2-1 transition so hard!

[sunflower321]

I'm finding this transition so difficult. She's actually been trying to drop the second nap for at least 3 months now without success. Is this normal? She's 14 months now. She never does short naps. Always 1.5 hours or nothing. For months now she has been refusing the second nap some days. Meaning she could be awake from 11 for the day. Even from 10.30 if morning nap was early. So I have been trying to push morning nap later closer to middle of the day. This was really successful about 3 weeks ago but only lasted a week. She was napping at 11.30 for 2-3 hours and sleeping 7-7. But for the past 2weeks she's all over the place again. EWs mean she can't last the morning so has to take nap early. Then some days takes a second but more often doesn't and is so OT and cross, whingey and clingy for the day. This morning she returned to bed at 8! I assume she'll take a second nap. I certainly hope so after such an early nap. I have never capped her naps. Always letting her sleep as long as she needed and this has generally worked ok. It would break my heart to wake her but I'm thinking capping the morning nap to 20 minutes might be the only solution, is it? Sorry I can't really post routine cos it changes so much depending on her wake time and how tired she is.

[*Becky*]

14 months is still pretty young, both of mine were on 2 naps at this age but we did a 20 min am nap and then a 1.5 3 hours after. Could you try that? the other option is just to go for it with one nap but you will likely have to give it a few weeks to settle into it. My DD did not do a decent nap for about 3 months so we just did EBT's.

[Jodes112]

Wanted to second what becky said! My dd is almost 12 months and if she has a long am nap (longer than 30 mins) she will not have a PM nap. So we cut the AM nap to around 15/20 mins just to get her through to early afternoon, and she will sleep from 1.30-3 and then bed at 7.

Its worth a try x

[HenaV]

We were the other way around (but still on 2 naps) - long AM nap and then CN around 4.30 for 30mins before 7pm BT

Hena

[jenn1975]

It really is a weird transition. For us, we had to cap night sleep to get the first nap, cap that nap in order to get the second, cap the second to get a decent BT. It was maddening. We did that from 12 mos-15 mos, then finally totally stopped giving the second nap and slowly pushed the first nap later and kept BT early for awhile. Once the nap got a bit later, BT got later as well.

After dropping the second nap at 15 mos it took him about 4-6 weeks to get used to it and the nws and ews stopped. We really had to resist the urge to give two naps and forge through it. It was tough but once he adjusted it was smooth sailing.

Also expect the nap to be shorter at first once you drop the 2nd. It's part of their body adjusting and settling into one nap, and it does get longer.

Good luck! You'll be on one nap before you know it!

[sunflower321]

Thanks so much for the replies. From reading all of your replies it looks like the solution is to cap a nap. I suspected I would have to cap the morning nap but hoped I wouldn't. I'm going to try it today but I hate waking her when she's so tired and is fast asleep. Yesterday was a good one nap day. She slept 10.30-1. I know it's too early but it was enough to get her through the day. But today she went back to sleep at 8.15am. I'm going to go in and wake her at 9 after 45 minutes and hope she'll take another nap at 1. 12.30 would be better but I think it might be too soon. I'll see how it goes.

[sunflower321]

Things have gone from bad to worse. She took an afternoon nap from 3.30-5 pm yesterday. 2.5 hours! So I assumed she wouldn't be tired and should go to bed late at 8.30. In hindsight this was wrong because she was very tired. She woke at 5.15 this morning. So with such a EW I assumed early nap and afternoon nap. She took morning nap from 8-9:30 but refused afternoon no matter what I did. So she went the whole day awake from 9:30. She went to bed at 6:25 tonight. So what do you guys think I should do? I think the problem is OT. Should I still aim for short am and long pm nap at 1ish and EBT do you think?

[jenn1975]

My opinion is that going back and forth between one nap and two makes it a longer drawn out process.

If she early wakes, I'd maybe try for an 11:00 am nap and then do an EBT of 5:30-6pm. Keeping in mind that this will be temporary. It's just a super early BT until you can get to a later nap.

If you don't think going cold turkey to one nap will work, commit to limiting the first nap to 30 min and over the course of a few days or weeks, keep shortening it and pushing it later.

We found our only option during the 2-1 was an EBT and no more second nap. At some point you have to take the plunge. Expect OT will happen and if you're consistent, she will adjust.

[*Becky*]

Personally I don't think going to one nap is going to work if she is already OT and I would stick with the 2 for a good 10 days or so and see how you go.

[Jodes112]

I still think you should try a 30min am nap and a longer pm nap xx

On EW id still aim for a close to normal nap time, so 9/9.30 for 30mins and then pm still around 1.

[*Becky*]

On EW id still aim for a close to normal nap time, so 9/9.30 for 30mins and then pm still around 1.

yes this is what I would do x

[pinkladyangel]

Hi there. Our lo was a year old when he went to one nap. At 9 months he started to refuse 2nd nap. He hated when we capped morning nap and was really grumpy. We tried allsorts over 3 months and then we bit the bullet and went to one nap and super early bt. Eventually we started moving nap forwards every week and at 17 months his nap is now at 1.15. It does work itself out but its a long old road getting there. Just keep telling yourself its not forever