16 month old still naps twice in the day. Normal?

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 has always been a pretty good daytime napper. When he was little we got into a fairly good routine of about 4/5 naps a day (but he'd only sleep for 45 mins). As time has gone one, the naps are down to 2 and he usually does about 1h 30m per nap (although rarely at nursery). The morning nap is always so much easier. He goes down willingly at around 9.30 and is out like a light immediately. Afternoon can be a bit trickier. Occasionally I've picked him up from nursery with no afternoon nap had and he is a nightmare. He is awake anytime from 5am to 6.30am in the morning (usually earlier rather than later). He's moving to the next room at nursery when hes 18 months and they tend to all just do an afternoon nap (but nursery will do as I ask) but I can't imagine him not doing his morning nap as he seems to need it so much. What are your experiences?

My 15 month old dd still usually has two naps a day. 9.30-11.00am (I wake her, she'd sleep for longer), then usually 1.00-3.00 (I'm tied by the school run for this one).

Although I am aware this is unusual. By 12 months old my older 3 children had all moved to a single afternoon nap.

I would be guided by nighttime sleep. My dd sleeps 12 hours, sometimes longer. 7.00/7.30pm to 7.00/8.00am. If her nighttime sleep started getting affected, then I'd something about it. Otherwise I'm just going to let the transition to 1 nap happen naturally when she's ready.

Therefore I don't see 2 naps a day as a problem in my 15 month old.

However if I was dealing with a 5.30/6.00am wake up like you (assuming this isn't a convenient wake up time) then I would be aiming to change something. In your situation I would try gradually pushing morning nap later, moving it forward by 10/15 minutes every week or so. Then limit afternoon nap accordingly so that bedtime is unaffected.

Eventually you'll get to a point where you (or nursery) can make lunchtime early, say 11am and then nap straight after lunch.

You can then start gradually moving lunchtime later to push it to a more acceptable time (say 12.30) and nap afterwards.

There's a theory that dependence on a morning nap cab encourage early waking. I agree with PP if you bring the morning nap later slowly you should be able to transition to a single nap and get a later wakeup time

Agree that it sounds like it may be time to drop the morning nap.

FWIW we went cold turkey with DD on this when she was 10 months. She was fine, we had no problems and just kept her awake til noon. She slept 12-2pm from 10months to 26months.

My 16 month old DS needs two naps if he wakes before 6 but I make sure the first is over by 9:30 (ideally earlier) and always skip morning nap on nursery days as I'd rather he was grotty for them in the morning than grotty for me in the evening (if he skips his afternoon nap).

I echo what a previous poster has said about dependency on a morning nap.

My DD was exactly the same. Sleeping 11 hours straight but waking up anywhere between 5am and 6am. Then having a 25/30 min morning nap and same again in the afternoon. I read that a morning nap is just an extension of nighttime sleep at this age so the trick is trying to wean them off the morning nap. We did this by pushing it 15 minutes at a time (as previously suggested) until our DD was sleeping through to about 7am which meant she naturally dropped the morning nap. If I remember rightly, it took us less than a week.

At 16 months old she now has one nap a day from 1pm to between 2:30 - 3 and is in bed for 6pm and sleeps through to 7am ish. Sometimes it can be a bit earlier, other times a bit later.

My DS is 21 months old and it's only in the last 1-2 months that he's been able to cope with just one nap instead of two.

Between the ages of 10 months and about 19 months he had a nap in the morning and another in the afternoon, they both tended to last about 1.5 hours.

He now just has a two hour nap after his lunch.

I would ask the nursery to just try him with one nap for two or three days and see how he gets on. Personally I wouldn't bother moving it in 15 minute increments but just go straight to a 11:30/12pm nap time.
My ds2 is almost 18 months and just after a year the nursery were struggling to get him down for his morning nap so with my agreement moved to one nap. The result was a really cranky toddler who could barely eat his tea before falling asleep so we went back to two naps. Tried again around 15 months and he was absolutely fine.

Just to say thanx for all the replies! The last 3/4 days we've managed to push him out to 11.30/12 (given him an early lunch) then he's slept around 2/3 hours which is great. But last 2 nights we've also put him to bed earlier (by about 20/30 mins) and that combo seems to be doing the trick. 6.45am wake ups last two days!!

Personally I think that's pretty normal at that age, but then my son is 28 months and sometimes still has two naps a day! In fact it's only in the past two months that it's become more common for him just to have one.

Nice! Glad you are getting to sleep slightly longer in the morning too win win.