Awake time for 16 month old

[Laura1609]

Tell me how long your 16 month old is awake for at a time, I know it’ll vary but I’m struggling to find the sweet spot for my DS since transitioning to one nap. He’s only averaging about 45 mins-1h15m nap a day at the moment. He’s up for about 5 hours before going for a sleep. Most nights he sleeps through so maybe he just needs less daytime sleep than others 🤷‍♀️ constant guessing game!

My 16 month DD is around 5 hours but could do so much longer awake if i let her!

Mine always napped for half an hour only, so by 16 months was having half an hour at lunchtime and being awake about 6 hours before bed.

She’s not even two yet and doesn’t nap at all any more, so she may just be a weird kid!

I think it often depends how busy they are as to how much sleep they need. On mornings
when we'd had a class or long session on playground, or had a bad night, my DD could sleep for 1.5-2hours but days when we'd just been in the house it could be 1hour. I used to keep the nap at largely the same time because otherwise it ruined bedtime I found.

We’re now on day 4 of his nap only lasting between 30-45 mins. He was up early today due to the clocks and he was UP from his nap at 12.30 after a short one.
Roll on bedtime.

At 16 months my youngest was sleeping:

Morning nap: 9am - 10.30/11am
Afternoon nap: 1pm - 3/3.30pm
Night sleep 8pm - 7am (sleeping through)

Why have you moved away from 2 nap days?

You want to be getting around 3h of/daytime sleep a day over 2 naps before you think about moving to a single lunchtime nap.

@FATEdestiny We spent about 4 weeks of battling him to go to sleep for his 2nd nap and were also running out of time to fit in his 2nd nap so made the call to move to one nap. Don’t think he’s had 3h of daytime sleep since he was very very young so that’d be ambitious for him.
I think we just need to suck it up for now and hope he decides that a 1.5-2h kip is a nice idea.

My little one went to 1 nap at 10 months & would sleep for 2 hrs. Now he is 18 months & the nap is a bit hit & miss. As a poster above says, I think it depends on the how active they are during the day. If he has had a play date in the morning then he’ll have a good nap but if we’ve had a quiet morning at home, then he generally won’t nap at all. He sleeps well at night regardless of whether he’s had a nap. I think you just go with your toddlers flow - sounds like he is just a short day time napper to me & unless he is getting overtired during the day through lack of sleep, I would just leave him as he is :-)

My eldest stopped napping at 16 months - I took really bad when DC2 slept for 2 hours every afternoon until they were 4

@Mummysarah12 Yeah, I always try to get him outside for a good run around in a bid to tire him out. He had a few weeks of consistently sleeping 1.5h at lunch and this last week decided that’s not what he wants anymore and 40 mins will cut it. He’s still sleeping 12hrs solid at night so that’s great but it’d be nice to have a little sit down and a cup of tea while he has an afternoon sleep. He’s with my parents today, bet he bloody sleeps for them! 😂

I appreciate this is a few years old now! But do you remember what happened please as I am in the EXACT same situation with my 16 month old! Thank you ☺️

Hi @R184, now there’s a question! As I recall it took a little while to establish a solid one nap day and every now and then he’d need two if he’d woken up earlier than usual.
I did try to persevere with just one nap though and if he had a shorter one than planned I’d do an early bedtime.
Honestly having since had another and doing it all again I just tried to remain consistent when dropping naps and offering an earlier bedtime when necessary.

Thank you for getting back to me! He’s my third so you’d think I’d be a pro by now 😂 I just can’t seem to pinpoint the exact right time/routine to get him to sleep 🫠