Dropping to one nap with a chronic lark!

[OkayWellFine]

DS is 14months. He seems to be completely incapable of sleeping more than 9.5/10h, or past 5:30am (at an absolute push 6am) overnight. Bedtime is therefore at 19:30. We’ve tried later bedtime, earlier bedtime, cutting down the afternoon nap…you name it. Currently it’s 10h or 5:30am. He naps well during the day - 2.5-3h spread across ~ 45-60 mins in the morning and 1.5-2h in the afternoon. No fight, he goes down easily.

In a last ditch attempt to improve his night sleep I was wondering if dropping to one nap might help? Nursery want him to do this soon anyway. I just can’t work out how we’d do it. If he’s awake at 5:30, he’s going to be massively in need of a nap by 10:30 at the latest. If he sleeps for 2h, that leaves 7h until bedtime? Currently it’s 4h!! Or do we make bedtime earlier and pray 5:30 doesn’t turn into 4:30?

Thank you!

If I was you'd I'd cut down to one nap. Aim for it after his dinner.
If he starts flagging, get him out in the garden for fresh air, occupy him a lot.

If he needs to go down abit earlier for nap, every couple of days extend it by 15 mins until you hit the time you want.

Keep him really, really busy in the morning (nursery is good for this) and do the nap after lunchtime.

If it helps, my DD was like this - getting up at 6am. In the last week we've aimed for 5 your wake window, so awake at 6am, 2 hour nap at 11am, wakes up 1am and back into bed for 6pm ish where she sleeps again for roughly 12 to 12 and a half hours! The 5 hour window is perfect for her, but whilst she's adjusting especially because her morn nap used to be around 9am, I take her out for a good run around at 9 and she's usually exhausted enough come 11 for a really long nap without fights! Hope that helps x

This is a super helpful thread. I'm in exactly the same situation. Can I ask how everyone schedules meals? My daughter will not eat when tired so I was thinking of splitting her lunch before and after nap? That way she might actually eat something when she wakes up...
Any better ideas?

My 16 month old DD recently dropped her afternoon nap. I tried a nap after lunch but she’s then too tired to eat and can’t nap longer than 1.5 hours as she’s overtired so is miserable the rest of the day. Instead I put her down before lunch, she usually sleeps from 10/10:15 until 12:15 then has lunch. She’s then in bed at 7. Realise this is a long wake window but she seems to do fine with it and sleeps from 7 until 6:30/6:45 most nights. Works for her.

Hi! So we dropped to one nap 3 nights ago and so far it has gone pretty well! He’s waking in the morning at 6ish with bed at 19:00 which is a mega improvement both in terms of wake up time and amount of night sleep. We will eventually try and push bedtime back to 19:30 to see if we can get wake up closer to 7, but he’s been dead on his legs by about 18:30 so far so dare not push it any further 😂 on 2 of 3 nights he’s started crying out and needed a hand on his chest to resettle him between 21:00-22:00. I think I remember him doing this when we dropped from 3 to 2 naps and I’m guessing it’s probably a sign he’s a bit overtired, but apart from this he’s sleeping though.

Meals have been tricky. DS is the same, won’t eat it tired. We have now fallen on this roughly:

Wake 6am
Breakfast 7am
Substantial snack 10am (yesterday it was half a cream cheese bagel with some strawberries and cucumber sticks)
Nap 11:30-13:15/13:30
Lunch 13:30
Tea 17:00
Bedtime 18:30-19:00

I’m guessing eventually as we push bedtime back and hopefully the morning start gets a bit later alongside him tolerating more time awake, the nap will get later leaving more space for lunch? X

Pleased it's going well!
Yes we always done lunch before his nap, he would go down 12:00/12:15 so I aimed for 11:45 lunch which was the same as nursery times.
Once you feel he's ready for his nap to pushed back abit and comfortable with it try lunch before.
Do it by pushing back 15 mins at a time every few days.