What to do when one nap not enough but two is too many?

[Needsweetstosurvive]

Just that really! DS is 1 yo next week. He has a nap in the morning that lasts 1.5hrs, time changes depending on what time he wakes for the day but usually ends by 11.30am. He then won't go down for PM nap until 3ish, which can be 40 mins or an hour long so makes bedtime at 8pm. Now this is OK for now but DS1 is back at school on Monday and he needs picking up at 3pm, right when DS2 will want a nap. I really don't want bedtime any later but don't think I could push the awake times needed for one nap. Any ideas? I guess I will have to muddle along each day until he can accept one nap.

Bring bedtime forward to at least 7pm.

But when would his nap be? He used to be asleep by 7pm but as he has got older and awake time has increased it's got later.

At about 12 months we dropped to one nap straight after lunch (1ish) then bed at 7pm. There was a crappy transition period for a week or so then she got used to it. She used to have 2 x 40 min naps now has 1 of an hour and a half.

There's usually a transition tome for this change, but it will settle down into routine with one nap.

I have always worked on pushing the morning nap later and later until the morning naps changes into the lunchtime nap. This naturally drops the second nap of the day as the main nap gets later.

So try keeping him awake until 10am in the morning. Then until 10.30am, then the morning now lunchtime nap often settles around 11am to 1 or 2pm for a while. This means an early lunch. Gradually you move lunch later and so lunchtime nap later until it eventually settles around 12.30pm to 2.00pm - which also works with school pick up.

It will take some time to make this change though and may involve some temporary movement in bedtime and some occasional second powernaps some days. But will eventually settle.

Try doing lunch early and putting him down at 12ish?

Can't he sleep in the pram or car on the way?

As with Fate.

The gradual approach didn't work for us, as soon as the morning nap got later than 10am she refused an afternoon one, which meant she was then awake from 10.40am until bedtime at 7 and the late afternoon/evening was horrific!

He doesn't relax enough in pram/car, it's his favourite time to sing! FATE, that's kind of along the lines of what I was thinking. How long roughly do you think it should take to push the morning nap later? I guess it has to be gradual.

YouMakeMyHeartSmile, it wouldn't be that bad as he has his long nap in the morning so the worst would be awake from 11.30 until bedtime!

Might try waking early from the morning nap and also limit length of pm nap.

I've recently gone through this with DS who is 13 months.

I pushed morning nap later gradually and capped it to an hour or just over. So instead of sleeping 10-12 he slept 11-12 then would still take a short afternoon nap.

Eventually he started refusing afternoon nap so I decided to plan morning activities every day for a week (play cafes, soft play, toddler groups, trips to the park etc) as when he's busy he doesn't notice he's tired as much!

Eventually I got him used to staying up all morning and having lunch (sometimes brought this early as needed) and then he sleeps for 2 sometimes 2.5 hours. Bedtime earlier as needed. His usual bedtime is 8 but he's been as early as 7 and still slept to his usual 7am.

This is all probably a lot easier when you don't have other DC to look after so good luck!