when does your 12mo nap?

[SleepForTheWeak]

DD has just turned one, her sleeping was an absolute nightmare but we have recently worked with a sleep consultant and she's now sleeping through the night which is a miracle!

As part of our plan, we had set nap times for DD which were designed around her own natural napping times. She would generally get up around 6 then have a nap at 9/9.30 for 45-60mins then at 2 for 1-1.5 hours and bed at 7. She was great at going down for naps (after working with the sleep consultant) but it's all changed now and I'm wondering if we need to re think nap times. She's now sleeping 11-12 hours a night, so maybe we need to adjust our schedule or go down to one nap? She seems tired come 9/10 o'clock and really grumpy, but she will NOT go to sleep, she screams and screams and eventually I give up and try again later. Today her first nap was 12.30 and only lasted 30mins, with a 30min nap later in the pram, and the day before her first nap was 2.15 for 30mins and that was it!!

Any suggestions??

My ds is 14months but has been doing same routine for months.

Wakes around 6.30
1st nap around 8-8.30 til 9.30.
2nd nap after lunch around 1 til 2-2.30.
Bedtime 6.30

I believe for this age it should be 2,3,4 sleep routine. So first nap is 2hours after waking. Then next nap should be 3 hours after they woke from 1st nap. Then bedtime should be 4 hours after waking from last nap. So ds follows this.

However I only have one dc so wether or not that suits all dc I don't know.

And she might be refusing her nap because she's overtired. So I'd try her 2hours after waking up.
It could be she's ready to drop down to one, so you could try that for a few days and see. I did that a month or so ago but it didn't work, so we went back to two.

Thanks for your reply. She wouldn't be ready for a nap 2 hours after waking, we usually aim for 3 hours but I'm thinking she isn't quite ready for it. Or it might just be that she's refusing the cot during the day for some reason??

At 12mo my DS was napping 9.30 until 11 and 2 until 3.30, so roughly what your little one is doing. We also used to aim for 3hrs awake time. It didn't stay like that for long though and by the time he was 13.5mo he had dropped to one nap.

May I ask which sleep consultant you used?

I didn't see she sleeps through the night!
Mine doesn't!
I that case I'm obviously not the best person to actually help, but hopefully you can give me some tips on the night waking! Haha

We used Ann Caird - she was amazing!! Actually thinking about getting another consultation about her about the current situation but it's not cheap so want to try figure it out for myself first...

My 12 month old has had the same nap pattern for a few months now: 2 generous naps of around 90 minutes at 9ish and 2ish. He only naps in his cot, so we can't easily go to any morning or afternoon groups or activities (!) but he seems happy enough.

He's at nursery 2 days a week. On those days he only has one nap, after lunch, as nursery is way more exciting than home. That nap is sometimes as little as half an hour or as much as two.

I'm not sure what to suggest if you think she needs more naps than she's getting. If the buggy or car will lull her to sleep can you try tricking her into napping at the right time for a few days and see if you can get her into the habit again?

Thanks for your reply - in going to try wait till 11/11.30 for a nap today, if that doesn't work and she still refuses the cot then I might get her to sleep in the pram etc at the right time then transfer her to the cot.

We woke at 12 last night and I couldn't get her to sleep without feeding for the first time in about 4 weeks. There's maybe somethings else going on - she's cutting her top molars just now which might be contributing to it but she wasn't as bad with her bottom two

Could I ask how much Ann Caird is? What sort of thing does she do? I have an 18mo going through extreme separation anxiety at the moment, which is causing 5 wakings a night (he was never a good sleeper but was improving until now). Sorry to hijack your post!

Hi Queen - it depends what package you go for. We went for the 6 week one and it cost us £360. Worth every penny (despite a wee hiccup just now!). If today's naps are the same as yesterday I'm going to get back in touch - she's so helpful and patient.

I really doubt I can keep this girl awake until 11 - she's rubbing her eyes and yawning already and it's only 8.30!!

Hi, my 13 month old has been taking only one nap since about 11 months. Before that he used to catnap for a couple of half hours a day, an hour in total.
Now our sleep schedule looks like this:
Wake up 6.30-7
Nap 12 noon ish for anywhere between 45 mins and 1.5 hours!
Bed 7pm

They're all different and sent to test us hehe!xx

My DD is 15mo but has been pretty steady nap wise the past few months.
Awake 6.30-7 ish
Nap 10.30 ish for 45mins
Nap 2.30/3 for 45mins
Bed around 7.30

Sometimes morning or afternoon nap can be up to 1.5hrs and she naps in her pram if that makes any difference. She will go down later if we've been out at normal nap time.

She has generally been a great sleeper, although the past 3 nights has been up in the night or very early morning. I think it's probably an external factor like teething etc, but I could be wrong.

I wouldn't be keen to put her down much earlier for her morning nap, I just have it in my head this will encourage earlier waking!

