Early Riser and refusing naps - Help

[VixDai]

My lo is 13 months old she used to sleep 7-7 at night with 2 naps. Morning normally 1-1.5 and afternoon 45mins! Last few weeks she has been fighting her afternoon nap - to the point where I have to rock her to sleep as I know she won’t make it too bedtime (terrible habit I know) and now she has started waking at 5.30am! I don’t know whether to drop her morning nap or cut it right down in the hope she takes her afternoon one easier?! Can’t work out why she has started waking up early tho 🙈 any suggestions are very welcome..

Merge the naps into a single long one at/after lunchtime

At about that age my 13 month old switched to one nap a day - early lunch at 11.30 then nap after that for about 2-2.5 hours. Maybe that would be an alternative?

Sounds like she’s dropping to one nap. My DS did this at about 12/13 months by refusing his afternoon nap.

I just gradually pushed back the morning nap by 15 min per day to get it around lunch time. Did make for some unusual meal times for a few weeks, but he settled into taking one 2-3 hour nap around 12

Thank you I will try it. Would you advise cutting the morning nap straight away and go from there? Just concerned I work 3 days a week so rely on grandparents/nursery to follow a new routine.

Why is helping your child go to sleep a terrible habit?🤔

Anyway, mine is 14 months and we’re currently going through the nap transition. She used to have about the same as yours, a long morning nap then an after lunch snooze, now her morning nap had become a bit later but not quite late enough and she has dropped the afternoon nap. I’ve been told it can be a miserable few weeks and then they work it out themselves.

When mine went through that stage, we cut the morning nap on the days I was working and she was with grandparents/childminder. On our days together, I followed her signs and we had some 1 nap days and some 2 nap days.

We found this worked best as otherwise she would sleep all over the place with grandparents and then I would have a nightmare getting her down at night so giving them specific timings meant she was always tired enough to go sleep but sometimes needed some help from them (patting etc) to stay asleep long enough.

Hi OP - early morning wakings are supposed to be a typical indication of too much daytime sleep and/or nap transition. A lot of babies start waking up early between 5-7 months and then 12 to 15 months. DD is 14 months and is in the same boat.

I would also start by gradually pushing back the morning nap and reducing the afternoon nap. I am doing it the other way round (reducing the morning nap - we are now down to 15 minutes). The general recommendation for 2 to 1 nap transitions is to keep the longer nap, start reducing the shorter one to 10-15 minutes and eventually drop it.

If your DD can handle overtiredness (mine can't), you can also force the issue and drop the second nap cold turkey. A lot of parents seem to go this route (most of my NCT group did) but it does depend on the baby.