Transition from two naps to one

[CarrotPuff]

All websites seem to suggest to just push the morning nap later and later until it's where I want it to be and he'll magically sleep for 2 hours.

The thing is, my DS has no issues staying awake till noon, especially if we're out and about. The issue is the nap itself - he drops off quite quickly but only sleeps for 45 mins! I have once managed to get him back to sleep twice and he slept for 2.5 hours in total. But now he wouldn't go back to sleep and is an overtired mess by bedtime.

What do I do? Do I just perservere and eventually he'll sleep longer? How long will this last? Should I try and get him to nap later in the afternoon again (it doesn't always work) or just keep it as one nap and do earlier bedtime?

Any tips/experiences?

TIA

Sorry, no advice but am going through this myself right now. I have a ds refusing an afternoon nap atm because he had a morning nap. But if I'd pushed him to stay awake this morning then he would have been overtired and then not slept very long. And then have been tired all afternoon.

I think the idea is to gradually push back the morn naps to avoid over tiredness for the one big nap but my worry about that is as that gradually happens, an afternoon nap will become impossible and you'll be left with a baby awake for hours...

Am finding it all a bit tricky.

We went through this with our DS at 12/13 months. We moved his lunch time to 11.30 and his nap time to 12, then eventually 12.30. His naps some days were only half hour/45mins but these steadily grew longer until he would usually average an hour and a half.
He's now 19 months and has decided sleep is for wimps and no longer wants to nap at all!!

My DS is beginning to show signs of the same at only 9 months... first nap today was 12.10 - 12.45, and the second one... didn't happen! He almost always wakes up after 30-40 min in any nap. Finally crashed out for bed at 6.30 this evening...

...and woke up at 7 and I've had to resettle him on what will be the first of 6-10 wake ups tonight. He wakes up within the hour though almost no matter what time we put him to bed, doesn't seem to matter how tired he is! I'll be amazed if he ever develops the long afternoon nap that most babies seem to have.

I am also starting to see the first signs of transition with my 10m old.

He goes down for a long nap in the morning usually just after 10 having got up at 7. Sometimes he will sleep for 2 hours until lunch time and then not get tired again until 4 or 4:30 which is too late for a sleep really.

Hello again Fratercula. My DD went through a phase of refusing morning naps, perhaps a little older than 9 months. Now at 13 months she still def needs two naps a day and it's a bit easier. She's also one that wont't nap for more than 45 minutes, so you may find he goes back to two, although doesn't help much with nights I know.

OP, how old is your DS? If he's under one I'd probably keep offering morning nap as he may come back to wanting it.

He's coming up to 14m now. He's been doing ok with one nap lately, but only sleeps for about an hour. Which makes him quite tired by the evening but not meltdown tired. Oh and he started sleeping 8-8 which is a bliss (he never done 12h before)

In that case I wouldn't worry too much! Tiredness is probably just adjusting so the new routine....remover evenings being grumpy when we dropped from three to two.

Oh I hate this. He's been doing well but then would go back to only sleeping half an hour and still fighting second nap. Just spent almost an hour trying to get him to sleep.

If he doesn't have it he goes into meltdown at bedtime. If he does, doesn't fall asleep for ages at bedtime (which is not too bad, I leave the room and he just babbles/shouts away) and normally wakes up early the next day. You just can't win

Can you force a longer nap by pram/car for a few days to get him used to it? Btw, my ds has started sleeping for just 45mins for his afternoon nap having previously done two hours. He is just 7mo and manages to last til 7pm so I wouldn't worry too much! X

He never sleeps longer than 40 mins in car or pram, so no.

I'm just trying to go with the flow. It seems like early wakings are unrelated to naps, but more like a phase... Maybe teeth, who knows