Dropping to one nap advice

[LackingCommonSense]

Hi All

I'm not quite sure what to do for the best about 15mo DS's naps..

Since he was around 8mo he went down like clockwork at 9 and 2 for an hour, hour and half however for the past month or so he's transitioning to 1 nap.

These days he doesn't seem tired at 9 yet if I put him down he sleeps! If it's one of his more awake days we put him down closer to 930. We then started waking him at around 1015 because he started fighting his afternoon nap. I don't particularly like waking him to be honest. I'd prefer to let him sleep as much as he likes.

At nursery he quite often will only have one nap, but then he's completely overtired come bedtime and we have meltdowns.

It seems to me that he's quite happy with just a morning nap as he fights the afternoon nap most days.. I wonder how long he'd sleep in the morning if we left him. Does anyone elses LO function on just one long morning nap? I'm nervous to just leave him sleep in case he wakes up too early, won't sleep in the afternoon and then goes too long before bedtime.

Any advice gratefully received!

No advice, but watching with interest as my ds also is showing some signs of dropping to 1 nap. He's only 10 months which is early to drop to one I know, but he's started fighting both naps and then only having short ones when he does go down. Neither are satisfying and he ends up overtired so I've been wondering about pushing him to stay awake longer in the morning in the hope that he'll have a properly restful couple of hours late morn/early afternoon. He's also at the stage that he can stay awake for much longer periods of time without having a meltdown. Not sure what to do for the best though given his young age. It's a tricky one!

Think the trick is to get the one nap in around lunchtime or just after.

Our DS started doing this at nursery first then we followed at home. It's tricky for first couple weeks because they are so used to morning nap. It does work though.

Once we made change he would settle for his nap really easily and settled faster and bedtime too.

Think the trick is up be busy in morning, get out about and stretch it as long as possible before nap. It can knock lunch for first couple weeks but they do adjust.

Whenever he's only had one nap at nursery he's only slept for an hour which doesn't seem long enough - do you find your LO settles for longer now?

Yup, both of mine got to nearly 3 with a lovely 2 hour nap each day from 1-3pm! You just have to be consistent and maybe put him down at 12:15/12:30 every day.

With us he'll sleep 90 min to 2hrs or more. Nursery is at least an hour, sometimes 2. Think some days he gets woken up by noises and doesn't do as long as he would at home - can't really be helped.

By 8 months DC was having 30 minutes max [woken up by us] at 9am and then 2 hours from 12.30 [again woken at 2hours] which was advised by sleep consultant. Now at 11 months it looks like DC has chosen to drop the morning nap. So we are doing an early lunch at 11.30 and then into bed for 11.45/12. Yes there are/will be days when DC will be ratty due to lack of morning nap, but they'll soon get used to it - hoping to keep 2 naps until age 1 but will see how the next week goes.

Apparently signs they are ready to drop a nap are

Your child consistently does not sleep well for both naps

Your child takes one nap well and totally resists the other nap

Your child can go for car rides during the morning without falling asleep

Your child cries or fusses for at least 30 minutes when you try to put him down, then falls asleep but only takes a short nap

He/she begins sleeping later in the morning

Your child can remain happy and energetic until bedtime when he/she skips a nap

We are having similar issues here with 12 mo ds. used to like a sleep from 930 for 1/12 - 2 hours and then back down at 230 for an hour then bed at 7. but lately he will still have his morning nap, but wither resist the afternoon one entirely or not want to go to bed at 7. I've been trying to drop to one nap at 12 this last week, but he can end up very tired by lunch and not eat anything. then only napping for 45 mins/an hour and waking up tired. not sure what the right thing to do is! like you op, he can have 2 hours in the morning and seem to cope well all day after that, but it seems a long time for him to be up until bedtime!

It's so frustrating! again, he's fine at the moment. doesn't seem tired at all but we're going to our group this morning and I bet he falls asleep on the way!

Ds just had ridiculous 30 min nap and has woken up tired and ratty. Like me! He was showing signs of being tired so I thought I was doing the right thing by letting him sleep, he's been up for 3 hours, and you're always told not to let them get overtired. But I think I'm going to have to at least give one nap days a whirl. Things can't continue as they are, the days are horrendously long and I know ds just isn't getting enough sleep. It's so frustrating that he just won't flipping sleep even though he's knackered. He's wakeful in the early hours too so don't know if it's all connected.

I thought I'd try and keep him awake til after lunch today but he fell asleep en route to group anyway! He only had about 15-20mins then still fought his nap this afternoon. He's been asleep about an hour and 15 now and I should probably wake him tbh!

DH doesn't think he's ready but I do.. trouble is I'm in work 4 days so can't be consistent with it and I don't trust anyone else to do it reliably!

Still no luck with naps! 2x35 mins yesterday which was disaster, so decided to try just one nap today. Did early lunch and put him down when he was sleepy, got off to sleep brilliantly but awake 45 mins later! So probably not able to have another one today and that's not enough to last him until bedtime without tears I don't think. I'm obviously missing a trick here but have no idea what to do! Two naps don't work, neither does one. Help!

When we tried to transition to 1 nap too early DD ended up taking shorter and shorter naps each day cos she was overtired. Took me about a week to figure out that's what was going on
We switched back to 2 naps on days she was at home and she had 1-nap days when she was with the childminder

Another option is to let him sleep as long as he wants in morning but push that nap back 20ish mins each day.

But, to me, sounds like he's not ready for complete transition to 1 nap.

We had this with DS when he was around 16 months old. Over a period of approx 2 weeks, I slowly pushed his morning nap by half hour each day & made sure he had some "quiet" time in the afternoon (watching tv, reading books). So 9am, then next day 9.30am & at the end he was down for 2 hours in the afternoon. I adjusted his bedtime for a few weeks so he was in bed a little earlier at first, just so he wasn't getting too tired.

HTH

Thanks city dweller and loopyla. I think you're right that he's not ready and your approach of pushing morning one back sounds right. I've also made a deal with myself to try not to sweat the whole nap thing too much and hope that he takes the sleep he needs when he needs it. That's the plan, anyway! I've always tried to be on the ball in terms of getting him to nap but despite my best efforts at the moment it's not helping so I'm hoping a more relaxed approach might benefit us both.

I don't get how that'll work though? At the beginning he'll be sleeping at say 10, what if he then only has an hr, hr and half.. then we have to get from half 11 to bedtime because he sure as hell won't have another nap after waking that time? I don't want to put him to bed TOO early?

Last 3 mornings he's woken up much earlier than usual (usually wakes half 6,7 and it's been half 5,6)..not sure if it's connected?