1 year old's naps

[QueenKong]

DS will be one next week and I'm starting to wonder whether it's time to drop his morning nap. This week it has taken me an hour to get him off to sleep both in the morning and the afternoon. He is definitely fighting it, although once he is off he does have good hour long sleeps. I tried dropping it a month ago but come bedtime he was a jittery, overtired, shrieking wreck!

Does one sound too little to drop the morning nap? He has had a horrible cold so not sure if it is that which is causing the difficulties (I feed him to sleep, baaad mummy.)

I should add that in the last couple of weeks (illnesses aside) he has finally started sleeping much better at night - only one quick waking usually. Guess this could mean he is less tired during the day.

Oh god, I've jinxed it now haven't I?!

My DD will be 1 next week too!

She generally only has 1 sleep a day now. It's anything from 1-2 hours. She has only just starting doing this though.
Occasionally I find she might have a quick am nap, but then she needs a longer pm nap (today is an example).
I tend to just leave her to her own sleeping patterns (within reason). She has been sleeping 11.30- 1ish, so by the time 6 o click comes she is ready for bed.
The other day at the childminder she let her sleep till 5pm. I was not best impressed as she hadn't had her tea when I picked her up, & she was wide awake till 8.30.

My advice is go with the flow. See what he wants to do naturally & then work to that. If its taking you an hour to put him to sleep on each occasion, that's a lot of hard work

Yes it is bloody hard work! I might try skipping am nap tomorrow and see what happens.

I think it sounds like he's finding it harder to settle probably because he's undertired. I would recommend a longer lunchtime nap than 1 hour though if that's all he's going to have. You may well find that if he drops the morning sleep, he naturally sleeps longer after lunch. Two hours is pretty standard at this age.

:)

1 year already?! Where did that go. Glad your nights are getting better lady.

just want to add, if you do skip the morning nap, remember he won't last until his usual afternoon naptime & it will need bringing earlier. At that age we found 11/11.30am worked well. He also needed an earlier bedtime temporarily, just until he got used to the 1 nap.

Thanks omama, yeah I couldn't see him lasting until midday. I might aim for 11:30 and give him brunch beforehand.

Well, he was up at 6am today. I just put him down for a nap and it took less than 5 minutes. What a difference! Let's hope he stays asleep for a good couple of hours now.