Experiences of dropping to one nap?

[Highlove]

DD is 13 months. Had been nicely doing two naps of about 1hr15 for the last few months but in recent weeks getting harder to settle, not sleeping for as long and sometimes just not settling at all. So I figured it's time to drop to one nap. Am trying lunch for an early lunch and then in bed for midday-ish. All sounds sensible but she apparently hasn't read the book that says she now needs to sleep for a couple of hours after lunch. Today it was 30 mins then with a bit of perseverance another 30 mins. Do I a) persever and she'll get the idea she now has a nice long nap after lunch or b) revert to two naps as she's not ready to drop one yet? She just seems permanently over-tired. (She usually does 11-11.5 hours overnight, occasionally will need resettling and has been teething recently so waking at night a bit more, but otherwise we do alright overnight.)

Any experts care to tell me what to do next?! TIA.

Sorry, on phone, lots of typos.

Ps. Both naps had been over an hour, so total daily nap time of about 2.5 hours.

Our ds is 16 months and has been up and down with 1 or 2 naps since he was 12 months. It's only in the last month he consistently settles after lunch for 1.5 hours. We just went with it in terms of letting him nap in the morning if he was really grumpy. If we are out in the car or buggy he will still have a quick nap before lunch. Naps are so blooming unpredictable!!

My dd is the same age and has a morning nap 4 dayso out of 7... she refuses morning nap at nursery.
she definitely still needs them with me as she's nodding off by 11!
Could you try every other day offering a morning nap?
My dd refuses morning nap wed, Thurs, Friday and by Saturday she's ready to sleep all day!

DD is now 15 months and has been almost dropping to one nap for 3-4 months. She refuses a morning nap but will drop off in the car if we go out. If we do get one nap at lunch time it is only an hour long, so she goes to bed early on those days to prevent overtiredness and early waking. I am hoping an expert will be along shortly, but wanted to let you know you aren't alone!

DD is 20 months and dropped to one nap under her own steam, she sometimes has 2 shorter naps but averages about 1.5-2 hrs daily normally after lunch, however she has been asleep since 11am this morning, so we could be in for one of her mega 3hr+ naps. I've never made a big deal about naps, apart from she must be awake after 4pm (yes MIL) otherwise she won't go to bed until gone 10pm and that's not good for Mummy!

Thanks all. Still not sure what to do - she seemed tired so today went with two naps - 40 mins this morning and then 35 after lunch so she's still super-tired. Big dark circles under her eyes, poor baby.

DS is 15 months and has one or two naps depending on the day, sleep in (anything after 6.30am) and/or busy morning usually results in 1 nap, early morning and just mooching around at home usually means two naps. Over the last two weeks or so the one-nap days have over taken the two nap days- it's helped him sleep a bit later (he was waking at 5.30) which in turn makes 1 nap more likely.

Could teeth be ruining nap times for your DD? Whenever my DS (who is now 13 months) is going through a teething bout his naps become shorter even though he is clearly still tired. I don't know how you feel about Calpol or Ibuprofen, but when I have strong teething suspicions I give it to DS about 20 min before nap time and he tends to sleep a lot better and longer then.

Hi highlove!

I think we've cracked this now - DS was happily taking his morning nap and would sleep 2 hours before I woke him and then another hour in the afternoon. Those were the glory days!

Soon the afternoon nap was getting so late that it was encroaching on bedtime and he was starting to get up much earlier so I started capping to an hour each nap.

This resulted in a perma-grumpy baby and the early mornings still persisted.

When he started to refuse afternoon naps altogether I decided to 100% commit to transitioning to one nap by planning morning activities every day - play cafes, soft plays and toddler groups galore! If he's busy he'll stay up to lunch time but if he's at home he whines for a nap by 10.

It's taken a week but now I can get through to lunch and he'll sleep the full 2 hours. Afternoons don't seem as hard work as the mornings. I think the lighter evenings help. He's sleeping til 7 again too - hooray!

It's a bit like sleep training - you just need to accept its going to be bloody exhausting for a week or so trying to bed-in the new routine but worth it in the end.

Is she overtired by lunch so struggling to sleep properly? DD is 22mo and on one nap but if she's tired she won't make it to midday - so I try and give her a big breakfast, then a banana at 10.30 then she might sleep 11-2 and have a late lunch.

Thanks so much everyone. I do wonder if she's just really tired by lunch. The 11am nap with late lunch sounds like a good compromise although nursery will struggle with it.

She's definitely teething at the moment so no doubt that isn't helping. Realy fussy about what she'll eat, too. Very little, mostly! I'm tempted to try calpol although at the moment it feels like she's having it every day so tend to only give it at bedtime.

Anyway, thanks for lots of useful advice.

I did find that Nurofen helped better with teething than Calpol as it's an anti inflammatory. Hope it gets better soon!