11 mo nap refuser - should I start 2-1 nap transition? and how?

[TurtlesMama]

Hi

After months of hellish nighttime sleep, 11 mo dd has finally cracked sleeping thru some/ most nights after couple of weeks of gradual retreat (fingers xd it will last now!),She also settles for morning nap approx 3.5hrs after wakeup. That lasts anything from 1-2.5hrs.

My problem is that it is getting increasingly hard to get her to take any kind of pm nap though, even when she seems tired. Occasionally she will do 20/30m in buggy but only when it is tilted right back. She really fights sleep and messes around if I try to settle her in cot. Since she is often doing 11/12hrs at night now, sometimes with 1 wakeup, I am wondering if the time has come to cut to one nap?

If so, how do I do it?!

Have read elsewhere that if they refuse the pm nap you need to start cutting the morn one. Am really reluctant to do that as she is napping so well in morning and don't want to mess it up! Or do I just need to be brave lol?! My other option I think is just to not worry about the second one and gradually move the first one later, say by 15m every few days til it sits in the middle of the day (she normally goes down at 1045ish currently so I guess 1115/30 would be the aim).

Any help v much appreciated, thank you!!

Bump - any ideas?!

My now-15mo dropped her 2nd nap at a similar age (and I'd been spolied by DD1 who napped twice a day until well over 1yo). I think it's generally recommended that when they drop to one nap a day you should try to shift it to after lunch. What's her naptime routine? I think you've got the right idea with moving it gradually. Try it once or twice anyway and see how it goes

Thanks v much yipee.

Her nap time routine is pretty short, a much quicker version of bedtime. We do nappy, into sleeping bag, picture book, then into cot with teddies and she is normally asleep in 10-15min (with me in the room). Its getting harder to shift it though as now her dad is back at work after the hols, the noise is waking her an hour earlier than her normal wakeup time so nap is coming forward not back. Arrggh. Will have to keep persevering and do early bedtime for a while I guess.

Anyone else had luck with dropping pm nap and gradually shifting morn one? How did you avoid them getting crazy overtired in morn?!

Thanks!

I am in the exact same position except with twins! Suddenly sleeping better at night and resisting naps (DTS more than DTD)

I am trying to power through this morning by being really interesting and give them a v early lunch at 11.15 then down for a nap by 12pm. they probably won't eat much lunch ( they are used to lunch at 12.00-12.15 or so) so will have to feed them the other half/give a big snack after their nap.

Fingers crossed! I need at least one full solid hour without rampaging babies or else I go nutty.

I was in the same position at a similar age. Here's what we did:

Dropped the afternoon nap (most days) and slowly shifted back the morning nap.

At first this would mean morning nap at 11, wake up at 1-2, then lunch. Then sometimes also an afternoon nap at 3:30 or so, depending on when and how long the morning nap had been.

This obviously isn't ideal, as it means you can't really do much in the afternoon, but he was too tired to wait longer for the first nap.

Now at 15 months he can generally hold out til 12:30 or so for his nap which means lunch can be before his nap.

Thank you both, this is really helpful. Sounds like we are doing something similar, I have pretty much complete dropped the pm one now unless she has a rubbish morning one and needs 30min in buggy. Not officially started moving the morning one back yet but we were out this morn so it ended up with starting to settle at 1140 rather than 1030 so we will see what effect that has. So far she is really resisting settling, I think she has got a second wind from somewhere!!

Free - yes, know what you mean about food, its hard!! I have found that she sleeps much longer if she has just eaten, so I am doing a largeish snack just before I do nappy and that seems to be taking her thru ok. Then a late lunch (with the advantage I can eat mine while she is asleep!!) V impressed at you juggling all this with twins! It must be v hard.

The thing that's going to be hard here i think is figuring out when on earth we can do anything outside the house! But I guess once she settles into a steady routine that will be easier.

habitual any tips on how you managed that? Were you really strict on nap time or did you flex it a bit so you could get out?

Thanks v much!! Is good to know other people are solving this without capping the morn nap as I really didn't want to do that!!

I personally think the morning nap is far too long. I would make it no longer than 45 minutes then the afternoon nap should be around 2 hours. If that doesn't work then try making morning nap between 20-30 minutes.

My twins dropped their morning nap at 14 months. They started cutting back on their afternoon nap so I reduced the morning nap to just 15 minutes, eventually even with such a short nap they would wake after just on hour in the afternoon so I had to part with the morning nap.

We have lunch at 11:15/11:30 and nap from 12pm-2:30. Bedtime is 6:30pm.

I have used this technique with 8 children and it works well (ex childminder).

They have been great actually. Ate lunch pretty well at 11.20 (I think this week is one for easy favourites so did tomato soup with bread dippers and blueberries). They were a little glassy eyed by the end but went down fairly easily and asleep by 12. DTS woke after an hour and had to be resettled but DTD had 1hr40 and DTS 2hr10 in the end (had to wake him eventually as had to go out)

Fingers crossed for a good nights sleep tonight and a repeat tomorrow.

I think it will eventual make afternoons easier as at the moment they are not up til 3 which doesn't give too much time if I have to be back for dinner at 5!

How was your day?

Sorry TurtlesMama, forgot to come back! How is it going - are you having nap success?

We've never been particularly strict with timings of naps (though I should qualify that actually I'm back at work and my DH is at home, so I should be asking him to reply to this). Tend to follow cues and offer a nap if the kid looks like he needs one.

I think for a good few months it was actually really hard to do anything outside of the house in the afternoon. They'd go out in the morning and then potter around in the afternoon.