11 month old napping once a day!

[cooperbug]

My just turned 11 month old DS seems to have transitioned to taking just one nap per day. This is in the morning about 10:30am for approx 1 hour, sometimes a bit more.

I can't get him to go down again in the afternoon for a nap then as a result he's overtired by 4pm. If I then let him nap at 4pm (his teatime) it effects him going to bed at night as it then seems he's not tired enough and won't settle until later.

At present he goes to bed for 6:45-7pm and sleeps until 6:30am sometimes waking once in night for dummy so I can't really complain there!

Any ideas?

Ride it through until the single lunchtime nap is fully established. This transition may take a while.

With 12 hours sleep at night, I don't think 1 hour is long enough really - I'd be expecting 2 to 3 hours for a single nap. If your DS is having only 1h I would question if he's ready for 1 nap yet and encourage two 1 hour naps - say 10am and 2pm.

Personally I'd put him down at 9/9:30 for a shortish nap (30-45 mins) then again at 1/1:30pm for a hopefully longer nap.

All my 3 gave up all daytime naps by a year old.

Could you maybe try a later bedtime with a later waking if you can. Theoretically that might make him put off his nap to lunchtime although they really are a law unto themselves.

Fwiw dd had stopped naps completely by then and was still a nightmare throughout the night until 18months or so. Some kids don't seem to need to sleep as much.

I would schedule busy activities in the morning e.g groups/soft play to distract him from tiredness and encourage a longer nap after lunch about 12ish (early lunch at 11:30).

Practically to get this to work we often took packed lunch to eat in the pushchair straight after the activity and then napped in the pushchair on the walk home and hopefully stayed asleep in the pushchair once home up to 2 hours total.