One nap a day - kind of short - any ideas?

[ladymugg]

Hi there

My nearly 15mo daughter has been on one nap a day for about 6 weeks now... Her routine is:

6am A (bottle of cow milk)
8 am breakfast
11/11.30 am lunch
11.30am/12.30 pm sleep
1.30 pm A
3 pm snack
5 pm dinner
6 pm milk
6.45 pm sleep

She has on occasion slept for 2-2.5 hours but it seems more consistently to be around 1.5 hours.  I had always read from here and other places that this one naps should be around 2-3 hours long. 

She won't go down for a cat nap usually around 4 pm (have tried on the days she seems super tired), but some days struggles with 6.45 pm bedtime. 

Are there any methods you would recommend for keeping her down for 2.5hrs ish in the one sleep?  I have tried leaving her to see if she will go back to sleep which sometimes works, but not after 1.5 hrs.  She is getting a bit old for things like pick up/put down which we used for night waking and short naps when younger.

By the way I am happy to post this kind of thing in the 2-1 nap transition thread however have noticed that most of the mums posting in there are there to support each other rather than give advice, which is why I have made a separate post.  Hope this is OK!

TIA

[jessmum46]

Hi there . That's quite a variable time for her nap, is it usually closer to one or the other?  Does she show any tired signs beforehand?  I might be tempted to pull nap slightly earlier, and see if that gets you a longer one, and/or pull bedtime in earlier to keep to a 12-12.5h day on a shorter nap and 12.5-13h on a 2h or more nap.  So perhaps more of a 6/6.30pm bedtime?  What do you think?

That said.....is she STTN?  Maybe just a slightly earlier BT on shorter nap days would do it without any other changes?

[ladymugg]

That was supposed to say 12.00 pm not 12.30! 

It is usually 12 pm if we have been out and about and 11.30 if we have been home during the morning (activities tend to go to 11/11.30am around here, so we need to get home, have lunch etc).  But I will try getting that 11.30 for the next few days and see if that helps.  Thanks!

Would be reluctant to have an earlier bedtime at this stage. She does STTN but I don't want the flow-on effect of an earlier BT to be an earlier WT in the morning. 

Thanks!

[ladymugg]

OK I tried an earlier nap time today of 11.20 am and she was making noises at 1.05pm... so (allowing 15 minutes of wind down time) that is 1.5hrs.  I know it is only one day but honestly it is symptomatic of previous times when I have put her down earlier, later, whenever... That 1.5hr seems to be getting more and more entrenched.  And right now its 4.05 pm and I am trying to get her to have a nap (she was yawning away) and I'm just hearing her whinging.

 

Any other ideas?  Resettling tips?

She isn't necessarily LSN but seems to be OK-ish on that combined 12.5-13 hr total sleep, but I still want her to have a longer nap to get her through the afternoon a bit easier!

[jessmum46]

I wouldn't bother with two naps now, I'd just make your day a bit shorter x