Dropping to one nap a day

We are talking naps again today, this time we are talking all about the dropping down to one nap per day. So that’s when we’re going from two naps down to one nap. Now this one can take a bit of time and it can cause a few hiccups along the way, but don’t worry. I’m going to address all of that and give you the tools you need to make a smooth transition down to one nap a day. The first question is when do our toddlers or little ones feel ready to drop down to just having one nap a day instead of two? Usually it’s between 13 and 17 months. Occasionally, we see signs around 12 months, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to make the move. And sometimes little ones aren’t ready until closer to 18 months. But typically between 13 and 17 months, this nap transition will start to occur, but this transition is longer than 3 naps to 2 naps. It can take a while. So don’t despair. If you do have a little one that seems to want to make this transition on the earliest side, at 12 or 13 months, you’re more likely to be in there for a slightly longer ride with this, where it might progress a bit and then go back a bit. Hold onto those two naps for as long as your little one seems to be needing them and taking them. If they are enjoying three hours a day, split over two sleeps in the day and sleeping well at night, then don’t change it. Don’t change it just because age changes or just because their friends are changing, stick with it because they’re telling you that that’s what suits them right now, when they are ready to make the change you will start to see signs. What are the signs? What you’re going to see is probably one or the other of the naps becoming a little bit shorter in length or challenging to settle. So it could be the first nap or the second nap. Quite often, it is the second nap, but it could be the first nap. It might be that they take the first nap and they don’t have quite so long. And then they really struggle to settle for the second nap. That’s quite a common example and you just know that something’s changing, something’s shifting. Now I always like to give you what not to use as a sign and don’t confuse this with actually a timing issue because sometimes people think, “We are ready to drop down to one nap now,” when actually they’re not ready to drop to one nap, they just have the timing of the two naps a little bit off. And so if the timing is off, you might find that you have bedtime struggles and feistiness at bedtime. And it’s because the little one is either overtired or untied at bedtime. But that could be because the naps aren’t placed quite right for them at this point in time. And that they’re not having adequate awake windows or they’re too long or too short. So always look at that first, whether it is timing related. On a two nap schedule, we’re usually looking for about three hours in total and no more than three hours a week between sleeps, assuming they’re having a good full nap. Short awake windows, if the nap is shorter than we would like, this can be a timing issue that can confuse us and let us think that actually little one’s ready to drop a nap. Which might be the worst thing to do. So be sure. How do you go about it? And what steps you take? Well, there are a few ideas and things that do work differently for different people, but I would definitely, recommend my favorite approach, which is where you nudge the first nap. So the morning nap later, so you extend the morning wake for window. So instead of waking up at let’s say 6:30 and then nap time happening around 9, 9:30, we start pushing that out. Now we want to push it to as close to midday as we can get it. But sometimes especially if these are early stages with your little one making the transition, they’re not quite ready to go all the way to midday. And you might find that they are falling asleep on their early lunch. So it might be 11, it might even be 10:30. If you can’t get them to 10:30 or 11, they’re possibly