15mo fighting afternoon nap, then tired and irritable by 4pm!

[mrsmmajeika]

Hi
As the title suggests really! DD has an afternoon nap around 1215 after lunch and has always slept for 1.5/2hrs, goes off to sleep on her own and wakes up quite happily ready start the afternoon.

The past couple of weeks she has been really fighting the afternoon sleep, not wanting to go to sleep at all despite showings signs of being tired, rubbing eyes etc... . She will eventually drop off but will only have 45 mins ish then wake up. Around 4pm time she will then become very tired and irritable, like she is over tired.

Bedtime is around 1830 where she will always go straight to sleep after a story and we won't hear a peep until the following morning around 0645 so she has a good 12 hours. The night time sleep hasn't been affected at all and she still sleeps through.

Can anyone with more experience than me help me with what to do with the afternoon sleep! She has been on only one nap since before she was one and dropped it very easy.

Thank you

When you're on 1-nap days, you want your afternoon to be longer than your morning. Currently you have:

6.45am wake
(5.5h awake)
12.15pm - 2pm nap
(4.5h awake)
6.30pm bed

As a minimum, your awake windows want swapping over- 4.5h in the morning and 5.5h in the afternoon. I'd actually go for 4h-6h - having a substantial snack before the nap and lunch after the nap.

So (assuming you want to keep bedtime/morning wakeup) aim for:

6.45am wake
10.45am nap
6.30pm bed

Thank you so much for the reply, I will give this a try tomorrow! Yes definitely would like to keep the night time sleep as it is, she sleeps through really well so I don't want to alter that if I can help it.

Hi @FATEdestiny , back just to thank you for your advice! Working like a dream, I have a happy little girl again! Long may it continue! Thank you