Is your child starting to resist taking that morning nap? Is the afternoon nap also getting a lot of protest? Is bedtime starting to get affected by getting pushed out later? Early morning wake-ups?
These are probably the common signs that your child is ready to consolidate down to that one nap schedule. Most parents get so excited when their child is ready for this transition. It means a longer wake-window, more time to get out of the house but it can also be daunting and lots of anxiety around this switch too.
It is common for good nappers and good sleepers to be ready to move to one nap as early as 9.5 months old and as late as 18 months. If your child is in daycare then they are probably already on this schedule and you can now copy that at home. Make sure that your child is ready for this transition as this means that their awake window will now be between 4.5-5.5hrs long.
Another thing to verify is that this is truly a nap issue and not developmental or something else going on. As we all know monthly growth causes a slight setback on sleep and we don’t want to cause too much change here if it is just a temporarily “pro”gression. A rule of thumb is to wait at least 2wks to see if his behavior with naps continues or if it settles. This is important to adhere too as once you start that transition, it is best to stay moving forward and not go backwards. You will only hinder the nap situation further and cause deeper confusion.
Now your child checks the boxes, it has been 2wks of the same patterns and you will ready to move forward but aren’t sure how? Well don’t worry I am going to explain to you how to successfully transition your child to one nap.
An important factor you want to make sure is to keep a strong strong focus that they are still taking proper adequate daytime sleep. If they have been taking 2 naps totaling 3hrs then this one nap stretch should be the same amount of time. You are simply condensing the number of naps down but not the sleep amount. It is a very common misunderstanding for parents not to know that their child still needs to be taking at least a 2.5-3hr nap.
Let us also remember this is not just an overnight switch. It takes about 4-6wks to make this permanent change and reset your child’s circadian rhythm to adjust to this change.
Baby sleep is not linear. CONSISTENCY AND FOLLOW-THROUGH.
Now the second thing is to approach that first window with a gradual nudge about 30min every 3 days until you reach 12-12:30pm. This is a moderate push each morning by extending his window 30min. Now since he was already protesting his first nap in general then this should be pretty easy to achieve but if not then you can always rely on distractions to help aid. These distractions can be a simple room change, dance party, outside air or even a changeup of toys. Try to avoid exposing them to any blue lights such as screens. This will only cause over-tiredness quickly from too much stimulation.
For that second nap you will need to bridge that gap of time between before bed so plan to offer a cat nap of just 30 minutes long, still ending by 4pm. This can be in a pram, stroller or a simple car ride. Whether your child sleeps or not, you will still want to offer this rest time to again prevent over-tiredness come bedtime. Another option is to temporarily bring bedtime earlier such as 6pm to avoid the cat nap yet still set up bedtime for success.
You will see a some instability before the improvements will be consistently steady. Don’t give up or feel it isn’t working. Also do not worry about that earlier bedtime, this is simply a short term solution.
Once they start indicting acceptance you may start to notice they are shortening their nap lengths back down to an hour or maybe a simple 90min. This is a common reaction. Remember the statement “crib hour”? Well you are going to apply this again except this time you are going to call it “crib 2hr”. You are once again going to help teach them how to use their sleep tools and continue their nap. If you have already used a sleep training method the this is when you would implement it to help them re-establish those independent sleep skills. This is a needed factor for them to learn how to go back to sleep and not feel encouraged to continue the early waking. Stay the course and you will see improvements.
Remember you can always reach out for any direction. I am always happy to point you in the right direction.
Cheers to Sleep!
Sound Sleep 4 Bubbies