Nap with school run

[chel313]

Hi. I have a 14month old today who naps twice a day, no set routine but once in morning and afternoon. Sometimes refused afternoon nap if we have been out or whatever
I want to get a set routine, had one for my 5 year old but how do you nap a one year old in the afternoon with a school run to do? I have to leave earlier due to the travel so I will be leaving around 2.30 and getting home at 3.45 ish. I’m not sure how to fit a nap in that. He wakes anywhere from 6am-7am in the morning.
I have to get in a routine now my daughters at school to give me a routine as well.
Thank you for any help

I used to do lunch at 12, straight up for nap afterwards, so 12.45ish then wake her at 2.30ish to leave at 3. You could do an earlier lunch if you need to leave eariere.

*earlier

I would do lunch at 11:30 and nap after until 2:30 when you need to leave. Would likely have to drop the morning nap for it to work though.

I too brought the nap forward in your situation.

And then as they got older, they'd nap in the car and so I'd leave really early, drive very sedately, and then enjoy reading a book whilst they snoozed into the back.

We dropped morning nap, out at activities in morning so that keeps them going.
Lunch at 11.45.
Afternoon nap 12.15 for 2 hrs

Start to push back the morning nap, so aim for a sleep 11ish to begin with, then gradually push to 12-2.

Early nap, we did lunch at 1130 so the dts could sleep on the way back from activities.

Thank you. I was thinking the same thing about having to drop the morning nap. Unlike my daughter who was fine being tired he’s so bad when he’s tired so didn’t want to drop it too early but I don’t see how it will work with two. Maybe have to give it a go

I used to do a 9am nap - immediately upon getting home from the school run, baby was straight up to the cot and put down to nap. Then wake up was usually 10.30-11am (wake at 11am if not awake).

Afternoon nap would have ideally been 2pm-3,30/4pm (3h awake time between the two naps), however this wouldn't work with my school run. So I did a 1pm nap, waking at 3pm if not already awake by then.

Then bedtime somewhere around 8pm (5h awake time to bedtime) and usually awake in the morning around 7am.

My youngest kept 2-nap days until she was 20-22 months old, so a long time from where you are.

@FATEdestiny how on earth did you get another 2 hour nap out of your child when they’d only woken 2 hours before?!

2h awake windows is not unusual for when on 2-nap days.

The most widely used awake windows is 234 - 2h from waking to AM nap, 3h from AM to PM nap, 4h from PM nap to bedtime. So that could look like this:

7am wake
9am - 10.30am nap
1.30pm - 3.30pm nap
7.30pm bed

However, I have four children and needed baby awake by 3pm, for the school run. Also, youngest slept 11h at night and preferred 4h daytime. So instead of 234, we did 225 - same amount of sleep over 24h#, just configured differently to fit with our family life.

So we had an unusually long awake time in the evening (5h) and that was balanced against an unusually short awake time in the afternoon (2h). But not difficult to achieve with a consistently self settling toddler