15mo sleep schedule help - at wits end!

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Going to get straight to the point, my 15mo DD2’s sleep has gone to pot lately and I’m one of those parents that needs routine to function. Currently feel my anxiety levels peaking every nap/bed time so after some advice!

Her day currently goes like this:
5:30-6:30am - awake for day
9:30-10am - put down for nap
10:30-11am - wake from nap
11:30am - lunch
1:30-2pm - put down for afternoon nap
2:45pm - wake from afternoon nap for school run
4:30pm - dinner
6pm - bath
6:30pm - in cot
7-7:30pm - asleep

More often days than not, she is fighting her afternoon sleep to the point I give up as there’s no point before the school run. Obvs on the weekend I let her sleep but never past 3pm to try preserve bedtime. (DD1 goes up to bed at 7pm for a 7:30pm in bed for sleep and she really values that hour with just me at the end of the day.)

Every single day she is messing about once put in her crib at bedtime. To the point where I’m having to go back in while trying to put DD1 to bed. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Basically, I know she needs to go down to one nap as I think that’ll solve the bedtime mucking about (she’s currently either over or under tired I think) but I’m struggling to get her morning nap to push later. On the days I’ve tried to string her out until 10-10:30am, she’s still woken up before 12pm and that’s a long 6 hours before bedtime.

Any advice? Solidarity? Pleeeeease don’t tell me that 7:30pm is too early for DD2 to go to bed, she’s 4yo and school is making her exhausted. She asks to go to bed before 7pm some nights. It’s a struggle to juggle the two! One little one who needs a later bedtime and one older one who’s asking for an earlier one. I wish I could meet them in the middle and do a joint bedtime but the one time I suggested it, DD1 was not impressed.

Oh and their dad isn’t useless and helps when he’s here but I have to have bedtime as mainly me because he works away so often. A lot of the time I’m putting them to bed solo, even on nights when he is coming home after work.

Sorry for the ramble! Tl;dr I need help getting my 15mo to drop to one nap!

My DS dropped to one nap at 15 months. We just decide done day as he'd been mucking about for his morning nap. We kept him going until about 11am then put him down, often didn't go out in the car so he didn't fall asleep, just parks or walks from home. He'd sleep for a couple of hours then lunch after. He gradually went later so then he'd have an early lunch then napped at 12-2pm.

We just bit the bullet and did it, it wasn't straight forward. Some days he's nod off in the car in the morning and plans would change and bedtime would be very early that evening. But we persevered and he had that one nap until he dropped it all together at 2.5.

That's perfect age to go down to just one nap. Even if it means having an early lunch at 11am and then first and only nap at 11:30. I wouldn't change bedtime, that seems spot on.

@INeedtobealone Thanks for your reply, this is good to know. I think I’ll try stringing her out until she’s going down at 11am. Most mornings I think she’d make it to be fair. Out of interest, when you say on the bad days their bedtime would be very early, how early is that? I’ve got it into my head that I shouldn’t put her down in her cot before 6pm but on days like today where she’s skipped her afternoon nap completely, she’s exhausted as she’s been awake 6 hours now… 🤦🏼‍♀️

@MeltedButter Thanks to you as well, this is so reassuring. You’d think I’d remember how to do this from my first but I’ve forgotten it all! Find myself second guessing everything!

I pushed my son's morning nap back by 30 mins -1 he each day until it landed midday and then no need for afternoon nap. As others say it sounds like she is ready to drop a nap. As pp said, early lunch at 11

You can put her to bed really early when first dropping to one nap. My daughter dropped to 1 at 15 months too. She goes down at 11:45 after an early lunch and then was going to bed between 5-6 depending on how long it was. Now she can manage until 7 at 17 months.

“Every single day she is messing about once put in her crib at bedtime. To the point where I’m having to go back in ”

She’s 15m! A baby! Your attitude that she is “mucking about” rather than sleeping to your strict schedule is the problem.

Around their first birthday most babies are ready to move to one nap - straight after lunch.

Give her lunch at 12. Into cot at 12:30, up by 3 latest.

Yes, probably a bedtime of somewhere between 6-7pm depending on what time he napped in the morning and for how long. He's 5.5 now so my memory is a little hazy.

When he dropped his nap completely he was asleep for the evening about 6pm at the latest, sometimes 5.30pm. He'd then sleep to between 5-6am.

My preference was always earlier to bed even if it meant an early start. Of course others are different.

@SweetBabyCheeses99 I appreciate a certain degree of this is my own anxiety, I’m in therapy for it and am aware when I’m irrationally spiralling and expecting too much of DD. My post here is more to gain some clarity on what I could be doing to help her as I don’t want to put her to bed when she’s over and under tired. Picking apart my post and deliberately fixating on my comment about her “messing about” isn’t helpful. It’s a turn of phrase used to quickly describe the situation, I am well aware she is only 15m and still a baby who needs her mother’s comfort.