13 month old in filthy mood after second nap

[notalwaysalondoner]

My 13 month old DS is in an absolutley terrible mood most afternoons after his second nap. He's often been a little cranky over the last 3-4 months, but it used to be a feed or a distraction would settle him within 5-10 minutes and he'd then be a happy chappy until nearly bedtime. However, recently, he is absolutely furious, to the point nothing will calm him, he will often refuse his dinner, and be basically miserable until bedtime. The only thing that has changed (apart from his age) is his second nap has crept a bit later as we tend to work on awake windows, so I would say his typical schedule now is:

• Wake 7am
• Nap 10-1130am
• Nap 4-5pm (often we put him down at 330 or 4 but either way he takes 30 minutes to actually go to sleep with lots of babbling. Nursery sometimes manage to get him down a bit earlier, around 245, but to me he never is showing any signs of tiredness)
• Bedtime 730 - he goes down beautifully and sleeps through (although has only been doing this for about a month since we night weaned)

Another change is he started nursery about 4 weeks ago, but it's only 3 days a week and he seems very happy there, is eating and sleeping well.

I'm not sure if we should just move to one nap - but he seems quite young based on what I've read, and I think he would be very tired if I kept him up until 12 for a nap. Are we just putting him down too late for the second nap and then his body clock is confused when he wakes up so close to bedtime? Any tips?

Or another idea - should I wake him early from his first nap to try and help him have his second nap earlier? I am so reluctant to wake a sleeping baby as he used to be a difficult sleeper at night, but am willing to try it if it will help...

If I was you I’d touch nothing and live with the grumpiness. 11.5h overnight with 2.5h of naps is an amazing amount of sleep. I can’t believe your DS goes to bed only 2.5h after the end of the last nap! Mine needed 4-5h of awake time by that age before bedtime.

HOWEVER I do think you are somewhat setting yourself up for failure when it come to dropping to one nap. Your first nap is far too early to be the only nap of the day and it’ll be really difficult moving it suddenly 2 or 2.5h later in the day. I also wouldn’t be surprised at all if your DS starts waking early (think 5am) in the morning at some point to accommodate that mega morning nap.

If I was you I’d consider having a 30 minute power nap 10-10:30. Then I’d do another nap 1:30-3:30pm. The eventual idea being that you lose the power nap and make the long nap earlier, as opposed to trying to push the long nap later. As you say, it may also be that he’s grumpy waking at 5pm as it’s close enough to night time to feel like he’s woken up from night sleep.

Think I would cut that first nap. At that age think I was doing 930am to 1015am. 115pm till 330pm wake up. Then as my lo got older I cut the first nap down, as it was harder to go down got second nap and getting too close to bed.

baby sleep cycles are around 45 mins mine was awful if woken any other time (multiples too so 90 mins etc. could you move the afternoon nap a bit earlier as it probably feels like bedtime.

by 14 months my son was down to 1 nap, as were 3 out of 4 of his baby “friends” too, so I don’t think it’s too early. Not saying that’s a representative sample obviously.

we went from naps 9-10:30 and 1:30-3 (ish, from memory) to nap 11:30-1:30. Think we started at 11 though just to make the transition. I think the reason we did it was both naps were getting later in the day and he was waking up grumpy from both

I'd just cut to one long nap. Start off having it around 11am after a decent morning snack then push it later.

At that age I did a power nap of 30 mins in the morning and then a longer 2 hour nap after lunch. Happy toddler who slept through. Might be worth a try!

My most recent two babies both dropped their second nap by 10m.

Youngest is 15m.

Wakes 7.30
Naps 11.30-12ish for about 2, 2.5hrs.
Bed 8.

Low blood sugar on waking. Milk before sleeping and on waking can help.

Thanks all. Think I’ll give a go making first nap earlier and shorter and second nap also earlier, and if that doesn’t work after a week or so I’ll move to the one nap transition. I’d love to keep two naps as long as possible as I find I do all my chores in the first one then often am able to have a nap myself in the second one, whereas if he only has one I suspect I’d find myself doing chores the entire time even if the total nap length is the same! I’m not keen to live with the grumpiness as he really is inconsolable for the entire 2-3 hours.

Just a heads up Any changes you make can take up to 3 weeks to see a difference.