Two naps to one?

[bananallamas]

Hi all hoping for some advice with my 15mo DD. She has always been a catnapper and it is extremely difficult to get her to sleep for more than 45 mins at a time during the day. She was previously waking up around 6.15am, then would have two naps, one from about 10-10.45 and then another from maybe 2.30-3.15. She would then go to bed around 7.15pm.

However she started to show signs she could last longer before her morning nap. So for about 2-3 weeks we pushed her until 11 and then took her for a really long walk so she'd sleep until 1. She's then go to sleep around 6.45 really tired. This would work really well some days but on others she'd randomly wake up around 2am and refuse to go back to sleep for 2 hours. No idea why. So we tried going back to two naps and the night time waking has stopped.

However now she is waking up early, often before 6, then has her first nap maybe 10-11, and then for her second it's hard to get her to sleep much before 3pm. I try to only let her have a short nap, today she has 20 mins from 3.10-3.30. But she's a nightmare to put to bed, I try for a 7pm bedtime and it takes me up to an hour. She seems like she needs to be awake for at least 4-5 hours before bed.

What do I do? If I go back to one nap I don't know how to stop the night time wake ups. Also she will sometimes wake up after only an hour. But two naps just isn't working and she gets so little sleep in total!

Sorry that was long and boring but I wanted to include all details. She is still BF and has never slept through... oh and I often bring her into our bed to try and get more sleep. Thanks

It sounds like the early wakings are just part of the normal sleep regression around this time (ours is 19 months now and Christmas and New Year were 5am wakeups every day - it was horrific)

But it does pass. My suggestion would be that by 15 months they should be on one decent 2-3 nap in the middle of the day.

The 5am wake ups will pass I promise you.

2-3 hour nap in the middle of their day that should say?

I would LOVE a 2-3 hour nap at home every day but it's rare, I'm lucky if she does 1.5 hours in one go. If she wakes up at 5am then she can't make it through to one nap and needs another sleep at 9.30-10 ish and then another in the afternoon and then she won't go to bed me the evening and e cycle continues! Ahhh.

Maybe it is just a regression, I hope so, although I'm not sure we've ever recovered from the 4 month regression to be honest

Thought I'd check in. How is it going? I used to DREAM of long naps when I didn't think it was possible but hang in there, I'm sure it will happen. How physical is your LO? And I don't mean 'are they walking yet etc' just that if they are really physical it can induce longer sleeps as their little bods are tired out.

Also try pushing the morning nap (if you think it's needed) later by 10-15 mins each day. See how they cope.

Hiya, we are doing... ok I think?! We have managed to go back to one nap on most days. However the only way we get this is by walking with the buggy... we take it in turns to do a 5-6 mile walk! At the moment it's ok as it gets us out the house but it's not really sustainable long term. I don't know how to get her to do the nap in her cot... she will go down if I hold her while she falls asleep but then she wakes up after 30-40 mins and won't go back to sleep.

The long night wake ups seem to have stopped thankfully but we are still getting horrendous sleep overall as she is teething.

She is fairly active but does have a mild physical disability which means she's not crawling or walking yet. However she does seem to wear herself out by doing a lot of rolling around and attempting to crawl. Because of her condition she finds normal activities like standing very tiring so I have no idea why she won't sleep more!