2-1 nap transition nightmare please help!

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Ds2 (12 mo) has always been an early riser from his earliest days but I lived with it and he had a good routine for a long time:
5.30 up
9-10.30/11 - nap
1.30/2-3ish - nap
7pm bed

He started fighting the second nap though AND getting up for the day at 4.30am so I thought it was time to try to transition to one, later nap.

Problem is though that because of the time he gets up, I can't get the nap later than 10am. He sleeps for 1.5/2 hours and then is in bed at 6.30. I know this is too much awake time, and it also isn't helping the early waking.

Should I try to push his nap later in the day, even though he's very, very tired by 10am? For various reasons I can't just keep two naps but move them/bedtime later, so I don't know what else to do.

I have the exact same issue right now.

Have you tried letting him have his normal morning nap, but cutting it short. (For my DS he would sleep 2 hours in the morning but ive been waking him after 45 mins). Then allowing him to sleep longer in the afternoon if he needs it. Gradually shortening the morning nap more and more.

Also try bringing the afternoon nap earlier. 1pm. That way he is exhausted by bedtime. And won't be expecting a morning nap, therefore he should sleep later in the morning.

This is what I have read anyway. We are still trying to implement this.

Could you limit the length of his naps? So maybe max 45 mins for each before you wake him? Then he might sleep for longer at night?

Thanks both. I had wondered whether to limit the naps, especially the morning one. The reason I haven't is partly because it took me weeks and weeks of graft to get him having anything other than catnaps, so waking him early kills me. Also I'm worried that if I wake him early consistently, he'll 'forget' how to have a long nap again when I want him to.

Is that mad?!

Oh the 2-1 nap transition is by far the most annoying. Currently going through it aswell. DS is 12.5 months. Some days one nap, some days 2 depending on what time he gets up. Tbh it’s apparently one of the most difficult transitions so it may just be they take a bit of time to adjust. In the beginning if the first nap was earlier I was giving a cat nap in the afternoon to tide him over but then one day he napped 10.30-12.30 and then refused to sleep again but was absolutely fine and went to bed at 6.45 with no issues and slept right through. As pp suggested could you cap the naps, so either a very short morning one and a longer afternoon or vise Versa?

What happens when he wakes up at 5.30?

My DD went through a phase of doing this at around 12 months we just left her to it and she eventually got into the habit of settling herself back to sleep again for another hour or so. We treated it much the same as a night wake up rather than morning.

from about 13mo to now (16mo) she is waking up around 6.30 - 7, getting up having breakfast and then going back to bed for a couple of hours (usually 8.30 - 10.30).

If we are at home for the day she then has another nap mid afternoon for about an hour, or naps in her car seat if we are out. If we really need to we can drop this nap without it impacting on bedtime/wake up time, but she is a much happier child if she gets the nap. If we miss the afternoon nap a few days in a row she gets overtired and it affects her sleep at night and morning naps.

She happily goes to bed around 7pm and usually sleeps through again until 6.30/7am.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is don't underestimate the impact that overtiredness can have. Less sleep during the day does not always result in more/better sleep at night!

Sorry for the delay!

I can't really leave him in the morning because he wakes ds1, whose behaviour is a shambles if he's overtired. So at the moment I don't rush in but probably get him by 20 mins of him making noise, at which point he gets loud!

I would be happy for him to catnap in the afternoon but because of school pick up it's quite tricky. When he was napping at 9 I was able to get the second nap in before 3pm but I can't do that anymore and he absolutely won't nap in the buggy which is a total pain.

I think I'm seeing that I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and push through. And hopefully push the nap later in the morning soonish so we don't have the horrid long awake time before bed.

What about trying one long nap and then an early bed time at 6pm? So if he’s getting up at 5.30-

Sorry posted too early. If he’s getting up at 5.30 how long do you think you could push the nap.

That's what I've been trying to do, more or less. At the moment he's actually getting up at 4.45/4.30am, so a nap at 10am is the latest I can push him. He'll sleep for 1.5/2 hours and then we do bedtime asleep by 6.30.

I did the same with my elder son when he transitioned but because he didn't wake as early his nap was 10.30/11 and it worked much better. I'm hoping I might be able to get ds2 on that schedule within a few weeks?

Perhaps not very helpful to say but can he not continue having two naps for a while longer?? Re the early wakings, we have this battle too and things that helped us were black out blinds so it’s not too bright when the sun comes up, and limiting the morning nap to encourage a longer afternoon one.

I read somewhere that most babies aren’t ready to transition to one nap til 15m ish. Not sure how true that is though!

Also is he walking yet? He may get more tired when he starts toddling around!

Thanks magpie. I don't know whether to go back to two naps or not really.

