Signs my 12mo is ready to move to 1 nap?

[janethommo]

Hi Ladies

My DD is just over a year and over recent months we've nailed her routine to a morning nap around 9am-9:30am ish (depending on when she wakes) and then after lunch, normally 1pm-1:30pm.

Previously she slept 30-45mins in the morning and 1-2 hours in the afternoon (afternoon one has gradually got longer as she's got used to it and now more tired from cruising).

Over the last week or so we've had a couple of days where she has refused her pm nap - and at the same time her morning nap has crept a bit later and has been longer (1-1.5 hours). She has also got more tired in the evening so we've been putting her to bed between 6-6:30pm rather than 7pm. Admittedly she has been with my parents more as I'm back at work but they follow the same routine and previously she has followed this no probs with them.

Today she also refused her morning nap so we're going to push her to lunchtime (maybe feed her earlier and put her down for her pm nap earlier and hope she'll be very tired and have a long sleep). Does this sound right? Would this long nap mean she'd want to go to bed around 7pm again?

Any advice would be welcome, what have you experienced?

Thanks
Jane

I'm going through the same thing here, what I have found is that my DS is much happier just having a small snack before a long nap starting at about 1130/12, then lunch when he wakes up, otherwise he's too tired to eat a good lunch.

It is a bit hit and miss though, if the nap is a bit early or too short I end up putting him to bed early, Im just trying to go with the flow and let him sleep when he needs it until it's ironed out.

watching with interest as my little 10m sleep-refuser has started behaving EXACTLY the same!

Thanks curlykate - a good tip. My little girl has gone back to two naps so assume it was a blip. I did read somewhere that the transition can take a long time with some days needing only 1 nap and other days needing 2.

Hope others have some advice too!

Same boat and so watching with interest. I have one of those dreadful early wakers (4:50am anyone ?) which makes it nigh on impossible to just do one nap.

On good days though (i.e 6am) he's cool with just one.

He's 13 mo and I cannot see it sorting for a while...

LittleMilla Dunno if this might help at all... my DD is (thank god) not a regular early morning waker, but she does have the odd 5am ish day. When she does, we wait 1 min to see if she'll go back to sleep herself (rare, but has happened once or twice) then DH or I go in and cuddle and loudly shhh, keeping her firmly in a horizontal position. No chatting, no nappy changing, no feeding. We do this because

1. she is not a brilliant self settler, so at that time of the morning, we reckon she has minimal chance of managing it.
2. she is an excellent eater and
3. It is the bloody night!

Generally she seems to get the message this way. She usually goes back to sleep until at least half 6 this way, but mercifully she normally sleeps till half 6 or 7 without early morning wake ups. Do you think any of this might be possible for you?

A minute, he's left for longer than that with little result, sadly . I've got the Ferber book today and I think we're going to start being even tougher. I do believe we cave in and let him get up too quickly now, but I'm broken after so many attempts to resettle etc.

Argh, sorry to whinge and thanks for suggestions. We're sort of hoping that one nap will be the 'magic bullet' x

Ooh well let us know how it goes. I'm sort of clutching onto the hope that when we move to 1 nap it will be the end of all our sleep woes too, fingers crossed for you!

Skim read book and I think that we have a number of problems:

1. He's often given his milk whenever he wakes - be it 6am or 5am
2. His room isn't dark enough
3. We go in too soon (Ferber suggestions leaving for 15 mins and then 30 . Guessing that's for people without neighbours or a fully functioning hearing)

We need to break all associations with getting up early.

And is all fails, we have to consol ourself that DS doesn't need 11/12 hours a night. Which I already know is bollox because of his need to sleep for up to 3 hours in a day when he's woken reeeeeeeeeeeeally early.