How and when to move from 2 naps to 1

[zorrow]

I have a 13 month old whose wake window between naps 1 and 2 has gone from 3 and half hours to 4 hours (they will not sleep before this). This now means bed time is pushed half an hour later as she won't go to sleep before this. The day is a 7am start with an 8:30pm bedtime but falling asleep at 9pm. This is too long of a day and too late. But she still seems to need her first nap 2 and half hours after waking so I can't imagine keeping her awake for 5 and a half hours. Just wondered when others made the transition, what made them do it and how they went about doing it?

I’d do an early lunch for a bit at around 11 then straight to bed afterwards. Then gradually push it forwards.

At this age my DD has a 15min cat nap in the pram/car around 9/9.30 then as PP said, early lunch around 11/11.30 and down from 12-2pm. Bed 6.30pm awake 6-6.30am.

My DD was this age in lockdown though so a walk every day at that time was easy!

We’re in a similar boat with our little one who is 20 months and has up until very recently always needed 2 naps and bedtime has been anywhere from 8-9.30pm (nap dependent).
For us we just noticed he would start to be okay with pushing the morning nap back a bit until around 11.30 and just have one with a bit of an earlier bedtime if the nap wasn’t as long as he needed.
I think being prepared to go between one nap and two depending on the day helps too.
Sometimes if he is awake extremely early or has a bad night we still try for two naps x

This happened at 10-11 months for us. I just asked grandparents/nursery to keep her busy in the morning and put her down after an early lunch. She only ever had 28 minute naps anyway, so early bedtimes were fine if she was exhausted by 11am and had her nap then.

Mine had long naps so it was becoming increasingly difficult to squeeze 2 in the day. We dropped to 1 nap around 14 months but I remember it was difficult. She is an early riser so she was always really tired at nursery in the morning and I couldn't imagine how she lasted until midday for her nap!! But I remember her nightime sleep improved around that time ... and she quickly settled into a new routine. Good luck it 's such a short period of time it will be over before you know it x