11 month old refusing second nap

[CobsAhoy]

It feels a bit early for my 11mo DD to be dropping her second nap, but a couple of times this week she has point blank refused her afternoon nap which has resulted in her going from about 12-7 without any sleep.

Anyone else's LO drop to one nap around this time or should I persevere with the second nap? She definitely seems tires in the evening if she hasn't had a nap, but then she goes down pretty easy for bed. She might be teething but her morning nap and bedtime are fine

It's not an all-or-nothing, transitioning to 1 nap may take a long, long time and the change may have a few false starts.

Refusing to sleep for a full 7 hours sounds concerning, I assume you mean you tried for a while in the afternoon and then it got too late for a nap so kept her awake?

If she's waking from a morning nap at 12 then I would suggest it is the morning nap to look at. I would wake sooner, 11am ish to them aim for a 2-4ish PM nap.

What time is she going down for the AM nap? As part of the transition I would start limiting the AM nap and lengthening the time between waking and AM nap time.

It might be you move to a 9.30am or 10am start for am nap, waking at 11am. See how that affects afternoon nap, if it's still being refused by 3pm then I'd give up. But aim for 2pm.

If still refusing then some days may need to be 1 nap. When baby can manage staying awake through until 11am, that's when they are ready for 1 nap. It might be 1 nap for one or two days a week then normal 2-nap days for the rest of the week, at first.

Cheers for the advice! Yeah I didn't spend 7 hours trying to get her to sleep, i think that might have pushed us both over the edge!

She usually goes down for her first nap around 10ish. I will give limiting the AM nap a go, at the minute it's 90-120mins (and second nap is 30-60 mins) and I thought if anything I should be trying to push it back and lengthen it as we move towards one nap, but I don't want to push her towards one nap too quickly.

When you say managing to go until 11, is this based on a 7am wake up?

Thanks again!

Crikey, I don't remember any of mine sleeping that much in the day! Just go with what they need - they are all different, and all go through different stages and bursts of growing, etc.

Ahhhh cheers backforgood always nice to have a gentle reminder that it isn't me fucking things up :)

We had another second nap refusal today and she was a complete gremlin this evening so obviously needs a bit more sleep, but unfortunately she doesn't want a bit more sleep so that's that for now I guess! Hopefully this passes as quickly as the other nap transitions!

Mine dropped the 2nd nap around 12 months and I was aghast as they weren't supposed to do it that soon!

But he didn't care what the Internet said!

Mine was 13.5 months when he dropped his second nap. Now he is trying to stop napping completely at 2.4 years

My daughter was 10 months when she dropped down to one nap, remember thinking it was very early but all worked out fine.

What time does she get up?

Ah thanks all, that's reassuring, will just see what happens (like there's any other option!!!).

motherfuckers she usually wakes up around 7ish and goes down for her first nap about 2.5hrs later.

My almost 11 month old has always been a nightmare with naps! But goes down ok after 3 hours awake time from morning wake up (anywhere from 5:30 to 6:30) but she will not take an after noon nap. Today she woke at 6:15 and she was asleep by 9:15 till 10:30 so I put her down for a nap at 1:30 - she was still awake in her cot at 2:15. I tried again at 2:24 but she just cried and cried so I've given up. I can't read her tired signs and just keep trying every 45 mins to an hour. Help!!

Sorry tried again at 2:45 I meant ha!

Ahhhh ninor I feel your pain! DD is still fighting her second nap and has now started kicking up a stink for her first nap unless she is exhausted, to make things worse she has also started waking at 5.30 every morning, joy! However, we have managed to get her down for two naps, we just have to make sure she is super tired before hand, our (by no means reliable) routine at the minute is this:
5.30 wake up! Have breakfast, play with toys, get out the house for a bit.
9.30 nap time, lasts about 90mins. Eat lunch then get out the house for a good chunk of time.
3.00 attempt a nap! Try for half an hour, if no luck (as usually happens) then come downstairs for half an hour, have dinner then try again. If this works then the nap is usually about an hour. If she isn't asleep by 4.30 I give up and get up, going to bed an hour earlier (6 instead of 7).

Our routines look quite similar, I have definitely noticed DD is more likely to nap when she has 4 hours between nap 1-2, she usually refuses it if the gap is 3 hours.

I read somewhere they can often try to avoid a second nap when they are on the cusp of walking/talking. DD has ratcheted up the babbling and is making loads of weird new noises, she also took her first steps just holding onto me with one hand today and has recently learnt to climb on/off furniture, so I am hoping that things settle down in the not to distant future when she is bored of these new tricks as she definitely needs 2 naps!

Same prob here.
Bf at mo so place marking

My DD dropped her second nap at 11 months. Since then she has had just one nap of about an hour and 20 mins, but is absolutely fine on that. Sleeps well at night for 11 hours. I know she's meant to have more sleep at her age, according to the books, but tbh she has never slept as much as recommended, right from birth. As she is fine and not tired till just before bedtime I just go with it. It's normal for her.

Makes sense as she is standing up and moving about using furniture. I would go with the flow but she needs that nap and resists bedtime too as she's soooooo tired. She boob her to sleep but she's that tired I wake her putting her down!! I've had 11 months of napping hell. I might try 4 hours after first nap then. Thank you

I boob her to sleep not she!!

DS2 only has one nap a day and he's 11
Months. I hadn't really thought about it as my others had all gone down to one nap by a year.

It will be nice if he doesn't follow his 3 siblings' pattern of stopping naps completely just before he turns 2.

flumpty is she in a good mood during her awake time? My DD was such a happy baby when she was sleeping 11hrs at night + 2 x 90min naps, now she is still 11 hrs at night but just one 90min nap and she gets whingy pretty quick.

lost it's reassuring to hear others have done it around this age, I try not to get to bothered about her sleep but she seems so tired and grumpy at the minute, hopefully her first nap will just get longer and then I can stop trying to push a second nap.

ninor good luck! I thought I had naps cracked at about 7 months (after a very shaky first 6 months!), but I guess it was just a happy phase, now I'm back in the crap phase! Must remember to never feel as if I'm doing something right as the second I do it all goes tits up

Cobs yes, she is pretty happy as usual, normally right up till bedtime. We get the odd day where she seems to need to go to bed a bit earlier, maybe by half an hour or so, but it's always for a reason, eg she's been crawling and cruising a lot more than usual. Sounds like your DD might need the nap she's fighting if she's whingy of an evening though. Does it start much before bedtime?

Yeah she's whingy about three hours after waking from her first nap so she definitely needs it, unfortunately she doesn't know what's good for her and just wants to rampage around rather than sleep! Oh well, just got to wait for this phase to pass too it seems, but the days seem pretty long at the minute!

I hear you, it's so annoying when they don't know what's good for them. My DD fights the nap sometimes and it's so infuriating, when I know she needs it and I know her messing about will mess up her routine later. Gah!

Hope your DD gets out of this phase soon!

CobsAhoy - I agree. Once my daughter started crawling she napped like a dream for about three weeks them hell again 😔