My consistent little sleeper with two naps a day is now barely sleeping and crankier than ever. She is tired and I seem to be missing that crucial window of putting her down for a nap. She is 16moths and has been taking a nap from 10-11am and then again from 2-4pm with the 7pm bedtime. I notice that she just plays in her crib during her morning crib but is cranky for the rest of her awake time. I am looking for suggestions on what time her nap should be moved to and if it is ok to let her sometimes take two naps a day.
hi L.,
my suggestion is to slowly push back that morning nap until you're getting to 1 nap a day- maybe around 12.30 or 1... we did this with our now 2 year old, and we initially started with delaying it by 15 minutes at a time. however, if your little one is already staying up during her morning nap, you could try pushing it back until after lunch- albeit an early lunch, maybe!
Good luck!
I would move back bedtime to 8pm so she sleeps longer in the morning. Then slowly push back the morning nap to 1 after lunch nap. When my daughter was that age, she took a 3 hour nap from 12:30-3:30.
Hey, L.! My 15-month-old has been on a one-nap schedule since she was 10 months. I've found that the best time for us for nap, is around 12:30-1:00 and Lily will usually sleep for two hours. But I've also noticed that if she has a late morning, it helps to push the nap back. And if she has an early morning, we go for two naps. Toddlers seem to have a limit of about 5-6 hours of being awake before they start getting unbearably cranky and over-tired. So if you can time your daughter's nap for about 5 hours after she woke up for the day, then her naptime should go better. And like I said, if there are days when she wakes up early and is cranky, then by all means, go for two naps on those days.
When my son stopped slepping during his morning nap, we just went cold turkey on it. I just switched his naptime to 12:30 or 1:00 and that was it. He would then sleep 3 hours instead of the 2 hours he previously slept in the afternoon.Sometimes you will have a little crankiness but just keep the play time calm and not over stimulating. Feed her an early lunch and put her down at 11:30 if she is giving other signs of sleepiness (not just crabbiness).
