How naps change?

[KellyandBean]

Ok, help be understand this...so once you toddler gets down to one nap a day i understand it gradually gets pushed further and further back in the day? is that right? Does it also get shorter and shorter?  I know when they are on 2 naps a day it is that the wake time between morning wake up and the first nap gets streached out so it is as if the two naps get so close they just get joined together. My 21 month old was napping at 11:00am but we were having a TON of nap fighting so i just went ahead and moved it back to 12:00 and now she is going down amazingly...but her nap is still really long (3 hours!) resulting in it ending way to close to her normal bedtime so now we are having bedtime battles that we have never had before. Do i need to shorten her nap by waking her up? Or push her bedtime back a bit?...trouble is if i push her bedtime back then she wont be getting the same total hours of sleep if she still gets up at the same time (i suspect she would) anyone want to chime in on how naps processed for their tot from when they moved to one nap a day until when they gave up napping? I'd love to have an idea on how things might process as times goes on. TIA!!

[mamacolleen]

I think you probably have two options: 1) wake him up a little earlier from his nap or 2) push his bedtime a little later

I think as toddlers grow their sleep needs change with them. DD (29 months) still naps (generally from about 1-3pm) and has a later bedtime than she did a few months ago. I have found that she usually needs about 5 1/2 - 6 hours wake time before she gets really sleepy again. So she sleeps 10 hours at night and 2 in the day and that seems to be enough for her. I'm guessing once she starts to outgrow her nap that we'll need to push the bedtime earlier again to make up for the lost daytime sleep.

[KellyandBean]

Thanks for the reply mamacolleen! So when your DD wakes form hr nap at 3:00 what is her bedtime? Maybe i just need to move her bedtime back like you said. it sucks because i keep trying to wake her up from her nap short to get her down earlier but it isn't working and results in her just being really cranky all afternoon. Maybe she needs a 9:00 bedtime instead of 8:00...hmmm.

[mamacolleen]

We aim to be upstairs having the last nursing session at around 8:30 and ideally she's asleep at 9pm. She does still sometimes sleep fight but I think that's more related to her tempermanent and the fact that she's always seemed to need a little less sleep even as a baby. The odd day where she misses her nap alltogether she will go to sleep a little earlier and much easier. I just know that neither of us are at the stage where that should become an everyday thing.

I will wake her up at 3pm though, no matter how long she's been napping because I've found that sleeping any longer will really mess up readiness for sleep. I think she probably shouldn't sleep past 2:30 to really eliminate any sleep fighting at bedtime but I haven't gotten it together to test that on a regular basis.

We do have some crankiness if I have to wake her up from her nap but it usually doesn't last long thank goodness.

[cristeen]

My little guy's naps have actually moved all over the place, and not followed a pattern (for a while naptime was 1, then 11, now 12:30ish).  I try to follow his cues.  At 2 yo, he goes to bed at 8, and gets up between 5 and 7 depending on the day.  He needs a minimum 4 hour block of time between waking from nap and bedtime, or it isn't pretty.  Today he went down about 1:00, without a peep.  Most days it's 12:30, but a few weeks ago he was asleep at 9:30 in the morning on daddy's lap.  I do encourage him to sleep as long as he likes, but if he starts encroaching on that 4 hour window (so if it's 4 pm and he's still asleep), I will wake him up.  Regardless of when he goes down or how long he goes down, he will only take 1 nap a day now, max.  So on the day when he slept 30 minutes in the car at 10 am, that was it for the day (and on those days bedtime gets moved up to 7 or 7:30).  But there are also days when he just refuses to nap.  I typically draw a line when my frustration level peaks out (trying to put him down), but again, bedtime gets advanced on those days, since he gets manic. 

In your situation, it sounds like time to push bedtime back a bit.  How much time does your LO need between waking from nap and bedtime?  That's the first thing you need to figure out.  Then you know what time nap is, and how long it's lasting - can a 7:30 bedtime work?  7:00?  (Sounds like you're doing earlier than that now.)  Or is it time to push it back to 8?  Her getting up at the same time even with a different bedtime is normal.  As they get older, they do need less sleep, but if she's still getting about 12 hours of sleep out of 24, then you're probably doing okay.  If not, she'll let you know.