17 months - day vs. nigh sleep

[szaniab]

Hello I'm back with some questions.
My DS is almost 17 months. We switched to 1 nap around 15 month and that went surprisingly well. DS has been an early bird for months now (6 am) but when the switch was completed it happened quite often that he would "oversleep" till 7 am so we though the wake up time may be moving. His schedule was:
6 am - wakeup
12 - 2,5 to 3 hours sleep (2,5 most often)
7.30- 8 bedtime
With time, the 7.30 or 8 bedtime become not realistic (played in bed) and we moved till 8.30 pm. But DS moved also the wakeup time till 5.30 no longer sleeping 10 hours per nigh as he used to. As a result he his quite tired at naps so more and more wants to sleep for 3 hours which causes a later bedtime and so on.
Should I cut the nap to 2 hours? And what should be the bedtime? I'd love DS to continue having 10 hours a night. Best, Anna

[Layla]

Ana, yes I would start shortening the nap... but not the whole hour in one go. Try waking him up 2.5hrs into the nap & then over a couple of days to 2hrs. I would aim for something like this:

6am - wake up
12-2 - nap
7 - bedtime

So overall its 11hrs at night & about 2 hrs during the day

hth a little
Layla

[andibig]

Completly agree with Layla and shortening the nap.I had to do that with DD at around that age which i hated doing but it did help protect the night sleep.

[szaniab]

Hi,
I wanted to report back that the strategy worked well. By shortening the day nap to 2 hours my DS gradually also started to wake up in the morning around 7 (yeay!). So now being almost 18 months DS sleeps like that:
7-7.30 wake up
12.30/1 - 2 hours nap
8.30 p.m - bedtime
It worked well but recently pretty bad night waking started again (3-4 times a night with some non-sleeping "breaks" lasting for an hour or so). I noticed a simple rule - the quality of nighttime sleep depends on how much or actually little he sleeps during the day. On weekends, when he's with us DS wakes up 40 minutes into the nap and there is no way that he would sleep more. Then at bedtime he goes down really well 8.15 - 8.30. and usually sleeps uninterrupted night. On weekdays, with his nanny DS wakes 40 minutes into the nap too but resettles easily and sleeps until she wakes him up on the 2 hours mark. At bedtime then it takes him 40 -50 minutes to fall asleep (8.50 - 9 p.m.) and night wakes a lot.
I know that 40 minutes nap is little (though on weekends he gets by pretty well) but do you think I should gradually cut the nap and by testing establish the lenght of nap that would not damage the nighttime sleep? Many thanks in advance. Best, Anna.

[Layla]

Maybe try cutting it to 1.5hrs... I do think anyless & he's going to get overtired.