier than 1.30pm then I would suggest cutting the AM nap back a wee bit more, with a view to getting him down nearer to 1pm. He may be nearing the point of dropping to 1 nap, but at 10months he is still a little young for that.

HTH.x

Thanks omama - you've helped me out before!

So he naps at 930, 1 and 4ish. 30-40muns max each time.

Night is 645/7pm and wakes any time between 6 and 7. Usually about 630.

I will try putting him down at 1230 for a few days but I have a feeling he might not be tired enough by then. I am beginning to think he just doesn't need as much sleep as his mum and dad! Are some children just like that?