Any advice on dropping or shortening DD's morning nap?

[mrsjuan]

DD is 12 months - if she sleeps in the morning she stays asleep for 2 hours and is therefore not ready for an early afternoon nap and either ridiculously overtired by bedtime or having a late afternoon nap, not being ready for sleep at bedtime and then being unsettled at night.

Ideally I think an early afternoon nap would work. This is what she has at nursery (2 days a week) and generally sleeps well at night after that (although it may also be that she is tired after a day at nursery)

But she just seems so tired by 9am and if I try to keep her going until after lunch she gets very grizzly (don't know why she doesn't do this at nursery but they assure me that she's happy and active until about 12)

So I'd settle for a short morning nap of about 45 minutes but once she's gone she's gone for 2 hours.

Not sure whether to wake her up or try not to let her sleep at all?

Would love to be able to just go with the flow (as I'm sure people will recommend) but I am just desperate for her to sleep at night! She gets up at 5.30-6am no matter what time she goes to bed so if she goes any later than 7 then she is even more tired the next day!

I would just try to stretch out the time the nap starts bit by bit, i.e keep her up till 10, then 10.30, then 11 etc and eventually you will have one long middle-of-the-day sleep.

Or you can try waking her after 45 mins but I never like waking a sleeping baby

My charge is 11 months and she is doing the same thing this week! Long morning nap and no afternoon nap, and a grizzly mess by 6pm! Yesterday I woke her after 90 mins and then she did sleep for an hour 230-330pm and was a bit happier til 715pm. Am doing the same thing today, just woke her and she is ok today about being woken... will see how this afternoon goes!

I can't really complain about her sleep though, last night she went to bed at about 730pm and woke up at 7am. She's generally pretty good at night. Days a re weird at the moment and I am starting to think I will try for a long midday nap, noon til 3pm, as the naps at the mo are so all over the place they stop us doing activities.

Whatshe - I've never thought waking a sleeping baby was a good idea either but if I try stretching the morning out, how will that work with the afternoon? If she sleeps 10-1 say, she'll be shattered by 5

I suppose I'm stuck with whinging at one part of the day for the time being!

She may have a little nap in the afternoon, or she may be very grumpy later in pm, or she may go to bed earlier. It will be a bit hit and miss for a while. Transition from 2 sleeps to 1 can be a tricky time, the other thing you could try is 2 sleeps one day and only 1 the next - you have to play it by ear a bit.

Or you could wake her but leave it longer then the 45 mins, maybe 90 mins or whatever.

Don't worry, in a couple of months it will all be sorted out, it just seems like forever at the time

what i did was just start waking her 15 mins or so early from her morning nap for a couple of days at a time until the morning nap got down to about an hour then started trying to put her down later for it. so just before she went down to one nap from 2 she had morning nap at 10, after a very short while she started resisting the morning nap and then i just decided to keep her up and feed her lunch a bit earlier and it worked. now she goes down for afternoon nap between 12:30 and 1:00 for around 2 hours and is not at all grumpy before bedtime. hope this helps

I am having exactly the same problem with 11 month dd. This is the third day that I have kept her up all morning so that she can fall asleep on ds's preschool run at 12:30 and she was awful all morning and then fell asleep over her lunch. I felt very sorry for her but not sure what else to do!

Other problem is of course if we go anywhere in the morning she will fall asleep in the buggy or car... will keep watching this thread for genius ideas...