Managing naps

[Pineneedlesandpeppercorn]

My twelve month old is currently only on one nap. On the rare occasions he has two, the second is around 4pm which then impacts bedtime and doesn’t go down until nearly 10.

But I don’t honestly know how to manage it.

Let’s say he wakes at 7 (normal) naps 10-11.

Then he won’t be ready for his next nap until gone 3, which means he wakes at 4. That’s just about OK for an 830 bedtime but usually it’s more like - wakes at 7, naps 11-115, then overtired by 5/6.

Night times are currently horrendous so any help appreciated.

Gradually push the nap so it falls closer to lunch time. Try pushing the LO by 15 mins each day so 10.15, 10.30 etc until it’s around 12/12.30 then allow for long lunch time nap. Pushing the nap with help rebalance the day

My 16m old has been having 1 nap for about 3 months now because same as your LO the 2nd nap was getting too late. I just made her bedtime earlier. So she usually wakes about 7am, nap by 12pm (hopefully for at least 1.5 hours) and then bedtime starts about 6.30pm. I am lucky as she generally will sleep through 7 to 7 so routine works for us. It did take a few weeks of her being grumpy in the mornings getting used to a 12pm nap but I found going out and doing jobs (supermarket etc) or park/activities helped and also made sure she was nice and tired so goes down for a good few hours at 12. Also making sure she eats lunch before the nap also helps

It is tricky at that age, mine used to fall asleep in his lunch sometimes. He dropped his morning nap (or rather I stopped trying to get him to nap and pushed through till lunch) at about 14 months. Early lunch, of course!

You should then get a long nap. Better to get food in them beforehand, otherwise they wake up hungry earlier.

We are going through the exact same. Not enough time for two naps but one nap leaves her overtired. Our little one doesn’t sleep long enough to warrant just one nap too only sleeps approx 45mins-1hour 🥺 following this thread xx

You defo need to push the morning nap back - have an early lunch around 11am and then nap after that for now - the longer you can keep him up in the morning the more tired he’ll be for his nap and then will have a longer lunch time nap. If he’s tired in the afternoon there’s no harm putting him in bed early - sometimes mine went to bed before 6pm and still didn’t get up until 7am