going from 1 nap to 2 - how do you do it and when is it time?

3003girl

So LO has always been a crappy napper. She has settled in to sleeping 10-11 hours a night, but has been fighting naps more than usual lately, or finally falling asleep for just 30-40 minutes. I'm not sure if it's the heat or if she's ready to go to one nap.

Our schedule right now:

Bedtime starts at 7 with a bath. It generally takes her about an hour to settle down into sleep, so she is usually sleeping at 8:30. 

She wakes at 7am

First nap is around 9:30 - she was sleeping for an hour, now it's down to 30-45 minutes

Second nap is at 1:30/2ish - again, was sleeping for an hour +, but now down to 45 minutes. 

It's also getting harder to get her to sleep at night. She seems tired, but it is taking her over an hour to get settled in. If I try earlier, it takes even longer! SO I'm wondering if moving to one nap from 11-1 would help? I don't know though...  any advice is appreciated!

 

drea_raye

I wish there was a good guide somewhere to naps! I am always wondering if J is napping normally (he kinda sleeps a lot...)

What I do notice is that his awake times get shorter as the day goes on, where your LO's seem to get longer.

Does she have particular sleepy signs? I cue off of J, since his sleep is still all over the place.

I have read other posts here that the shorter nap was a sign to go to just one nap... hopefully you get somebody with experience weighing in soon. 

If it was me I would try moving the morning nap like you mentioned, and then judging if she needed a second one but how long the first was, and again tired signs...

rosiemomma

right around 12 months my dd dropped her morning nap. It took about a week of some days having one nap and some days two, I would just do my best to keep  her active and awake during the morning, it made her afternoon nap about an hour earlier and then I would try to hold off bedtime to the normal time (if she fell asleep to early she would wake up early and want an earlier nap) 

When she became restless in the early mornings I moved her bedtime and hour later and than normal.. I would try that first.

jennterrell

around a year, our afternoon nap became hit or miss. He'd fight it so long that it was useless.  So i started keeping him up later in the AMs and eventually transitioned to napping after lunch. This was a month of kind of alternating 1 and 2 naps/day until we established a habit.

3003girl

We've decided to start to follow her cues instead of put her down on schedule. DH took her to a playgroup this morning, so I think she will skip out on her morning nap because she wasn't tired when she left, so there will probably be no sleeping in the car. So I think today will be the first one nap day! We'll see how it goes! Thanks!