2 to 1 nap transition - 14 months

[Lgw20]

Anyone else have a really hard time with this nap transition!!

My son is either refusing his morning or afternoon nap so yesterday he only had 45 mins all day which resulted in early bedtime, early waking and disturbed night.

Then like on the one nap days we do he seems super grouchy!

I have tried cutting morning nap to 30 mins but he still refuses afternoon one.

I struggle to wake him any earlier than 30 mins as he refuses to have an early morning nap now so goes down really tired.

Any tips! Struggling 😭

I'd go for straight after lunch nap at this age around half twelve for a couple of hours then bed at a 7

@jammiewhammie65

Unfortunately as he is up 5-6am most days he won't last till 12.30.

We tried a few days and he was beside himself.

10.30-11am worked well and he napped for 2.5 hours but had to do early bedtime!

This nap drop is deffo harder due to him waking early. But he's done this FOREver and we tried everything to fix that lol c

Mine was at nursery at this point and it was basically forced on us as they have a fixed midday naptime, which was too early for a second nap. She did have the occasional morning nap there when she started but basically as PP has said, went straight onto just one nap at lunchtime and pushed through the grumpiness until she was used to it (obviously easy to say when she was at nursery so it wasn't me dealing with it, and she had lots of distractions!). But yeah, all nap transitions have been a slog for us, not sure there is any magic formula. Dreading one to zero.

This!

Mine is 15 months and still has 2 naps (10.30 am and 3).

He still has 2 naps most of the time (occasionally refuses afternoon nap) but we’re trying to transition to 1 nap because he starts nursery soon and I think he‘ll just have 1 nap there.

I personally never wake him from a nap (you mentioned waking after 30 mins). If you get woken up mid-sleep cycle it just makes you grumpy and more tired I think!

We’re going to just push his morning nap back later by 15 mins each day until we get to 12pm. Still going to offer his 3pm nap but I expect that he’ll start refusing it once his morning nap is later.

@SalviaOfficinalis

Yes so I've been cutting the morning nap. But I think my new techniques is to try push it a bit later and let him sleep as long as possible.

And then offer a second nap. If he doesn't take it early bedtime.

Because you're right it's horrid waking them up early from a nap!

@SalviaOfficinalis

Was cutting the morning one as he kept refusing afternoon one*

The way I cut down to 1 nap, advice I saw on one of old threads. Cut to 15 mins then 10 mins. Then my lo started refusing this at 945am and was getting to 11am so I pushed to after lunch.
So we did 945am then 1245pm to 1pm put down. Bed 745pm.

The thing with early bedtime is it might encourage early waking. It does with my lo anyways. It might not with yours 🤷‍♀️

This was a tough time for us, mostly because nursery only did 1 nap and he wasn't ready so it was all over the place 🙈

We transitioned a little later (16months ish) and it took a while going back and forward between 1 or 2 naps.

Our morning nap was quite early, 9amish and I kept cutting that one down till it was 10 mins/15mins.
Then a 2hr nap at around 1pm - 3pm.

If he woke up in the morning after 7am then I'd push for one nap at 11.30am, hope he would sleep for 2.5hrs and bed time around 6.30/ 7pm.

Even on nursery days if he woke up really early then I'd give him a quick nap at home and take him in to nursery a bit later.

Glad those days are over!! You will get through it, just takes a couple of months xx