What's up with his naps?

mariantheb · December 2012

My LO is 13 months old and always takes 2 naps; 9-10:45 and 2-3:30. The past couple days, he's been sleeping from 9-11:30 and not sleeping in the afternoon but today slept from 9-10 am only. Is it time to start transitioning to 1 nap, or should I try playing with times?

mom2bemk · December 2012

I was having the same issue a few weeks ago and started trying for 1 nap a day and it did not work out at all, DD barely made it to nap time and then she didn't nap long enough and would wake up cranky for the rest of the day. Then I decided to play with her times and observe when she gets sleepy. Now her morning nap is 1/2 hr later and her afternoon nap is about 1hr later. I should also mention we pushed back bedtime by 1/2 hr because she was waking up too early (I know that goes against the usual advice) and it worked! She has been sleeping really well lately.

Good luck!

mben1119 · December 2012

Sounds like he's trying to transition to one on his own. DS did this a few months ago.

gracefulruby33 · December 2012

I'm going through something similar. DD has been an awesome napper, but lately (the last 2-3 weeks) she will babble/giggle/play with her stuffed animals for at least 30 minutes before falling asleep. Her naps got pushed back 1/2 each and same with bedtime. Yesterday, she took an epic nap from 9-12 and when I put her down at 2:30 (expecting her to play for the 30 minutes and fall asleep at 3 or 3:15ish), she was playing for 1.5 hours! I took her out at 4 and she was up from noon until bedtime at 7. She was quite cranky that last hour, but she ZONKED out at 7.

Long story short, I am just going to keep following her cues. I will keep putting her down at the usual times, or maybe a little bit later, and if she doesn't sleep, she doesn't sleep. The quiet time in the crib is fine for now and then I'll try having her go down to one nap. It seems the transition from 2-1 nap can happen anytime between 11 months and 18 months from what I've read and seen on TB. *shrug* Just follow baby and see what happens.

TwinnyMommy · December 2012

I am going through a similar situation with my twin boys. They used to take an hour nap in the morning and a 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap in the afternoon. They started transitioning themselves to only taking 1 nap a day. Usually it is after lunch around 1 until 3. Their pediatrian had said around 12 months they usually will switch to only 1 nap a day.

bluejetta · December 2012

We also went through this a few times and I too thought perhaps one nap? So on a couple days DD took a 9:30-11:30 nap and then wouldn't take a later nap and was a hot mess by her 7pm bedtime. Daycare also tried a couple days keepin gher up till 11/12 and she did sleep 2 hours but was still cranky and overtired.

I concluded not yet ready for one nap because time between nap and bed is too long. Plus DD wakes between 5:30 and 6 for the day and going 5 plus hours is too much.

SOOO I have pushed back her am nap to 10:15 and I limit it to an hour or just over. I hate waking her up but it is the only way to ensure a later nap at 3/3:30. For the most part she wakes on her own but maybe once a week I have to wake her. I also wake her from afternoon nap at 4:30 if she is still asleep in order to maintain our 7pm ish bedtime.

I think we'll give this another month and then see.

mben1119 · December 2012

bluejetta:

We also went through this a few times and I too thought perhaps one nap? So on a couple days DD took a 9:30-11:30 nap and then wouldn't take a later nap and was a hot mess by her 7pm bedtime. Daycare also tried a couple days keepin gher up till 11/12 and she did sleep 2 hours but was still cranky and overtired.

I concluded not yet ready for one nap because time between nap and bed is too long. Plus DD wakes between 5:30 and 6 for the day and going 5 plus hours is too much.

SOOO I have pushed back her am nap to 10:15 and I limit it to an hour or just over. I hate waking her up but it is the only way to ensure a later nap at 3/3:30. For the most part she wakes on her own but maybe once a week I have to wake her. I also wake her from afternoon nap at 4:30 if she is still asleep in order to maintain our 7pm ish bedtime.

I think we'll give this another month and then see.

Can I ask why not push LO's bedtime back to 6? DS goes to bed before 6 every day, since he has to be up around 6 am every day for day care, so that way he gets 12 hours a night, plus 1-2 hours during his nap.

lana22 · December 2012

i am going through the same thing and not really sure what to do. my son will pass out for his 9:30 nap quickly but lately is refusing to sleep for his afternoon nap. he will babble and roll/walk around, though i try to leave him in for an hour to give him a chance. yesterday i finally took him out of the crib after an hour and then he promptly fell asleep in the car, so i know he was tired. at his babysitter he only takes one nap, but at home he always seems so tired early.

i am going to try and push his morning naptime later and see if i can get him for one, but maybe keep trying for awhile to see if he goes down for a pm nap if he seems tired, depending on how long his first nap goes. he goes to bed between 6 and 7 and wakes up around 6:45/7. if he would go down for a later second nap i'd be fine moving his bedtime back a bit, but he usually seems really tired by bedtime. i'm glad i'm not the only one in this boat, thanks everyone for sharing advice.

bluejetta · December 2012

mabenner1:
bluejetta:

Can I ask why not push LO's bedtime back to 6? DS goes to bed before 6 every day, since he has to be up around 6 am every day for day care, so that way he gets 12 hours a night, plus 1-2 hours during his nap.

She used to have a 6:30 bedtime when she was still waking at night to eat. Once she started STTN she was sleeping 10.5-11 hours max so if she's in bed at 6pm she is up at 5am. It is also hard to have her in bed by 6 since we pick her up from daycare at 5 and have to get home, have dinner, bath etc. Once we think she is really transitioning to one nap we will do an earlier bedtime to help but she still wakes so early that going from 6am to 12pm is still too much right now.

patchen30 · December 2012

I'm a little late to this post but I've had the same issues.

DS used to sleep from 9-11am then 2:30-3:30pm. He started dropping the afternoon nap so I started waking him up after an hour in the AM and then he'd sleep 2 hours in the PM. That worked for about a month, then he started fighting both naps (one one day, one another).

I tried 1 nap by pushing his morning nap back by 15 minutes every 3-ish days. This has been a looong process (started over a month ago) and we've flip-flopped between 1 nap days and 2 nap days. 2 nap days involved lots of crying before both naps, taking a long time to fall asleep, the naps being so late in the day that I'd have to wake him every time for the next sleep period, and overall less sleep time overall.

Currently we're doing 1 nap at ~11ish HOWEVER I found that if I don't also do a super early bedtime (as early as 5:30), I get night wakings. Yesterday DS woke at 5:30am, napped from 10:15-12:15pm, then went to bed at 6:30pm. I think that stretch between 12:15pm and 6:30pm was too long b/c he woke up at night.

It's trial and error, and from what I understand is a long process. A huge key though is if you're doing 1 nap you have to do a really early bedtime at first.

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