Inbetween 1 and 2 naps

[wanderingalbatross]

DD is 16mo, and we have always had a tough time getting her to sleep. But, there has been a massive improvement since she turned 1. Now, she typically has 2 naps a day, each 1-1.5 hours. Until now, her routine has been something like:

7am wake
9:30-11 nap
2-3:30 nap
8pm asleep in bed

Now, however, she is starting to be able to stay awake longer between naps. So, her morning nap is being pushed back to past 10am, and the knock on effect on her afternoon nap means its getting later and later. Today she didn't fall asleep till gone 3, and is only just falling asleep now at 9.

If I keep her up in the morning she'll get grouchy and won't eat lunch. I'm not sure if she's really quite ready for 1 nap, as she really doesn't cope well with tiredness. But 2 naps now seems too much!

Any advice?

Sounds like she's a great sleeper
We're going through the 2 naps to 1 transition with 13mo DS and are now limiting his morning nap to 20-30mins and make sure we wake him up from it at about 10am. This means we can get him back down in the afternoon at about 1.30/2 and he's awake by 3/3.30.
Did similar with DD until she was finally able to drop it by 18months.
Alternative is to drop it now and bring lunch forward to 11.30 and nap at 12.

Was going to suggest cutting short her morning nap. Then, when you think she'll last til an eary lunch (11-11.30?) Try to cut to one after lunch.

The transistion for dd didn't last long. A week or 2 maybe. Don't remember ds but assume that means it wasn't too bad.

Don't be rigid with mealtimes while it's happening. It doesn't matter if lunch is a big snack at 11 and her snack after her nap is almost a second lunch. I over thought it all and got very anxious. It's not worth it. They come through it. Good luck x

Wow lucky you! Good sleeping :)

12 month DS just dropped second nap though we are not quite settled into new routine. Typical appears to be awake at 6.30, nap from around 11-1pm then up for lunch. We'll bring lunch forward to before nap once he can make it to 11.30 but at present he's too tired to eat.

Afternoon stretch seems easier for him despite it being a long time till bed at 7-7.30 (start bath routine at around 6.15).

Key timing for us is to prevent him being asleep after 3pm - or he's up late & tired next day.

Thanks for your replies, it's funny to hear DD's sleep described as good!! For so long she was awful and now we have to adjust our thinking :)

I am going to keep an eye on her for a week or so more, and see whether this is a blip or not before thinking what to do. I'm probably going to go with shortening the first nap because she is not happy when tired, and I don't think she'll last all the way till 11/11:30am without a meltdown. But it's really useful to hear how others have managed the transition - I hadn't thought about it much and her other nap transitions (she used to have 4) were easy as she just dropped a nap and started sleeping longer for another.

Transitions in naps are always tricky but this is your last one so hang in there!

I think you can go either way - cut the morning nap short and then bring the afternoon nap forward until she can drop the morning nap completely. Or keep pushing back the morning nap later and later so it eventually becomes the main post lunch nap and then cut short the afternoon nap.

It all depends on what suits you better in terms of whether she is better being awake for a long period in the morning or afternoon and when you tend to do activities.

The other thing you can do is bring her bedtime forward. So she might do something like:

Wake 7.30
Nap 10 - 11.30
Lunch
Cat nap 2-2.30
Bed 7.00

Or if she is too tired to go that big stretch til bedtime then make the gap between naps bigger or let her nap a bit longer.

She will probably quite quickly go to doing a 2 hour post lunch nap and then it's great as you have the whole morning and afternoon free to do things and a big chunk of time to yourself each lunchtime!

Good luck.

Today didn't work out so well! Tried to get DD to sleep earlier in the morning, so I could fit 2 naps in more easily. She resisted and finally fell asleep at 11 for an hour. Then, we went out in the afternoon, and she fell asleep in the buggy for 1.5 hours, only waking at 4. So bedtime is late again and I spent far too much of the morning trying to get a non-sleepy toddler to sleep!!

Sorry to restart thread again, but only just spotted your last post albatross. How are you getting on? I take it you let DD sleep until she wakes naturally?

If not, I would either:
a. let her sleep longer from 11am - or later if she isn't sleepy - (this might end up being the only nap she has, lasting say 2 hours and getting later and later in the day as she gets older).
or
b. wake her from her afternoon nap so that she is awake from 3.15 latest (or thereabouts. Even a 20 min nap is refreshing for toddlers and it may be all she needs to get through the afternoon till bedtime. Perhaps make bedtime 6ish rather than 7ish for a while if she is struggling.

Just a couple of ideas in case you're still struggling with late bedtimes!

Sorry to gate crash but having difficulty getting my 15mo to 1 nap a day and was wondering how you're getting on albatross ...? I tried 2.5 weeks of just 1 nap a day and had such a miserable little boy, complete with early morning wakings, that I reverted back to 2 naps. Now, however, that doesn't seem right either.

I'm getting quite frustrated with it all. If ds wakes before 6:30am (including those 5 something horrors) he will happily nap at 9:30am for 30 mins (I wake him!) and then again at 1 pm for an hour and a half. He will then go to bed at 7pm.

If he wakes later (1 nap days) I can pull him out until 12noon where he'll nap for about 1-1.5 hours and wakes himself. Then, despite it being a longer amount of time until his 7pm bedtime from the days where he has 2 naps, he refuses to go to sleep until at least 7:30-8:00pm and gets quite hysterical. This also seems to knock his morning wake up to pre 6am.... Later to bed, earlier to rise!!!! Is this self-imposed later bedtime because he's had a longer block until his morning sleep, do you think??

I'm sure I'm over thinking it but it's driving me up the wall and I'm really reluctant to lose those 7pm bedtimes, mainly because it seems directly linked to earlier morning wakings with him. I suppose I'm wondering if I should keep pulling him out until 12 noon on 1 nap days, or try him at 10:30am with a 7pm bedtime. Why is post lunch the advised option? I'm then concerned he'd be so overtired by bedtime we'd get more EMW. AAArrrgghhh! Albatross, please tell me it's working for you!

Hi! Well not that much has changed, we've had some teeth appear though so that's definitely been playing with sleep.

I decided not to rush into anything and just see what happened for a week or so. And I think the answer is that she needs 1.5 naps! She can't easily make it to post-lunch, but with 2 naps we have a later bedtime. I'm loathe to push her to one nap as she has meltdowns and tantrums when overtired. I might try waking her early from a nap, but we spent so long trying to get her to nap properly in the first place that it seems wrong!

Fun isn't it?! DS had MMR 2 days ago and had woken at 8am both mornings afterwards - naps out of the window, sigh.

I reckon they'll settle into something resembling normality soon - but totally agree that a 7pm bedtime should be clung to wherever possible!

Teeth mess it all up in our experience.

And then there are the developmental leaps.