Thank you everyone for your responses. I'm really not sure what to do today - I managed to keep her awake till 10.30 yesterday and she went down for a nap in the cot without a complaint but woke after 40minutes.

By 3pm she was shattered so I tried putting her down for another nap but all hell broke loose! After 20minutes of her absolutely howling I got her out, put her in the pram and went a stroll. She fell asleep within 5 minutes but woke after 30 despite the motion.

She woke up twice last night, at 2.20 and 3.45 - each time it took 30 minutes to get her back to sleep (DH resettled just with vocal reassurance - she goes mad if I go in and don't feed her!). She woke for the day at 6.45am.

It's so frustrating as she had been sleeping consistently during the night and naps were an issue of the past . She's cutting her top molars and she's got an irritating rash under her chin which could be contributing to he night wakes - but doesn't explain the naps?

Not sure whether to just try put her down at normal nap time today - she's really sleepy

Thank you everyone for your responses. I'm really not sure what to do today - I managed to keep her awake till 10.30 yesterday and she went down for a nap in the cot without a complaint but woke after 40minutes.

By 3pm she was shattered so I tried putting her down for another nap but all hell broke loose! After 20minutes of her absolutely howling I got her out, put her in the pram and went a stroll. She fell asleep within 5 minutes but woke after 30 despite the motion.

She woke up twice last night, at 2.20 and 3.45 - each time it took 30 minutes to get her back to sleep (DH resettled just with vocal reassurance - she goes mad if I go in and don't feed her!). She woke for the day at 6.45am.

It's so frustrating as she had been sleeping consistently during the night and naps were an issue of the past . She's cutting her top molars and she's got an irritating rash under her chin which could be contributing to he night wakes - but doesn't explain the naps?

Not sure whether to just try put her down at normal nap time today - she's really sleepy

Baby sleep isn't linear, in fact you will have many up and downs over the next few years. Sleep doesn't settle into predicative patterns until around 3yrs so just because you had 'cracked' it for now, anything can disrupt it again, especially teething! So don't feel bad about that.

I think she is edging towards one nap a day, my DS messed around with naps big time from 12 to 13.5mo when he eventually stuck with one. This one nap was taken at 10.30am no matter what time he woke and for the first 6 weeks I was lucky if he slept for an hour but quite often I could get him to go back over by patting his bum. After 6 weeks he extended them naturally to 2hrs long and now at 18mo he naods 11.30 until 1.30 and bed at 7pm. While he was just taking one short nap he was in bed no later than 6.30pm, quite often earlier.

Thanks. She is so absolutely tired at the moment - and I don't want to keep her up knowing she'll only sleep for. 30 minutes and then it's a fight for her second nap.... But on the other hand I don't have the energy to deal with a nap time shouting match this early!!

Personally I think you are going the wrong way. She sounds over tired so I wouldn't be trying to keep an over tired baby awake. I'd be getting her to sleep and trying to keep her asleep.

My DD (13 months) bucks the usual trend of working towards one lunchtime nap. She favours her morning nap and if I left her she would have her biggest sleep in the morning, easily 2 or 4 hours.

A big morning sleep would mean that her afternoon nap would be more like 4pm - which wouldn't work on many levels: Over tired afternoons, not tired at bedtime, not convenient for dinner or the rest of the family.

So, rather than keeping her awake to try and skip the morning nap, I just cut it shorter. I wake her at 10.30. This has massively routine her days, since she now sleeps to the clock and the routine means she is always ready to sleep at the same time every day.

Her routine does not look like it is going to change anytime soon and is as follows:

6.30am wake
9.00am nap
10.30am I wake her (she'd sleep for at least another hour if left)
1.00pm nap
3.00pm I wake her because we have to do the school run
7.30pm bedtime

My dd is 13 months.

She has been having 1 nap a day for a while and as pp said it goes between 45 mins to 2 hours.

We actually vary the time depending on what she feels like but it's any time between 10 and 2. The earlier her nap time the earlier her bed time so she goes to bed between 6 and 9. She always sleeps through and always wakes at 7:30.

As a nanny by this age most the children are transitioning to 1 nap. So I try and push them to get to 11 when we have an early lunch the nap for 2 hours after lunch, slowly pushing nap back 10 minutes or so every other day so they are soon sleeping 12-2 which can be extended to 1-3 if preferred.

Thanks everyone - I actually don't think the issue is transitioning to one nap as previously thought, her dad has just come back from a 2 week long work trip and put her down for her nap this morning at. 9.30 and she went down fine! We woke her at 10.45 then I tried to put her down for a nap in the afternoon and all hell broke loose again so I put her in the pram and let her nap there.

So, it's an issue with me as he was also able to settle her during the night which I wasn't, and slept through last night.

It's strange as she was napping fine for me before this week