Help with adjusting ds nap schedule

[waffles1]

My ds has just turned 1 and for the last few months has been waking at 5.40ish (a few times it's been 5am), he wakes up happy initially but by 8.30 is exhausted and always goes down for his morning nap at 9.30 and generally sleeps until at least 11.30. Wakes up happy and has another shorter nap around 3pm for 30-40 mins.

I do believe the long morning nap is contributing to the early rising. So i'm wanting to cut back on the am nap so he goes down at 9.30 but i'll wake him up around 10am, and then bring lunch forward to 11.45 and put him back down around 12.15 in the hope he has a good 2.5 hours to see him through the afternoon until bed at 7pm.

My question is, how to actually implement this as ds attends nursery 3 mornings per week (mon, tues & wed) and gets picked up at 1pm. An idea was to re -arrange nursery to one full day and one half day as then it would just be once per week that his nap schedule is affected as opposed to 3 times. My family help with childcare so i am lucky that i can be fairly flexible. But does seem a big change for ds to alter nursery.

Also, if other mn's has tried to cut down on the morning nap, how long did it take for the early waking to become later and did cutting down the morning nap actually work?

I totally agree with your comments on why he's waking early and what you need to do. It's a good aim to have as, at his age, he'll most likely be looking to drop the morning nap in the next couple of months leaving you with a long lunchtime sleep (hopefully!).

Not really sure what to say about nursery, although my DD started 2 mornings a week with a CM when she was 15 months and I would just put her to bed as soon as we got home. Could nursery give a snack at 12 so you don't have to do lunch when you get home, then serve a hot meal at tea time?

or perhaps allow a slightly longer morning nap on those days say 45mins-1hr & then give a later/slightly shorter afternoon nap??

WRT your thoughts re the early waking - you are right that the long/early nap is contributing & its definitely a good idea to cut it back. I would probably do this gradually & cut it down by 15mins every few days (so as not to shock him when he is used to a 2hr sleep & you wake him after 30mins IYSWIM) & at the same time the PM nap should get earlier/longer.

I think you might need to aim for him to be asleep for his PM nap nearer to 12.30pm if you want to get that 2hr nap. I did this at a similar age & it worked a treat. However, I couldn't let my DS have a 2.5hr nap at lunchtime as well as a 30min nap in the morning - 3hrs was very definitely too much day sleep for him at this age. If I let him sleep more we'd just get a short night. Also I found that between 13-14 months the amount of time he could stay awake inbetween naps jumped very quickly from 2.5hrs to 3 so if after a couple of weeks your lunchtime nap hasn't hit 2hrs you might need to push the lunchtime nap even later towards 12.45/1pm.

HTH.x