when do you drop day time naps?

[Evita]

Hi, my daughter's 14 months now and sleeps an 11 hour night (occasionally 10 and a half), then from 10.30-11.45ish and again from 3-4.15. I know at some point she will go to one nap a day but I don't know how to tell when this is, and how to go about doing it, i.e. fitting it around meal times etc. Any advice much appreciated. She's my first.

It varies a lot from child to child, but generally speaking children need a daytime nap until at least 2yo. When it's time to drop a nap I have found that it's better to try to adjust the schedule so that the one big nap is after lunch. Not every one will agree, obviously. IME just the one nap in the morning lead to a ratty exhausted ds who struggled to settle in the evening, and if he had a late nap and was woken for his supper then his nap went into night-time mode and he was very difficult to rouse and again would be very ratty in the evening.

You'll know that your dd is ready to drop a nap when she happily plays past the time she would normally be getting tired. If you've been very careful to put her down in her cot at the right times for her naps, why not try skipping a morning nap, or better still getting her up after 3/4 hour, and seeing how she goes. No need to rush. My 3yo ds still has a 1.5-2hr nap almost every afternoon. IMO if I come into his room and he's still asleep, then clearly he still needs the nap - dh disagrees! I can remember having afternoon naps at school, so I must have been about 4 or 5. I'm inclined to let my children have daytime naps for as long as they want. The hardest point, I found, was the changeover from 2naps to 1, as it took ds about 4m to really outgrow the morning nap.

Ds is 15 months and has dropped his morning nap this week. He sleeps after lunch for 1-2 hours.

I figured he was ready to drop the morning nap when a) he just didn't seem as tired at 9:30/10am as he usually did and b) he would really object to being left in his cot. Previous to things changing, he would drop off immediately and, if left, would sleep for a couple of hours. That time shortened and shortened over a few weeks until a fortnight ago when he woke up after only 20 mins.

At the moment, he now seems to be overtired by lunchtime and so still isn't napping for as long as I think he needs. He's really grumpy if he wakes up having had less than an hour. But he will not sleep in the morning anymore, so I think I'll just have to wait a while until he adjusts to this routine.

Having said all that, after a Christmas party this morning, he didn't get to bed till 2pm and he's still asleep now! He sleeps 13 hours at night, btw.

wow, a 13 hour night, lucky you!! ok, so i'll just keep my eyes open to see if she seems less tired at her normal nap time. so far she seems to need it still and sleeps without waking for at least an hour. i have a feeling that if i cut it just yet she'd be too tired to eat her lunch! when she gets tired she just slumps in the high chair.

Luck you, when my 1yo gets too tired, she flings food around.