17 month old w/ 12.5 hours of sleep one day and 14 the next

[Mystic]

Here is what our routine looked like yesterday and this morning:

Yesterday:
  He woke up at 7:00am but only because he did not go to bed until 8:30pm.  Since he slept until 7:00am I could push his nap to noon.  We are working on taking only one nap it varies everyday.  He slept from noon to 2:00pm.  Then he was asleep for the night at 7:00pm.  He did get 14 hours this day.  He is getting 14 or so hours every other day.

Today (so far):
  He woke up at 5:30am this morning.  For some reason he will only sleep 10.5 hours at night.  I would understand if that was all he needed but he is having a hard time making it until his next sleep period.  It is only 8:00am now so we have not gone down for our nap yet.  Today will be a two nap nap because of the early morning which means he will go to bed at 8:30pm and sleep until 7:00am.

  I really have no idea where to go from here.  Nothing I try works.  Somedays its 14 hours of sleep he gets then some it may only be 12 hours.  Any suggestions?

[Jess-J&E]

It is so hard to make that transition to one nap.  There are going to be days when you get exactly what you want for sleep and others that aren't so good.  :?
  My son is  14 months and iwas doing the same thing.  I couldn't stand the inconsistency so  I have decided to only do one nap no matter what time he wakes.  When he wakes at 6:30 or 7 we can do a noon nap but on days like today when he wakes at 5:30,  I put him down at 11.  I try to stay as close as I can to the 12  o'clock nap so that his body clock knows what to expect and so he doesn't have too long after his nap until bedtime.  I also put him to bed each night at 7.  I was doing exactly the same as you and I had a  7pm bedtime one night and then 8:30 when he had to take a second nap.  So I just bit the bullet and went to one nap.  The transition took about 2 weeks to set in but it did finally work.  Now he takes a two hour nap and goes to bed at   7 each night.
I hope that helps. 
Jess

[Mystic]

The inconsistency is what is driving me nuts, so I am going to try to stick with one nap.  That does sound like the best thing to do.  Thank you so much for the advice.

Christi

[Carmela's Mom]

What I did is just a set time...for just transitioning I chose 11:00...I would give Carmela a snack at 10:30 a.m. and then start our nap routine.  She would sleep from 11-1 .... then she would go to bed at 7 p.m. each night.  I found she slept better on the days of one nap and would wake around 6:30ish.  No matter what time she woke though, her nap was at 11....

After a few weeks, I pushed it back to 11:30 and now we're at 12.  Although we did regress a bit and I'm now considering making it 11 again and "starting over" just because I was putting her to bed late for awhile  :oops: and we never really got back into the swing of things....so now I find she's falling asleep in the car at 9:30  :roll:

It's always a work in progress.  Good luck.  Forgot to add that my daughter is 16.5 months.