Should I try going down to one nap?

[zuulem]

My DS is 13 months and his naps have recently gone a little haywire. He generally goes to bed around 7pm, and wakes at 5am (urgh...), when I can usually feed him and get him back to sleep until around 6am.

He has a nap at around 9am, which in the last couple of months has become a monster nap - he can sleep for 3 hours here, although I sometimes wake him earlier.

He's still having an afternoon nap, usually around 2ish, but unsurprisingly in the last few weeks, after the monster morning nap he's now not going to sleep until more like 3pm, then once he's asleep, he's out like a light and I wake him at 4pm.

The last couple of weeks he's also chattering to himself until nearer 8pm before he falls asleep.

It seems likely to me that he's sleeping too much in the day and waking early, but should I regiment his two naps and wake him after a certain time for each one, or just drop to one afternoon nap? It seems a little early for him to be going down to one nap, from what I've read.

Any advice appreciated!

He's havIng roughly 4 hrs a day which as you say is too much. I'd say the balance of naps is wrong. Ideally the morning nap would be short as this one gets dropped leaving one longish lunchtime nap of about 2 hours (could be more or less depending on needs of child).

I think his long morning nap is acting as an extension of his nighttime sleep because he's waking early and then he's not really having a good sleep after that. He's not settling until 8 because he's had 4 hrs in the day. I was in the exact situation as you when my DD was the same age and she would also wake at 5am.

Id try and rebalance the naps by cutting down the long morning sleep, gradually by 15 mins every few days. Aim to get it right down to 30/45 mins. At the same time I would imagine the aftern

Whoops! ...the afternoon nap will lengthen at the same time. Eventually you can drop the morning nap completely and hopefully get a decent nap in the middle of the day, waking no later than 3 do settling at bedtime isn't affected.

This is what I did and it worked brilliantly, hopefully something simillar will work for you.

Thank you, that sounds sensible. I'm actually quite looking forward to the switch to one nap - getting the timing right for leaving the house at the moment is difficult!

I found the morning nap got later and became the lunchtime nap - ds is 15 mths and this was in the last couple of months - so now he either naps 4-5 hours from waking but can be stretched 6 - as I was finding he was going down at 11am (woke at 6-7am) and then doing lunch somewhere between 1&2 depending on how long he napped and his slow eating meant he was finishing lunch nearer 3pm which was too close to dinner. So I may give him lunch at 11am and nap 12-2/3.

If we are out for the day he might have 2 short naps in the car instead (or we would never see anyone!)

My ds dropped his morning nap about 11 months but still at 22 months has 2-3hour pm nap.
Try going 3 days without morning nap. If all he'll breaks lose then put it back in, but shorter and maybe later. Bring his afternoon nap to about 1or 12.30 if dropping morning one.

Sorry if garbled, no phone.