What did your DD/DS do when they dropped from 2 naps a day to 1?

My DD has just dropped to one nap a day. In the last month she had been cutting her two naps shorter and shorter and taking longer and longer to settle to sleep during the day. We got to the point a couple of days ago where all she was having was 20-30mins in the morning (used to be around 9.30am but was pushing as late as 10.30am a couple of days ago) and then she was progressively taking longer to settle for sleep after lunch and was having a shorter and shorter nap until she only had 30mins, starting at 2.30pm after taking over an hour to settle a few days ago. She sleeps very well at night, but was starting to take longer to settle to sleep at night also.

So the day after this happened I decided to try one nap in the day for her - have an earlier lunch and straight to bed after lunch instead of having a play then nap. This seemed to go really well for the first two days - she was tired late in the morning, but would find a second wind, have a good lunch and have a great 2+ hour nap straight after lunch (starting around 12.30pm) and then settle to sleep really well at night.

But for the next two days (yesterday and today) she has really really struggled with tiredness leading up to lunch. She ended up having a cat nap yesterday for 5 minutes or so before lunch, and that meant that she was back to the old trick of taking ages to settle for a proper nap after lunch and only having a short nap, and today she has been sooooo very crankypants tired with me keeping her up to have an early lunch and then nap :( I hate seeing her so cranky and tired - it's not right :(

She is cutting at least four teeth at the moment, so I know that is contributing to her fussiness, but I also know that she's struggling with the tiredness more. She seems to be in this limbo place somewhere between 2 silly short naps and one nice long refreshing nap. I just wanted some advice and to hear some others experiences of dropping to one nap a day. I'm not at all sure what to do - I feel that if I let her have a nap late in the morning when she is starting to get tired she won't sleep for long as she'll be hungry for lunch before too long, and then will probably need another nap late in the day, which would probably mean she'd be up until all hours until she was tired enough to go to bed for the night. It feel like a difficult juggle at the moment, and I'm not sure what to do. Any advice or experiences would be very helpful!

TIA,

Miss C

Just follow your instincts....

If my DD, 20 mths (who usually only has one nap a day for about 1-2 hrs around lunch) seems to be struggling and needs a nap I just put her down for one, and whether she has a ten minute nap or another one hour sleep, she's always better for it afterwards - and it doesn't stuff up her bedtime routine either....she's a pretty adaptable toddler.

sometimes it will be a case of riding it out. is there anyway that you could bring lunch forward a little bit (for example, there are times when DD was transitioning that she ate lunch earlier like at 11am ish). that way she might be able to sleep say, from 12-2ish ITMS. and bit by bit as she gets used to regulating her new body clock routine of one nap a day you can move lunch to a more conventional time. (for example DD has just turned 2 and her lunch is now at 12.30-1.00pm on an average day) and then goes for her nap at 1.30...

i am confident that she will find her groove going by the fact that she appears to sleep well during the day in the past xx

Miss c - a few weeks ago I was convinced #2 was doing the same thing - but it seems she has just gone back to 2 naps a day, for now anyway! I am trying to play it by ear and follow her lead - bit hard though! She seems to sleep for 2 hours in the morning and then struggle in the afternoon. She has just started to crawl, was teething (still no teeth though) and seems to have grown overnight again - big steps for a little chicky. I always struggle in the transition stages.... Sounds like you are doing a fabulous job!

Miss M dropped to one day sleep a few months ago, she was just impossible to put down in the morning and arvo - it was such a struggle. So even though she needed it, we drag out her nap time until around 11.30. Some days she is so exhausted she will fall asleep on our shoulder whilst carrying her to her cot!! LOL I've found that I give her morning tea at around 10-10.30ish and that will get her through until 11.30.

Unless she gets up really early (or has a crappy night) she is usually good till then. Their little bodies just have to get into the new routine thats all.

It is a hard transition.... DS dropped to one sleep months ago, but there are occasionally days where he will have two. For the first few months I would still give him 30mins in the cot at the 9.30 nap time, with a bottle and a book and a soft toy, and see what happened. He would every so often still have that nap. His lunch time nap time is not predictable. But if he was awake after 30 mins up we got and got on with the day.

Similar to Arimeh, now, I try to go with a big morning tea, like a banana and yoghurt and then a small lunch like Vegemite sandwiches, and if he is looking really tired, the sandwiches come early and then is a bottle and straight to bed.He usually has 2-3 hrs and bed time is always constant 7.30.

That couple of months transition, where I was trying to go with the flow, was not predictable, but we are now generally back to predictability... good luck hun. xo

Thanks everyone for your replies :)

It's really helpful to hear other experiences and to understand a little more that she is going through a transition. It's given me the confidence to try and go with the flow a little more instead of worrying about whether she should be at one stage or another.

Mak - since I first posted she's now gone (quite easily with almost no fuss) back to two naps too - she's got 4 teeth coming through now, and she's not sleeping so well at night. We also moved house just over a week ago when I posted, and I really think that surely has to have played a part too. As well as just really mastering crawling, and compulsively rolling also! But I suspect once all these teeth come through (one of them is coming through today) she'll go back to sleeping better at night and then we'll be looking at the one nap again.

Ruf - Emily's first nap time has generally been 9.30am for months too, so I'm getting her ready for a nap at that time like you did. If she goes down fairly easily, great (which she has been). If not, then we'll get up and put her down for one nap for the day later. Her bedtime is also 7.30pm, and that never seems to vary, despite differing amounts of sleep in the day - it seems your DS and my DD are similar this way :)

Clare - yes, I was trying to bring lunch forward, but probably not by enough, but I can do that in the future now, thanks for the suggestion.

Mel - that's another tool that's useful - a good sized morning tea before her nap and lunch afterwards if needed. Ruf's suggestion of morning tea and then straight on to more food if she's tired and then straight to bed is another good suggestions.

leesa - yes, I do need to follow my instincts, and I've been trying to do that, but not knowing what I was doing was not helping - having the info and knowing what's possible will help me to trust my instincts a little more. Thanks!

Thanks for all the tools for my toolbox, everyone! I feel confident of different ways now to approach what she needs on any given day, and I'm sure I can go with the flow a lot better now instead of being anxious about it.

Miss C

DS dropped from 2 to 1 day sleeps about a month ago. So far I've found that if he seems tired, we will just sit in a quiet room and read a book or just a cuddle and chat so he has some downtime but not necessarily a sleep. This gives him a second wind and now we've also added in morning tea - fruit, milk and a rusk type biscuit usually. Then we have lunch between 11:30 and 12. He's really tired by about 12:30 and is asleep for his arvo nap about 12:45/1pm-ish and he usually sleeps anywhere between 2 and 3 hours.