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If your toddler wakes up early from a nap...
If your toddler wakes up early from a nap, what do you do? Go in there and explain that it's still naptime, let them stay in there and talk to themselves, etc.
I don't know how to get Maddie to start napping longer again. 
- Rene
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Re: If your toddler wakes up early from a nap...
It depends - if he's screaming I go in and see what's going on. Sometimes he'll let me rub his back and he'll go back to sleep, sometimes that's the end of the nap. Otherwise, I let him hang out the length of time he's supposed to nap and don't go in because that just gets him all excited. Sometimes he falls back asleep, sometimes he doesn't. Good luck. I have a non-napping toddler playing in his crib as we speak. Ugh.
Early would have to be before 1 hour is up, and unless she's crying or something is clearly wrong, I let her be. At M's age she was still in her crib so I was fine letting her work it out in there on her own. When she moved to a BGB, that became more difficult...but she rarely doesn't nap. If she's been in there or asleep for an hour, I would just call it a short nap day and that's that.
It took S a long time to get her one nap a day to the 2-3 hour mark. She spent several months going back and forth between a whopper nap and a shorter (one hour) one. Eventually it evened out on it's own but the transition really took months.
Between 40 minutes and an hour.
Once he went to one nap a day (beginning at 11 months), his previously short naps, became longer and now he would sleep for 4 hours in the middle of the day if I let him but I do not. If DS wakes up early (hahahaha), then his nap is done. I don't coax him back to sleep. I entice him with something to drink and a snack and we go on with our day.
I'd attempt an earlier bedtime and let the nap be.
oh dear. i don't like that!
how long is mads sleeping at night? is her total sleep time per day on the normal side or the lower side? We started putting logan down a little later and he sleeps during the day longer. When he sleeps too long at night he seems to take a short nap for us as well.
I guess she totals between 12-13 hours of sleep a day. She averages an hour for her naps and gets 11-12 hours at night. I think that's on the low side of normal, right?
She used to nap for 2 to 2.5 hours, but then got a cold and has never gone back to "normal."
thats just such a short nap. I don't know how to get her to nap longer, but if it were me, and it was less then one hour I would go in and tell her its quiet time time till the hour is up at least, give her a book or a quiet toy.
Maybe over time she might lengthen the nap on her own.
Edit: i just thought of one thing. To get a good nap out of logan, i have to get him out of the house to do something physical. park, etc. If not his nap is often short, like 45min-1hour.If she is A, not crazy cranky, and B. is getting sleep easily at night (goes down reasonably well, etc), then I'd let her be. One hour nap isn't that bad if she's getting 12-13 hours at night and a longer nap means less night time sleep at our house.
The other thing to keep in mind (or at least I am!) is that with fall coming and less daylight, she may increase her sleep time on her own as her body adjusts to less light. That's when C really started sleeping well last year. He would go to bed early and nap for 2 hours and I thought all his sleep issues were a thing of the past. Until spring came.
I'd ditto Lindsay on the later nap and wearing them out before. My SIL was putting DD down around 11 because she seemed tired then, and she was only getting about an hour, maybe hour and a half for a long time. At one point that schedule was working but it stopped and she didn't change up the time. At home (and now on leave), I plan as much as possible for the first part of the day (wear her out), make sure she has lunch then put her down. She sleeps for 2 hours each nap, often 3 hours. But I put her down after 12:30 in order for that to happen.
When preschool starts her nap will be at 12:30/1, so there was a method to my madness...it just happened to work out best, too.
Thanks for all of the advice, ladies!!
I'm going to try a later nap. That's best all around because she hasn't been eating hardly anything before napping and one of her best naps recently was a late one (didn't think about that until now.) If that doesn't extend them, then I will have tried and won't worry about it any more.
Thanks again!!