My 17th month old daughter still takes two naps a day. It seems like she isn't ready to give up a nap yet because she will be cranky. Lately, my daughter has been waking up very early and multiple times. She wakes up looking for her pacifier and other times wants to get up at 4:30/5:00.
One mom suggested I push my daughter's am nap to around 10 or 11 am instead of the usual 8 or 8:30 am. Even if I could make her stay up longer in the morning, how do I prevent her from wanting to take a nap in the late afternoon? I just think she will be so cranky closer to dinner and want to nap too close to bedtime. When she is super-cranky, I just end up giving in.
Any thoughts on this topic? Thank you. I just thought babies just end up changing as they get older and one day they stop one of their naps. My daughter gave up all of her bottles so far except for two.
Thanks Moms for the advice. A note to Joanne T.: I like the idea of increments to slowly push her nap a little later. My other thought was how do you keep a toddler busy at this age? I can take her to the park but she isn't fully walking yet and it's so hot and humid during the day. I am planning on putting in her Gymboree (just the once-a-week for ten weeks play gym). I can't keep going to malls and stores all the time. Then I want to spend money and my husband and I are buying a house soon. And staying in one room at home (the living room gets boring) so any ideas would be great!
My daughter started preschool at 17 months old. She was still taking two naps so I switched her to one so she could have a similar schedule as she did at school. I put her down for her nap right after her lunch usually around noon and she has always slept 2-3 hours. She is now 3.5 and I put her down around 1pm and she still sleeps 2-3 hours.
I kept moving my daughters nap a little later by 10 to 15 minute increments until I had one long nap (2 to 3 hours) in the middle of the day. It helped to keep her very busy until nap time.
Good luck!
Sounds like she is doing well with the two naps. You'll know when she's ready to go to O. long nap. For us, ideally it was after lunch and sleeping til about 3:30 or 4.
The only time I ever woke MY sleeping baby is when the nap started getting dangerously close to 5:00! lol
All kids are different and she may just want/like/need more sleep!
Be glad she likes her naps!
