Ready for 1 long nap? please help!

[MamaBrown]

Hi all

My LO is now almost 12 months old and has an A time of about 4hrs 30 mins.  Recently, he's had a lot of NWs so I'm hoping someone can take a look at our EASY and let me know if its time for 1 long nap.

I've been doing a lot of tweaking but cant seem to get it right.  I was giving him a 2 hr nap in the am and then about 30 mins in the pm, but changed that to 1.5 hrs in the am and then 1 hr in the pm, but the NWs still continue.  His bedtimes are getting later and later, so maybe switch to a much shorter pm nap?  Or will that make him OT?

Here is our EASY, but it changes every day, depending on how well he sleeps the night before.

A - 6:45am, milk
E - 8am
A - 4 hrs 20/30 mins
S - 11:15
A - 12:45
E - 1pm
A - 4 hrs approx
S - 4:45pm
A - 5:45pm
E - 6pm
A - bath etc, 7pm
S - 8:30/8:45 pm

any help would be really appreciated!!

xx

[firsttimemummy]

personally I would try it and see - around this age DS started somedays having one nap and the next day having two - over time he only had one afternoon nap (having the same amount of sleep whether it was 2 naps, or one long one). I just went by when he seemed tired (after a battle of getting him past being tired an hour after getting up in the morning!).

[MamaBrown]

Thanks for the reply!

How long should I let him sleep for in the morning?  Am I right in thinking he shouldnt get more than 3 hours total nap time in one day as it will rob him of night time sleep?

[kayra]

his pm nap seems very late in the day so his day is rather long, 14 hours.
i would probably try bringing his morning nap earlier, so that's the shorter one, then bring the pm nap earlier so that he's up from that around 4 so ready for bed around 8. so you could try his am nap at say 10, for 45min, and then put him down for his pm nap at 2.
it depends on your babies sleep needs, my DS isn't high sleep needs as such but he wasnt ready for 1 nap till around 18mths but prior to that we had about 3 months of a schedule similar to what I wrote above-which went wonky eventually so we ended up on 1 nap. My instinct is that 12mths is a bit early for a full on 1 nap, unless your LO is very slow sleep needs. There are plenty of LO's here who have done that, but if your LO isn't low sleep need, going to 1 nap might just create more OT.
3hr day sleep seems about right.

[firsttimemummy]

I can only go by what I did with DS - he would waken around 7am then be ready for a morning nap around 10 (1.5hrs or so) then his afternoon nap around 12.30 (again 1.5 hrs). Now he is awake around 7am and sleeps 12-3pm, and goes to bed 6.30/7pm (depending how early he got up from his nap).  As I said, it varied from day to day and I just went by his cues.  Some days he would sleep for up to 4 hours and it wouldn't affect his nighttime sleep - but he has a really strong body clock (Even if he has a really late nap and wakens at 5pm, for example, he is still ready for bed at 7pm!!).  Personally I found that when I did try to waken him for naps he was a misery for the rest of the day - I know wakening works for lots of people though! Sorry this probably isn't much use!!