My 11 month ds#2 has been resisting his afternoon nap. Is he too young to go down to one nap?
I try to keep him up about 3 hours after he gets up in the morning. His morning nap is normally about 2 hours. The longest he would sleep is 2 and half hours. If he skips his afternoon nap then he miserable come 5 5.30.
Any advice would be great!
my 3 kids went down to one nap around 12 months. I moved the nap to midday (11:30-12). Slowly move the morning nap later by 5 minutes every day until you find a time that prevents the 5:30 misery. But do move bedtime up by 15 minutes.
Mine gave up two naps at around the one year mark. He is in daycare. During the week they report he naps for an hour and a half to two hours starting at around noon. On weekends he sleeps for as long as 3 hours starting anywhere from noon to 2.
Both you and baby will adjust in time.
We had one kid that was like this and we did a "power nap" for 30 minutes at 4:00 p.m. It was just enough to stave off the crabbies without interfering with bedtime. We were eventually able to move the morning nap late enough that it turned into an afternoon nap (but we had to eat lunch at 11 a.m. for awhile).
Also, try waking 30 minutes earlier in the morning - that might get that morning nap in and salvage that afternoon nap for a bit longer.
Good luck!
Lots of kids go down to one nap around their first birthday. For many daycare kids, it could be forced upon them out of necessity.
If your son is that tired 5 or 5:30, he might still need 2 naps. Have you tried making his morning nap sooner? You mentioned that you try to keep him up for 3 hours. What if you let him sleep after 2 hours. Would he be able to take an earlier afternoon nap if he did that?
It's a little harder to "go with the flow" when you have more than 1 kid. Especially if the older one is a bit more "on the go." My oldest was in preschool when my youngest was little. I think as he got closer to turning 1 he sometimes missed that morning nap on days that my oldest has preschool. I don't really remember.
If he needs sleep, he needs sleep. Play around with the times a little bit until you find something that works. But it does sound like 1 nap is not enough for him.
If your child were in child care they would already be down to one nap and working on sleeping on a cot instead of a baby bed.
They move to the toddler the day, or as soon as possible, and they have to be on the same schedule as that room when they get there.
So get up, eat and do stuff, play, go do things, eat lunch, go down for nap, get up around 3 and then stay up the rest of the evening. Sometimes our kiddos would be super tired and would doze off around dinner time but it would just be for a few minutes.
at 6 months mine both were one nap a day kids. at age 2 they dropped all napping. they also slept about 11-12 hours at night. you can ajust your childs nap schedule to fit their needs and dropping to one nap a day is certainly ok.
i would increase the awake time and just push that morning nap back about 30 minutes at a time till the child is getting a once daily nap starting after lunch and lasting 2-3 hours
he's probably overtired and you need an EARLIER morning nap
He should be getting 11 to 12 hours at night, so whatever his natural waking time is count backwards 12 hours. Let's say he wakes up normally at 7. So, he should go to bed at night around 7. Awake at 7, down for morning nap no later than 9. Two hours at that time and he's up at 11, feed him lunch, play for a bit, then back down again at 1 (2 hours in between). If he's not going to sleep at 9 then try 8:45, yes earlier.
Here at my daycare all the under 17 month olds take a morning nap around 8:30, they are up by 10:30 and then all of them go down again about 12. There really is only about 1.5 hours between their day time naps. And usually they take a cat nap when they go home at 4 to 5 pm. And yes they still sleep 11 to 12 hours at night.
All my daycare kids take naps up until they go to kindergarten. It's habit. The room is super dark (like can't see your hand in front of your face dark), there is music playing (on a 2 hour timer so they know if the music is playing they go back to sleep) and it's every day no matter what. I get all kids to nap at the same time for the afternoon nap, usually that's around noon. Usually the ones that arrive earlier than 8 am take 2 naps up until they are about 22 months old, some kids past 2 yrs old. And they are so much better behaved and healthier because of it.
In general, they give up the 2nd nap, and then the only nap, 6-12 months before they can really handle it! It's insane! So, yeah, it's logical that he's going to be horrible around 5:30. I'm not sure there's much you can do about it - you may try a few things, but the switching around can be just as bad as the existing situation. And, unfortunately, they aren't so good at scheduling their bodies the way you need to schedule your day (especially with another child). And sometimes the longer days screw them up, you know?
I think you can try the power nap idea and see if it works - but if he's already in a meltdown, that might be tough. You definitely don't want him to sleep 2-3 hours then, of course, or he'll be up all night. One of my stepdaughters had a foam toddler chair, looked like an easy chair with arms and a back, but the seat lifts up and stretches out to make it like a thick mat with arms/sides. She'd keep it in the family room and just sit the kids down there at afternoon nap time for "quiet time" with a book and a blanket or bear - sometimes the reclining part made them close their eyes without the stubbornness of fighting off your "official" nap time. If they didn't sleep, at least there was some quiet. You can try some soft music or even a white noise machine to block out the daytime noises.
But even if this works for a while, at some point he will give up the 2nd nap and you will go through the misery. My personal belief is that this is all to help you develop the stamina and patience it takes to get them through adolescence! Good luck!
After my first, I let my babies dictate when they napped and went to bed. It was so much easier than trying to establish a nap schedule with my first (who was the worst sleeper of them all). To me, if my baby didn't want to go down in the afternoon, that's fine - mine sometimes would take a power nap before dinner. That was ok. It was usually a temporary phase while they adjusted. If they skipped that and were particularly crabby, I just put them to bed a wee bit earlier. I found I just kept adjusting to them - all the time. Worked better than me trying to put them on a schedule.
As for is he too young - all my babies napped differently - one of my kids gave up naps altogether at just after 2 (he was too active to want to nap), and one still will given the chance (in school).
One thing I did during that awkward time when they were cranky before dinner time - was I'd lay down for a little rest in the afternoon and they would join me, and often fall asleep (if they needed it). They wouldn't have gone down on their own.
Let him sleep when ever he wants to - and try to nap when he naps.
Our son napped till he was 7 yrs old (only on weekends during 1st grade).
He was growing so fast he really needed the sleep.
As long as he's getting a total of about 14 hrs sleep (till about his 2nd birthday) (11 at night and 3 from naps), then he's getting enough sleep.
This will vary a bit around growth spurts - they'll sometimes need a bit more during a spurt and slightly less in between spurts.
I'd try to keep him to 2 naps for at least 3 more months. He really still needs it.
I don't think that he is too young to go down to one nap. My son went down to one nap around 11.5 months. He usually naps from 11:30-12 for 1.5-2 hours. He goes to bed at 8 pm and sleeps until 7:30 - 8 a.m.
It may be a temporary change for him. My 9 yr old gave up her afternoon nap at 18 months and would sleep a little bit about 5:30. My older kids refused to nap in the afternoon for about a year and then went back to it.
