14mo sleep and nap help/experience please?

[whatthefoxsaid]

I think I need to make some adjustments but I'm not sure where to start. I was hoping for some advice/experience!
Currently, DD is waking around 4.30-5. She doesn't seem ready for the day and spends til around 6.30 mostly cuddling with me or sat on the floor with bloody cbeebies rubbing her eyes and clutching her teddy.
Whilst the cuddles are nice, I'm tired!!
She naps from 9.30 til 11.30 ish, and occasionally has another around 2.30-3.30, bedtime at 7pm. Put down awake but sleepy, 9/10 goes off to sleep on her own.
I'm wondering if I need to adjust the nap to later in the day? I'm going to a HV drop in later today to see if they have any ideas but wanted to post here too as they're not always very friendly/helpful.

I meant to say, push the long nap to later in the day and drop the short one as she's hit and miss with it anyway!

DD dropped to 1 nap at around the 12m mark so that could be worth a try. We do early lunch at midday then nap and on she'll sleep 2-2.5 hours.

The other thing is to see what happens if you don't go in when she wakes. DD will often have a grumble around 4:30/5am but I found out one morning when I was slow to go to her that sometimes she'll go back to sleep!

Ah, I missed out some key info. She's still in a cot in our room! It's an issue but we're working on it!
I think the one long nap is working well for her as she's refreshed and ready to go after it but can't help but wonder if the timing of it means she's using it as a bit of a catch up for the morning.
This week I'm trying to push it later gradually but it's hard keeping her awake!

could you try waking from morning nap around 30-40 mins and afternoon nap hopefully will be longer? my concern with such an early wake is you will struggle to push it later without her being wrecked.

if when she starts waking later you could move to 1 nap.

I don't know how you feel about crying but dd started waking an hour early. I repeatedly cuddled and shushed and returned to cot. she would grumble and cry for a bit then settle for a bit, after a few days did start waking later.

you could try returning to cot til say 5.30 or 6 and work slowly to make it later.

We had this exact issue.

I was really reluctant to drop DSs morning nap. But we did eventually.

We stopped his morning nap and now he has one extra long nap (3 hrs) in the afternoon 1-4pm.

He has now stopped waking so early. (previously had been 4:30-5:30am wake ups). Now he wakes at around 6:30. Sometimes earlier/later.

Although the clock change has affected him a bit!

That's not a bad idea Di11y as I can't see how she's going to make it through the morning without a bit of sleep at the moment. I'll see if I can switch the naps for now rather than dropping one altogether.
Obviously I don't like to hear her cry but I have to get her quiet one way or another so DH can sleep for work and our walls are paper thin so I worry about the neighbours.
Good to hear you've come out the other side namechanger55555 this gives me hope! I think a gradual change sounds more manageable so today's plan is short nap in the morning, wake her up, nice lunch and playtime then long nap...
Longer term, scrap the morning nap, move afternoon nap closer to lunch and pray to all of the gods?!!

I wasn't expecting an immediate effect kinda hoped though but absolutely no change.
Yesterday she napped 9.15-10 then I got her up and took her out. Lunch, play, nap 1.15-2.45 when I went and woke her up.
She went to bed beautifully and I put a blanket plus a thicker throw type thing on and she wasn't cold, but wide awake at 4.30 and screeched on and off til 5.30 til dh got up with her.
I feel determined not to get up before 5.30. She settled for a short time but instantly stopped when she thought we were taking her downstairs so I'm concerned that's what she's getting up for.
At that "imposter parent" stage as I've no idea what to do or indeed if there's anything I can do!

I did the same regarding shortening the morning nap. It took a couple of weeks to eventually cut out the morning nap and once we stopped doing the morning nap completely it took a further couple of weeks to see the effect.

It really was a case of sticking to it. He still gets tired now in the mornings and could do with a nap! I was so reluctant to stop his morning nap. (Had a newborn at the same time and desperately needed some quiet time. But its paying off now

We started doing this with DS at 17 months. So a little older than your DD- possibly something to take into consideration.

The clock change really hasn't helped though. DD is gradually shifting her wake up time in the morning but the first 3 mornings of the clocks change she was up at 5.

Thanks for the replies. I just re-read my post from this morning, sorry it didn't make much sense in places what I was getting at was, is this just one of those things that you have to ride out or do I actually need to do something to help her out? Is she waking up and not going back to sleep because she knows ill take her downstairs? I just don't know, hence imposter!
I'd love to blame the clock changes but it's been ongoing for a good few weeks now, probably around the time she had her immunisations.
I appreciate I have to give it time with a new routine. I will learn some patience!

I'm just popping this here too in case anyone searches and wants to know what happened!
Just wanted to come back and update. It's early days but we've changed naps up so she has 11.30-2 and so far she's woken at 5.30 and 5.45, so definitely in the right direction! Thanks for the advice!

Oh that's better! Hopefully the wake up time will shift even later as the new routine settles.