Advice on whether it's time to switch to one nap

[*Carrie*]

Hello everyone, I'd appreciate your thoughts on whether I shoudl be tweaking my routine and continuing to offer 2 naps or whether my lo is crying out for a switch to one nap... here goes,

DS is 13 months and naps have been going a bit "wonky" for a while now. I've been reading the FAQ's and chatting to other Mums with babies this age and the impression I'm getting is that I should try to hold on to two naps as long as possible. However, DS is happy to stay awake for increasing lengths of activity time and it doesn't leave enough time in the day for 2 decent naps. On top of that over the last couple of weeks he has increasingly had trouble getting to sleep for his pm nap - because of this I've tried cutting his am nap but it leaves him with two very short naps and I'm worried about him 1) not getting enough daytime sleep and 2) forgetting the knack of sleeping past the 45 min stage...

Our routine looks something like this,

7.30am up, dressed, bottle
8.45am breakfast
11.30am Nap - up at 12.15 just so that I can still offer him a nap later
12.30 Lunch
2pm Snack
3.45pm Nap - wake at 4.30pm
4.30pm bottle
6pm Dinner
6.30pm bath, massage, stories
7.30pm bed

He has been having some restless nights and also been needing some help to get to sleep if he has not had medicine but we had a period like this a couple of months ago when he was teething and at the moment he is getting his molars (which are taking an AGE!!) so I'm inclined to think it's his teeth. He also has a bad cough which bothers him a bit during the night...

DS has had experience of a one nap day because we swim on a Monday and he misses his am nap. He normally goes down about noon and will sleep for an hour and a half/two hours then I put him to bed super early - it seems to go fine...

So, what do you think? Should we be making our transition to one nap? Thanks for any help! I'm sooooo confused!

Carrie

[Aly Mac]

hi there - just going to pop this over to toddler sleep seeing as your lo is a toddler now    you will get more age appopriate advice there.

[Layla]

Carrie, if he is fine to stay awake for long periods of time then I would give 1 nap a go. You can always go back to 2 naps if he seems very cranky in the morning and offer him a short nap (maybe 30mins) to tie him over until the long afternoon nap (which you'd offer no more than 3hrs later on a 30min morning nap).

It really does depend on your baby so I would probably try for 1 nap and he might very well surprise you . So I would probably do nap around 4.5hrs A time & bedtime no later than 5hrs A time

7.30 - wake
12-1.30/2 - nap
6.30-7pm - bedtime

Good luck & let us know how it goes

[Mom_to_L&S]

Hi Carrie,

For what it's worth, here's my experience :
I too thought that Lena was far too young to transition and I wanted to hold on to 1 long nap + 1 catnap for as long as I could but it quickly resulted in Lena being too undertired to take a decent long nap AND she refused the catnap so we had a few days with only 45mins of daysleep  .
At daycare, they encouraged me to give the 1 nap a go and it worked like a charm, Lena is really surprising me in the amount of A-time she can handle, while still having great 12-13H nights (in fact, nights have never been better since we switched!)
We transitioned 3 weeks ago and Lena will still have the odd day where she will nap twice (mostly at daycare) but it is very very rare.
Our days look something like this:
6.30-7am : wake-up
11.30-12 : nap 2H (often 2H10 or 2H20mins), so wake-up between 2pm-2.20pm
6.30-6.45pm : bedtime

I would give it a go and keep a close look at Rory's tired signs and offer a catnap and/or early bedtime if needed.
It took Lena about a week to take this long a nap, it would be only 1H15 at first and on those days, we did a 6pm bedtime. I found that after a week, her bodyclock had adjusted to only sleeping once a day and that's when the loooong nap occured. (and this coming from a recovering 45 minute-napper)
I was scared as hell to try it, but it was so worth it.

Good luck!

Sophie x

[*Carrie*]

Hi, thanks for the advice Isabella&Jasmine's Mum and Sophie. Yesterday, after I'd posted I read a few more of the 2-1 nap posts and decided to experiment. Rory went down for his nap at 11.30 and instead of waking him after 45 mins or so as I would normally have done I let him sleep as long as he wanted. He slept an hour and a half and for the first time in ages he woke happy and gurgled to himself in the cot 

I aimed to get him to bed for 6pm but it was more like 6.30 by the time we'd done all the normal things (bottle, dinner, bath etc) and we did give him medication for his gums (as we have been doing for a couple of weeks on and off). Anyway, we didn't hear him late evening which again is a first for ages and although I heard him at about 4am it was brief and he self-settled then slept til 7am!!!!!

I was all set to try a similar pattern today especially as he was swimming this morning and we normally end up with one nap on Monday but wouldn't you know it he fell asleep in the car on the way home - must have got about 15 mins and so we had snack and lunch before putting him down at 1.30pm - we'll see what happens now!!!!!!

I'll definitely give it a go this week and see how he adjusts - thanks for the advice again and Sophie, I've got my fingers crossed that he takes to it like Lena!!!!!

Carrie
x

[Bryony]

Carrie

Just wanted to pop in and see if I could help - but can't add anything to the great advice you've already had.  Hope it all goes well! 

If it looks like he can't handle one nap, the other thing you could do is a longer AM nap and a short catnap later (we have nap at 11:30 - 1pm, and then a 20-30 min catnap around 4:30pm, then 7:30pm bedtime). But it looks like you have a great plan - fingers crossed!

Bryony x

[jess, lukeys_mom]

Hi Carrie, I just realised this is you. LOVE your new avatar.
Looks like great advice from both pp's, I would say the same, it sounds like he can handle the one nap. But also don't worry about messing up his routine if he needs 2 naps one day, just go with the flow. We are in the same boat atm! (except on day care days where it's still 2) good luck xx