From 2 naps to 1

[Tattooed Hand]

How do you know when it's time to drop to one nap?

DD's sleep has recently changed alot - she used to sleep around 9 hours a night with 2 2-hour naps. The last few weeks she started sleeping 11ish hours a night and taking 2 1-hour naps. But lately I am lucky if I can get those 2 hours of total nap time out of her and she is more like 1-1.5 hours of nap time a day.

How do you know when it's time to switch? She naps now at 9 and 2. Should I put her down at 11ish for a one a day? She wakes at 6am like clockwork and goes down between 6 and 7pm (waking what feels like a billion times in the middle).

(x-posted in LWAB)

[elizaMM]

Yes, try it and see how it goes. If she fall apart at 10, that's probably a sign she's not ready ;-). Good luck!

[kismetbaby]

My DS dropped to 1 nap recently. . .gradually over the past month and a half (started the switch at about 11months). He used to nap at 10am and then at 3ish. He goes to bed at about 8:30 and sleeps till about 7:30am. Basically, it just became harder and harder to get him down for his morning nap, till it wasn't happening till 11am which meant that his afternoon nap was getting too late or was a real battle. Also the morning nap was only 30-45min.

So I just stopped *trying* to get him to nap in the morning. . .for awhile some days he'd be happy playing till 12noon and then he'd sleep for 2 and a half hours and that would be the 1 nap and some days he'd be cranky and need to still have the two naps. If he "asked" to nap in the morning (by asking to nurse and just falling asleep or being terribly cranky) then I'd let him and if not then we'd have a 1 nap day. It was kind of frustrating not knowing what his schedule would be for that month or so, but now he is very consistent. . .he falls asleep around 12:30 and sleeps till 2:30 or 3pm. And we have no more struggles over falling asleep for the nap and much less struggle at bedtime. So that was really how I knew it was the right thing.

[MamaPhD]

When DD was taking 2 naps, she napped 10-12, then 4-6pm. Went to bed at 8:30-9, woke up around 7-8am. Around 15-16 months old, I knew something was going on when I put DD down for her 1st nap, and she would happily babble away and play for more than one hour before falling asleep. After a while, I felt bad I just left her in the crib by herself (she was totally happy tho) so I tried putting her down gradually later by 30 minutes-1hr-2hrs. It took maybe 2 weeks for the schedule to settle, going back and forth btween 1&2 naps. Then Our schedule was more like 1 nap 1-3pm, bedtime 8pm, wake up around 7am.

I have to say I really mourned the 2 to 1 nap transition. It was sooooo nice with 2x2hr naps! Those days will never come back - sniffles! Now at 22mo, if she napped more than 30 minutes any time of the day (usually dozing in the van), she can't fall asleep until 10 or 10:30pm, which is way too late. So I think we are done with naps at this point. Bedtime around 8pm, wake up around 7-8am, and no nap. Sometimes around 3-4pm, we do a little "fake" naptime sometimes where we will sit together on the rocking chair or lie down on the floor & play so DD can have some down time. Couple of times I dozed off and DD played by herself, lol! This time around, I'm not so sad any more because I'd rather have no nap than a 2 hour bedtime!!!

[lach]

It took ages to transition both kids from 2 to 1 nap. My DS is still going through it. DD's natural 2 nap schedule was 7am wakeup, nap from 9-10, nap from 12:30-2:30, bedtime at 6:30. DS's was 5:30am wakeup (don't even get me started), nap from 9-11, nap from 1-3, bedtime at 6. I didn't have them on a strict schedule or anything, I just went with their cues, so the above is all +/- half an hour or so. Though with DD you could pretty much set a clock with her needing a nap at exactly 9am and 12:30pm. And DS has been ultra-sleepy since the day he was born, and you can pretty much convince him to sleep anytime anywhere.

When they drop down to one nap, they're not tired at the morning nap time, but they really can't make it to their old afternoon nap time. That's where the transition was really a PITA. They'd need a nap at 10 one day, and then 11:30 the next day, and then 10:30 the third day. Or, more likely, they'd need 2 naps every other day, and 1 nap on the other days. And of course if they took one nap from 10:30-12:30, there's no way they could make it until bedtime. So suddenly bedtime would be at 4:30 that night and I'd be scrambling to find an early dinner that would last them through the night.

My advice would be to go with the flow as much as possible, and recognize that you may very well have a tired, cranky kid for a month or so until he gets used to the new schedule. Even if he makes his own schedule, it can be hard his internal clock to reset itself, kwim? The best advice I received about dropping naps, too, is that it's really common for them to need to alternate between the old schedule and the new schedule for a few weeks. You might want to try that and see how it goes. Maybe I'm thick, but that never even occurred to me and when a friend suggested it, it really improved the situation.

[Tattooed Hand]

Thanks, ladies. This is really helpful. I do miss the 2 2-hour nap days since I am a grad student and that was great time to work.

I guess I'm just concerned because her naps have been SO short lately and she's ready to sleep at 6pm. She wakes up at 5-6am and I would really love to get her to bed a little later in the (vain?) hopes that she could sleep in a bit closer to 7am...