11 month old refusing afternoon nap

[Spammy89]

My LO turns 1 in 2 weeks. She has been a good sleeper so am not complaining at all! She sleeps a good 11 hours at night. She was having 2 naps a day. 1 at around 9/9.30am for 1/1.5hrs. And another at 2ish for 1hr sometimes longer. The last 4 days she has been having her morning nap as normal, but flat out refusing her afternoon nap. We’ve tried putting her down at 1.30/2/3pm and she just swaps between chatting/playing and crying. Everywhere says they shouldn’t drop down to one nap until 15months old so I’m not sure what’s going on? Or whether to even keep trying the afternoon nap? Today she showed signs of tiredness (rubbing her eyes, getting a bit whiney) at 2.45 so put her down...it’s now 4pm and we’ve given up as she wouldn’t sleep! Anyone else been through this and any advice the best way to go?? Thank you!

This is a marker telling you it's time to start limiting your morning nap.

The transition from 2-nap days to 1-nap days happens by the 2nd nap of the day being dropped and the first (only) nap getting later and later. So your morning nap will become your lunchtime nap, and you'll drop the one you now call the afternoon nap.

So how to do that? Two pronged attack, gradually changing over time.

Set a "wake no later than" time for your morning nap and wake baby up at that time, if not already awake.

Set the time such that it will still allow for an afternoon nap (as your transition to a single nap). I would suggest 10.30am from the timings you give.

Start doing naps by the clock. Say naptime of 9.30 and wake at 10.30. Don't put baby down earlier and don't let baby sleep longer.

When on 2-nap days the recommended awake time is 2h-3h-4h, so a 10.30am wake from a morning nap would suggest a 1.30pm 2nd nap (3h awake time). If you think 2pm would work better though, stick with that.

Likewise set a wake-by time for the 2nd nap. Allowing a 4h awake time to get time, a 2pm-3pm nap would mean 7pm bedtime. So wake baby by 3pm at the latest.

For this to work you also need to wake baby in the morning at a consistent time, as you would if setting a daily alarm.

Then progress from this point by making morning nap later and shorter. You could move a long the lines of:

• 7am wake. 9.30-10.30 nap, 2-3 nap, 7pm bed

• 7am wake, 9.15-10.30 nap, 2-3 nap, 7pm bed

• 7am wake, 10-10.30 nap, 1.30-3 nap, 7pm bed

• 7am wake, busy morning, 1pm-3pm nap, 7pm bed

That final transition to 1-nap days need not be an all-or-nothibg change. It might be that you have a single, solitary day where you stay busy in the morning and just have one nap. Then the rest of the week you have normal 2-nap days.

The next week maybe you have 2 days of just 1 nap. Probably in the form of a 1-nap day followed by 3 or 4 2-nap days. Then maybe two consecutive days of 1-nap followed by a day or two of 2-naps then back to 1-nap days.

Do you see what I mean? It's a gradual transition rather than a sudden change. The same with the changes in timings of the 2 naps. You might have a step forward and two steps back. But then a jump forward again until you get used to the new stage. And so on.

What time does she wake up in the morning? It might just be a phase. My DS naps very well in general but there were the odd weeks where he just laid in his cot babbling to himself. It’s been a lot warmer this week, it could just be down to the weather - just the temperature or just all that fun in the bright sunlight, if you’ve been in the garden a lot maybe she’s a bit hyped up on sunshine in the afternoon. Is the sun shining more brightly in her room in the afternoon?

Mine dropped his afternoon nap entirely at around that age. Started sleeping for two hours approx late morning.

I have an 11mo who has also just dropped to 1 nap per day. She did it quite suddenly by one day refusing her morning nap and that was it. I kept trying for the next week or so but she flat out wouldn't sleep. She now just has one nap a day 2-4pm.

@Pinkblueberry she wakes around 6/6.30am. Hmm she has been spending a lot of time outside in these sunny days! Maybe I’ll try again today as it’s supposed to be cooler.

@Bienentrinkwasser @Coronacantcope this makes me feel a bit better! I hear it’s more common for them to drop their morning naps when going to one nap...but they all do what they want really don’t they?! As you tried for a week, I’ll give it a few more days of trying before I give up! If she has gone to one nap, I’ll just push her nap back so it’s more midday rather than morning. Thank you for all your replies!!

Same here OP! My son was 1 a week ago and suddenly at 11 months decided to drop his afternoon nap with no warning. Hes up between 6 and 7 usually, naps 10.30-1 and then bed at 7.30/8.

@Primrose89 glad it’s not just mine then! Wow 10.30-1 is good going! I’d be happy with that! I’m not massively worried because my LO has still been very happy even without her second nap so at least we aren’t dealing with a tired, grumpy baby! Haha!

Mine dropped to one nap at 13 months... He wakes at 7.30am and I do him an early lunch and he sleeps 11.45 - 2/2.30 ish.

When he was on two naps - I always did a short 30 min nap at 9.30am but I would wake him and give him a snack... It was hard waking him but it meant he slept in afternoon.

I would just experiment a bit

We are currently doing what @FATEdestiny said, DS has just turned 1 and started faffing with his afternoon nap - just playing his his cot and then maybe nodding off for 20 mins at about 3pm, so we wake him up at 10.30am now and he goes to sleep by 2 and we wake him up at 3 for his 6.30pm bedtime. He’s been like this for a couple of weeks now. I’m hoping we can cling on to the two naps during lockdown and then when he goes to nursery I’m sure they fling him into one nap and I won’t have to deal 😂

My daughter dropped to one nap at around the 11-12 months point - she had been really consistent up until that point and sleeps a similar amount to your LO at night.

I went with it and she would sleep for 2.5/3 hours from about 12.30/12.50.

She's now 17 months and only sleeping for about 1 hour 50 during nap times but because she sleeps really well at night I'm not too concerned.

GL 👍🏻

@doadeer great thank you! Yeah I think I’ll try experimenting...doesn’t help that she is teething at the minute as well! Waking her up won’t be fun! But if it helps in the long run I’ll give it a go.

@Abouttimemum haha! Love it! Mine starts nursery on 6th May! So might just see how she goes this week and then if she has decided to drop to 1 nap then nursery will be fine. If not maybe they can do some magic to sort it

Haha I know! My son is 15 months now and at 13m he had all his molars and incisors come up!!! So many teeth.

My advice is wake with a snack... I would always have his favourite yoghurt ready or some fruit which he loves.

We had a sleep consultant because we had problems with nighttime sleeping and this was the schedule that she had advised a short morning nap and longer afternoon nap 1pm - 2.30 with the view that we would drop the morning nap and the afternoon would come a bit earlier

Just saw your note about starting nursery, when our nursery was open they do a very similar schedule where they put them down for a long midday nap at 11:45 am with a very early lunch. You can obviously tell them that your baby needs another early morning nap but it depends on how well your baby can go down because there will obviously be lots of distractions at that time