2-1 nap... anyone done it by making first nap a short catnap

[Constantfacepalm]

My 14 month old dc2's daytime sleep is just not working anymore.

She used to have a 9-1030 and a 2-330 give or take 30 mins in both start time and duration. I wake her up at least 50% of the time to keep to a predictable schedule and bedtime.

Anyway, its getting messy and difficult now, and I assume that a transition is on its way. The few days we have done one nap at 1230, she slept a solid 2.5 hours, perfect. This only happens ng ed when she woke up later that morning, usually because she was up between 3-4am. Sigh.

The problem with 2-1 nap plan is

1. most morning wake ups are at 5am. This happened with my otherwise wonderful sleeper dc1, who is now 3. There is not one thing we can do about early wake ups, I have made my peace with this!!!

So... this makes it hard to get to 12 without a morning nap

2. As we have a toddler, doing the whole slowly pushing morning nap back and lengthening it is not an option. I cannot be housebound for days or weeks while DC2's main nap slowly moves through the morning, to eventually arrive at a more acceptable midday. We all go out every morning, rain or shine. We simply must, dc1 not in nursery

So anyway, point is, only way I can see this working for us is a super short morning nap (40min?)at say 9, 930 as usual, then hopefully second nap will be earlier than 2/230 (and longer?)

Anyone tried the morning catnap (as opposed to evening one?

Slightly at wits end here

Hi. My son was 12 months when he dropped his 2nd nap. It was a lot of trial and error and but now at 15 months naps from 12.30 to 2.30/3pm. I thought this was an early age to drop his nap but it works for us.

With regard to dropping it I found his morning waking time creeping earlier and it was harder to get him down.

From 11.5months-12.5months I took him for a walk in the pram at his normal nap time, letting him cap nap and shortened it to 45-50 mins (one sleep cycle for him). His afternoon nap then moved earlier and got a bit longer. After a month of this I then just stopped the morning nap altogether but put him down at 11.30 after an early lunch. His bedtime moved earlier to 6.30 pm for a week or two but now naturally he is in a solid routine with a nap at 12.30 and bedtime back at 7.30pm. The week we dropped the first nap completely he was grouchy around that usual nap time but I filled the time with activity- went to the park, lots of singing dancing and distraction but he was soon used to it.

Hope that helps.

That's really helpful, thank you!