Time for one nap? If so, how?

[user1474565301]

My daughter has just turned 14 months. She is very alert and a light sleeper.
I have been using very gradual withdrawal to get her to have naps in her cot as I was previously rocking her for naps, but she has become much too heavy. It's going really well and now, she will go to sleep in her cot within 10mins and sleep for 1-2 hrs. This varies. Hooray! This is for the morning.
In the afternoon, she will not do the same and fights it all the way, even though she appears to be tired and needing to nap. She will have 30-40 mins sleep in the afternoon if we are out in the car or in the pushchair. I often have to give up on the afternoon nap if we are at home, as I spend so long trying, it gets too late in the day.
Should I be starting to move to one nap days? If so, how did I do this when my daughter always starts getting tired and ready to sleep 3-3 1/4 hrs after waking for the day? If left longer, she gets overtired and very wired.
Thanks.

What times are her naps currently?

Around 9.30/10am and then 3ish hours from whenever she wakes up from the morning nap.

I would begin my limiting the morning night by setting a wake-up time. Then use this to set an afternoon nap time.

So set the morning nap as always 9.30am and wake after an hour. That gives you:

9.30am nap time
10.30am wake up
2pm nap time
Leave to wake up naturally

The average time to move to 2-nap days is 18 months, but it's usually a transition rather than an immediate change. So you might start off having one day of only 1 nap, the rest of the week being 2-naps. Then maybe child will manage 2 days in a week of 1-nap days. Then 3 or 4 days in the week, and so on.

For 1 nap days, you stretch the morning awake time, give an early lunch and have a single, longer, lunchtime nap. So for example 11am lunch, 11.30am nap.

The "tell" for knowing if baby can manage 1-nap is if you can keep her going in the morning. If you have a busy morning planned, it's a good day to give a 1-nap day a try. But then expect to need a couple of 2-nap days for the following days, to catch up.

That's really helpful, Thank you