Cutting down to 1 sleep per day

[mooshie]

hi

just wanted to get a rough idea of when your baby/toddler cut back down to the 1 nap per day.

lani is 14mths old next week and this week i have noticed that she is not getting tired enough for a morning and afternoon nap and if she does have an arvo nap from 2 to 4ish then i find at 7.30 she is just not ready for bed (and i am lol)

so the last few days i have been giving her some lunch at around 11.30am then she has been going down at around 12.30pm for a couple of hours. by night time she is well and truly ready for bed.

this seems early to me, my other two seemed a bit older when they went to 1 nap a day. also i am finding it is not every day, some days she seem to need the 2 - just sort of playing by ear atm

[MistyFying]

Hi Michelle

I think it varies from child to child. My DD needed two sleeps until about 16 months, whereas my son kicked the second sleep before he turned one. Granted, I used to give him very early lunch and put him to bed at 11am for a good 3 hrs.

He still has one sleep (is turning three in a couple of weeks) but it's usually only an hour now.

But I think you're doing the right thing playing it by ear. Seems to me she's in the process of ditching one sleep, but that could take days/weeks/months to sort itself out into her new rhythm.

[Lucy]

Yep, play it by ear, becasue it really seems to vary from baby to baby.

Olivia was 16 months when she started not needing her 2 sleeps, but somedays she did, other days she didn't, so we were a bit all over the place for a few weeks........some days she would have 2 x 2 hours, other days just one long sleep from midday. By 18 months she was on just one sleep a day. But I know most babies get to this stage earlier. Usually around the 12-14 month mark?

She is now 21 months and just on one sleep (usually from midday for about 3 hours!) and she LOVES her sleep, thank goodness. But her cousin, who is the same age, fights a bit against the sleep and has around 1.5 hours. So it really varies.

Play it by ear and experiment a bit.........

[mooshie]

thanks girls

actually i am a bit relieved to be going to the one sleep a day now - it makes it a bit easier to plan a few things (i hate going out all the time during their sleep times) i remember ds used to nap from 12 and i would wake him at 3.30 or 4pm until he was nearly 4 yrs old. i think they are like me - love their sleep lol.

[Ambah]

Aidyn dropped his 2nd sleep at about 15 months I think? So now he just has one from 11.30am until about 1pm... and thats it. Although I find it gets very hard after about 4pm, as he will just go cranky and feral... but he will refuse to have another nap anyway.

Aidyn also started off by some days still needing 2 naps, and some days just one, but after about a month he got into the habit of just having the one...

[Lucy]

The only downside to them moving to the one midday nap is that Mummy can't socialise as much!! I used to regularly meet up with friends over lunch with Olivia..........and now we can't do that much..........so we do morning teas instead........

[Melinda]

Jacob dropped to 1 sleep per day at around 13 months. He normally goes down between 11 - 11.30 am and sleeps for anywhere from 1.5 - 3 hours, give or take. More often than not, it's around 2 hours. Come bed time, he's definitely ready for lights out!!!

[BellyBelly]

Elijah is 12 months and has either one big sleep at lunch time or two smaller ones, one mid morning and one mid afternoon - been doing this for a while now. Marisa on the other hand (without a word of a lie) never slept through the day from 11 months. I remember she actually slept once during the day on her first birthday and I couldn't understand why - the next day she had come down with a nasty tummy bug. She really kept me going and going that girl - gosh it was hard!

[Antheia]

Lily used to have 2 naps up until about 9mths old and now only has one at around 11am for about 1-2hrs or she doesn't have a nap at all because she isn't tired enough. She doesn't like napping lol.