Nap dropping early question

[KellyandBean]

My DD is only 10 months old but i am posting this here as i figure this is more of a toddler issue and might receive more of a reply here. DD has been doing 2 naps since she was 7 months old. I think she tried to drop at 6 but it took me a while to catch on that it was happening. She used to take the morning nap about a hour and a half after getting up in the morning. Recently she has decided she can stay awake for 3 hours in the morning which is presenting some problems for us. She wants to take a REALLY long morning nap. I'm not sure how long since i always have to wake her up an hour or so into it in order to preserve that she will still take an afternoon nap...which i also have to cut short because she seems to want to nap for 3 hours then as well and also really late into the day making her bedtime very late. She is awake 3 hours, nap, 4.5 hours, nap and then i put her to bed 4 hours after that. Way to many hours awake for her. I get the sneaky suspicion that either she is already ready for one nap a day or this is her in the early stages of dropping to one nap? I keep reading it can take a few weeks for them to drop but i am also reading that it doesn't happen until 12 months at the earliest. I tried doing one nap a day for 3 days but it was a MESS. She was awake 4 hours (very cranky by the end of it) and then took the nap (almost 3 hours) and then i had to keep her up for another 5 in the afternoon. But since she was only up for a total of 9 hours during the day she started waking up at 3am to have play time UGH. It is like 2 naps = to much awake time and not enough time for sleep and one nap= not enough awake time and to much sleep. IYO what should i do? Is she really ready for one nap? Should i just force her to be awake 4.5 hours in the morning and then 6 hours in the evening to allow for 14 hours of sleep and 10 hours of awake time? TIA! I really appreciate any reply and if there is someone out there with a young toddler one one nap i'd love to see an example of your day!!

[NewMoonMum]

Not sure how helpful this is, but I can say for sure 12 months may be average, but not the rule. Some babies never really take proper naps. Trying to remember, DS is 3 in a week, and he dropped his second maybe around 14 months? Could she possibly start her day earlier so a second nap would not run too late? 

Also just keep in mind that there is plenty of variability in exactly how many hours of sleep a person really "needs".

And yes, it does seem to take quite a while to regulate the # of naps...at least with DS even for months it would be a few days with a nap, a few without-but I would put him down regardless which paved the way for an easy transition to quiet time. And it was dicey for a while while he adjusted!

Good luck

[Tattooed Hand]

My DD started fighting her morning nap around 10 months. It was hard for a good few weeks there.I can't give you advice because around 8 months her night to day sleep ratio changed. She all of  sudden began sleeping 11 hours a night and less during the day (usually 2 1-hour naps). When she began sleeping later, she still only slept 1-1.5 hours at a time (sometimes less and those were not fun days). I dealt with it by just putting her to bed sooner, at 6pm or even a bit sooner. So she would get 12 hours at night. Some days she would take a longer nap in the late morning and a shorter nap (I would rarely let her go past 30-45 min) in the late afternoon and she would go to bed at 7:30. Otherwise, she'd be down by 5:30-6. But I don't know if that would have worked if she was taking 2-3 hour naps.

Once things straightened out, a couple of nice things happened. One, she started waking up closer to 7am when before she would be up at 6am. So now she sleeps from 7:30/8pm-7am and 1 hour around mid-day. At 10 months it was more like 13 hours a day. She sleeps less than most babies though and always has.

Good luck making it through the transition.