Napping Tips for 12 month old, pls!!

[glowfrog]

Any tips on how to put a 12mth old down for a nap? At the moment it involves a lot of rocking and singing and it's just not tenable as she's getting very heavy and it's doing my back in!

I'm trying to give her a routine of closing curtains, a cuddle on my lap and a feed but it's not enough...

Doesn't help that she has started to fight nap times (only slept 15mn yesterday but at least she slept 8.5hrs straight in the night!!)....

What are her usual nap times?

Just wonder if she is trying to drop to one nap. This could be why she is fighting it.

D's at 12 months dropped to one nap at 1 pm but he does sleep for 2 hours then now. Before dropping his morning nap he wasn't managing anything near that.

In terms of routine, we go upstairs, read a book and then he goes in his cot. He usually complains for a couple of minutes and then either plays with his teddies or falls asleep.

How does she go down in the evening?

My 11mth old is the same - takes ages to drop off in the morning (usually being rocked in his pram), sleeps for 15-30mins then wakes up and I can kiss goodbye to him having any sleep after lunch. All I'm left with is a very grumpy boy by 4pm who then can't keep awake until bedtime at 7pm. I think he may want to drop a nap so I'm going to try keeping him awake in the morning and bringing forward lunch in the hope that this will work but if anyone has any other advice I'd appreciate the help too.

She used to nap between 10/11am, then again between 2.30/3pm - after her big meals.

I was wondering if she's trying to drop a nap - it's so hard to say because she usually looks pretty tired to me and a few times I have got very very close to getting her to sleep but then she somehow manages to stir and wake herself up!

If she doesn't nap in the am then she ends up dropping off around 1pm - this is what happened today. She did sleep for 90mn - but she was so tired she barely ate any of her lunch! Maybe I need to reorganise myself and do everything earlier - at the moment she wakes up not long after 7am but usually will not have breakfast until 8.30/9am (after mega morning suckle at 5am, mind!). Maybe if she had breakfast earlier she would nap again/more easily mid or late morning?

Trouble with today is that she now hasn't had an afternoon nap and I can see she's knackered but her bedtime is not for a bit.

Am currently doing a similar transition at a similar age. Not entirely smoothly. But if she's too tired to eat lunch - split it in 2. So I give DD a yoghurt and crumpet or something a bit before her nap (ie easy to eat) and then another savoury snack when she wakes up.