The transition to one nap...

[aaahmyeye]

DD is one year old tomorrow ().  The past month has been so painful with naps.  So. painful.  She usually sleeps 7a-7p (wakes to nurse in there but we cosleep so not a big deal).  In Octoberish, her naps were at 10 and 2:30, and lasted 45 mins to an hour each.  Then she started not wanting to go down for her 2nd nap. I had to start waiting till at least 3 to get her down.  At the same time, her morning nap shortened to 30 to 35 mins.  Now if I get two naps out of her, her am nap is super short - 30 mins, sometimes 25, and her 45 min pm nap is craptastic to get her asleep.  It will usually last until 4:30pm, but then she won't fall asleep for nighttime sleep until 8:30, which is later than I would like her bedtime to be. Also, her night sleep seems really disjointed - she will wake 3-4 times before I join her in bed at 10.  Her overall sleep is also less than if I could get her down for one decent nap (my hope is 1.5 hours) and have her normal bedtime/wake time.  The past 10 days I've been experimenting with just one nap, a little later in the am (11:30 or 12).  She handles the longer wake times pretty well.  The problem is, this nap is still pretty short - 40-45 mins. I try nursing her back down but it doesn't work.  That makes for a very long awake time until bedtime -and not enough overall sleep for the day - so we've been moving up bedtime to 6 or 6:30, which means she's waking earlier in the am. AAAHHHHH! Vicious cycle.

Mamas that have BTDT, please tell me this sorts itself out quickly.  Everything I've read tells me they start to sleep longer for the one nap, but when does that happen?  Sometimes I doubt that she's ready for 1 nap -she's so young- but then we try 2 and they are so crappy that it reconfirms my decision to do one.  Blergh.  Someone help me......

[sageowl]

When my DS consolidated down to one nap (at around 9 months), the length of the nap increased big time--from two short 30-45 minute naps to one that can last up to 2 hours! 

[aaahmyeye]

Oh thank you for saying that Sageowl.  Do you remember how long it took before his nap lengthened?  She gets so grumpy on just one short nap, but getting her down for 2 is so hard and she is REALLY grumpy when I try to get her asleep if she's not tired enough.   I guess I should just resign myself to having a grumpy child for awhile.
 

[skycheattraffic]

The transition is rough!! Around 10 months DD went from 2 naps to ZERO! It was MISERABLE! Then I figured out that she needs help to fall and stay asleep.
1) I had to start a naptime routine (same as bedtime without the bath)
2) she needed a much darker room. We got blackout drapes that work fairly well. She still has her best naps on gloomy/cloudy days.
3) she needed white noise to drown out other sounds. I just started having the fan on while she slept to keep a monotone humming going.
Once I got these in place, she very quickly established her nap after being awake for about 3 to 3.5 hours. she started having dependable 1 to 2 hour naps and would often nurse back down for more. At 20 months she's still very much a napper although some days she wakes after half an hour and wants to sleep on me. Good luck!

[MrsGregory]

The transition sure is rough!  We've been on one long afternoon nap for several months now (mine is 14 mos.) and she still has days where when her morning nap was, she is just miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiserable for about 10-20 minutes.  If she is in the car mid-morning, she will still fall asleep.  I have learned, the hard way, that the morning nap had to go.  She would not nap in the afternoon if she napped in the morning.  If she didn't nap in the afternoon, we all suffer from about 3:30pm until bedtime, and there was never any hope of an early bedtime, oh no.  I just plan to keep her awake from her normal wake up time of 8amish until her nap in the afternoon, which is usually no earlier than 2pm, and she will frequently stay down from 2pm until 5pm.  If we do this, bedtime is a breeze and she sleeps well all night. 

My best advice is to try to keep her from napping at all in the AM and then be ready for an earlier afternoon nap - maybe even right after lunch - and be ready for it to be a long one.  I will say that on occasion my Little Miss will wake halfway through her afternoon stretch, and I have to put her back to sleep. 

Good luck, keep us updated!  Here's hoping for nap success! 

Oh, and Happy Birthday to the wee one!