18 mo old trouble transitioning to one nap

[AbbyJ]

Help!!  We've been transitioning to one nap for the past 2 weeks and we are really struggling. We started going to one nap because our lo was fussing/talking in her crib for up to one hour before falling asleep for 30 minutes in the morning, then doing the same in the afternoon, fussing at night for up to 30 minutes and waking up by 5:00 each morning. 

Now, she at least goes to sleep right away at naptime (1:00pm) and bedtime (7:00pm), but is waking up after 45 minutes crying during her naps, falling back to sleep, but then only napping for 1-1/2 hrs!  She is also up crying 2-3 times each night and is still only sleeping until 5:30 or so!   We always leave her to cry herself back to sleep, which only takes 5-10 minutes, but she is obviously overtired and not herself the past 2 weeks.  We don't want to go back to 2 naps a day as that was such a struggle too, but we don't know what else to do.  Any advice?

[Riverside6903]

hey there,

it sounds as though you daughter may be overtired.  Do you have a pretty good routine before naptime and bedtime?  If she is waking up at 5:30am and not getting her nap until 1pm, she is definitely overtired.  Bad sleep during the day usually leads to bad sleep at night.  I applaud you for putting her to bed at 7pm.  Early bedtimes are best.  What you can do is put her down for her nap earlier say, between 11am and 11:30am, and get a good winding down routine into play here.  When she starts waking up a little later in the morning, you can adjust the time that she goes down for nap.  I have read all three of tracy's books, and in her last one was the story of an 18 month old or somwhere very close to that age, who was always waking early.  Tracy recommended putting the child sleep for his nap early, because she said a baby waking up at 6am was not gonna have enough energy to wait until noon or 1pm for it's nap.  Thus leading to an overtired baby who doesn't nap well and doesn't sleep well at night either.  Remember a good winding down routine is important.  Hope this helps.

[Katet]

We had problems with the transition to one nap & had it earlier (11ish) for quite some time & then for a while had quiet time around 4pm, where both ds & I would hop into my bed & read stories/cuddle for 1/2 hour, I would have gone for a walk rather than the stories, as I knew that was down time for ds, but I was 7m preg at the time & had sciatica & could hardly walk, so the stories was next best & I got a rest too. gradually we moved it all later & the quiet time stopped. But on days when ds was really tired he was in bed by 6.30 (bed time 7.30) & would sometimes sleep until 7am or later to make up for the lesser day sleep.
So maybe also bring bedtime earlier temporarily.