I stopped having two to try and break the early waking habit. Also he started being v difficult for the second one. But so far postponing the nap isn't helping the early waking either, although it's not quite been a week yet.

I'm a bit stuck!

He has a blackout blind and blackout curtain so we're as locked down as we can be there. The birds are pretty loud at 4.30 but I shut his window overnight so again I don't know what else I could do. Maybe white noise all night?

He has just started to walk and I know a big milestone like that can send them a bit haywire, so that's also at the back of my mind.

I would keep two naps. About 18 months old is an average time to drop to one nap. My youngest was 20-22 months when she transitioned to 1 nap.

Also, the change to 1 nap doesn't really want to be a straight switch, but a gradual change over time. So for example it might be one day of 1 nap with the rest of the week 2-nap days to recover. Then maybe a 1-nap day with two or three 2-nap days to recover. Then maybe two back to back 1-nap days with a day or two of 2-nap days in between. Or whatever, you get the idea.

Making a sudden switch to drop a nap could easily send you into an overtiredness cycle.

I would do a 9.30am nap and set that in stone as a routine time that happens every day. Then wake from this nap at an equally routined time after 45 minutes, so 10.15am.

Then have your most active part of the day. So go to playgroup, go swimming, run around after the dog at the park or whatever. Dinner around 12.30pm and then give a milk drink just before afternoon nap time.

I would aim for a 1.30-2pm start of naptime and leave him to sleep as long as is needed. Then make bedtime around 8-8.30pm

I would put him down for first nap when he’s tired but keep it short and wake him so that you can fit in the second nap.

They essentially keep their second nap timing so I would keep that one more set but move the morning one around and shorten so he always fits his second one in.

Hello op! I ended up working with a sleep consultant and thought some of the tips might help. My 13mo routine is currently 5:30 wake up, 8:30-10 nap, 13:00/13:30-15:00 (ideally) nap, 18:30 bed. I would say 12mo is too young to drop to 1 nap. The first nap sounded quite late, maybe try 2-3hrs max after his morning wake up. You might find he then naps easier after lunch. I am finding my 1yo naps best for his first nap and his second one is going downhill, so I'm going to start to limit him to an hour in the morning I think, because when he transitions to one I think it's better that this is the after lunch nap. I also hate waking him from naps, know exactly what you mean! Hope this helps.

I understand your pain!

I almost don't want to tell you that having successfully made this transition to one nap with DD, and 6 weeks of a good routine, she has reverted to needing two naps a day I think it's because she has just started walking so using more energy.

It's a right pain. I just never know what we're aiming for in a day as everything seems so changeable!

Thank you all!

We're still in flux here. Also had a 3.30am start this morning 😱😱😱😱

I agree it's too early to drop to one nap, it's not working. Just finding fitting two in very difficult because of our afternoon commitments (school run etc). I'm trying though!

Early naps at 8:30 & 1 would possibly work with school runs? Sooo different with 2nd baby isn't it, I'm really looking forward to dropping naps this time round!

My youngest used to nap 9am-11am (I'd wake her so that she'd have enough awake time to afternoon nap). Then 1pm-3pm, again woken for the school run. Bedtime 8pm, up at 7am.

She would naturally have been better with naps at 9-11am and 2-4pm. We did this at weekends and school holidays but it didn't fit with the school run so I slid the afternoon nap earlier.

Two naps per day were maintained consistently from 7 months old to 20 months old. From about 14-16 months the morning nap started a tad later at 9.30am, but apart from that it stayed consistent.

My little one was a good sleeper, sleeping 2 naps a day with no issues. As soon as she started walking (12.5 months) she started sleeping 2-2.5 hours in the morning and nothing in the afternoon. By the time she is in bed at 19:00 she would be over tired and the nights were terrible. I then started waking her up after 45min of her morning nap and she would go back to sleep in the afternoon for about 1.5 hours. That only lasted a couple of days, today she was in bed for her afternoon nap as per usual but didn't sleep. She was quiet and calm but not sleeping. I went in after 1.5 hours and got her up. Shall I just preservere and she will settle again?

Just wanted to update in case anyone has similar problems.

Kept up with the one nap at around 10am for the last couple of weeks, because given schools runs etc I didn't really have the option to do two naps with the timings ds would need.

Last week he started having naps of between 2-4 hours which seems to have reset everything. It meant he wasn't shattered at bedtime, and that helped him sleep a touch longer in the morning, which in turn helped the nap naturally be pushed a little later.

This week he's started sleeping with a fan on overnight because of the heat, he's also started sleeping until 6am which I think means he likes the fan noise!

So all in all we're on a much better schedule - sleeps 7pm-6am, naps 10-1ish.

Thanks for everyone's advice.