18 month old - do I just push on with one nap now?

[Liverpoolgirl50]

Our 18mo DD has always been slow to drop her naps, however the last few months she’s been showing signs of needing to drop to one - up anywhere from 4:30, sleeping at 9 and then refusing the afternoon nap.

We used a sleep consultant when she was 11mo who said when she dropped to one, to start with it at 10:30 and then gradually push it back to 12. Well yesterday she woke at 5am, I put her down at 10:30, literally prising her eyes open with matchsticks! She slept for 1hr 15, woke at 11:45 and then was out for the count at 6pm. She woke about 5 times in the night and then up for the day at 4:45am today!

Do I push on and put her down again at 10:30 or let her have 2 naps today?

DD was much younger transitioning to one nap. I’d be trying to push the one nap to 12-2ish. That saw DD going down at 7 and up 6-7 for a good while til she dropped the naps altogether.

I would try to push the nap. Every day a bit later so that you reach around midday.

Thanks ladies.. we've pushed on with 1 nap over Christmas, and miraculously she's now waking at 6am, making it to 11am for a nap but only doing 1.5 hours, then bed at 6:30pm

Is that long enough in the day.. or do I need to keep persevering and hope it starts to get longer!

@Liverpoolgirl50 that sounds fine to me OP. My son is around the same age. He has a bit longer in the day (2 hours in one nap) but he wakes A LOT in the night

@Theduchy Ahh thank you - we are lucky, she will sleep from 6:30/7 - 5:30/6 with maybe one wake up around 2ish to help find her dummy, so is doing 10/11 hours at night and 1.5 in the day. I just keep reading they should be doing 2-3 in the day, and she is knackered by bedtime bless her.

Great job! My DD of similar age sleeps 1.5-2h depending on how tired she is. She wakes up between 6 and 7am and starts the nap 12 or 1pm. This takes her to be ready for night sleep around 8-9pm which I don't mind. She sleeps 10h a night and that's natural for her so that's what I go with even though on paper it might say she should sleep longer.
I would really observe how yours naturally sleeps and as long as it fits your family life and you don't mind waking up 6am then you have nothing to worry about. 🙂

I think some babies just don't ever do the long naps. I was always really jealous of the people who got 2-3 hours of peace in the middle of the day, but none of my DCs would ever do that, no matter what I tried. I was lucky to get an hour, so I think you just have to go with it.