My daughter is 13 months and it became clear to us about a month ago that she was ready for just one nap a day. The first few weeks of one nap per day went well - I would give her a snack at 9:30 or 10:00 and then put her down and she would sleep for about an hour in a half (which is great for her as she never slept more than 30-40 minutes before!). Anyways, the past few weeks have been awful - she has screaming fits before her nap and it takes about 45 minutes to get her down. I have tried switching to having her nap after an early lunch (11:00 or so) with no snack beforehand but that does not help. I could try giving her lunch at 12 and then try putting her down, but I am afraid she would sleep too late and it would interfere with her nightime sleep. Please help! What time does your child nap, esp. in relation to when he/she eats? Thank you!
When both my children went from two naps to one, they both had lunch around noon, and were down for a nap at 1:00. My daughter would sleep from 1-3, my son 1-4. Bedtime was at 8:00 and was never an issue.
Good luck.
For our youngest(18 months) we do lunch at 12 and nap 12:30-2:20-3:00, bed 7:30-8:00. However I have noticed that sometimes he gets way too overtierd, so on those days we do 2 naps.
Hi, I'm going to tell you what my 2 year old does and what she's done since she was about 13 months old. She eats her lunch at about 1130 (I always feed them firts) and goes to sleep about 1 for one hour. I've found that she cannot sleep longer than that or she won't go to sleep at 8, her bedtime. If she fights it and won't sleep or plays for a long time I make her get up and active again before 4. Sometimes she will play that long in her room. Sometimes if she is really fighting sleep, I tell her she does not have to sleep but that it is quiet time that she has to spend in her room, reading or playing quietly. That calms her down when she does not want to take a nap. When she was younger I would let her sleep as long as she wanted but I've found as she got older she really only needed that one hour and it is an absolute necessity. My 14 month old is still doing 2 naps a day and seems to be doing well with that. Hope this helps.
My daughter takes one 2 hour nap daily. She usually goes to sleep between Noon and 1:00 and sleeps until 2:00 or 3:00. She has taken naps as late as 2:00 and slept until 4:00. She always eats lunch prior to nap.
She goes to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 and it has not been a problem. Were she not to nap, that would cause sleep trouble.
She is a lot younger than when my daughter went to one nap. She was much closer to two years. But it was at 12:00 for a long time lasting 2-3 hours. Then as a three year old it was at 2:00, and finally, at four years old she naps occasionaly at 3:00. I am a big believer in getting them to nap as often and as long as possible. But if after a week or so, it doenn't improve, keep pushing it back and/or often a late day snooze (before dinner). In my experience the afternoon nap doesn't really interfere with bedtime until they are close to 4 years old. What really matters is the total numer of hours of sleep in a 24 hour period - ask the pediatrician or google it. My four year old still gets about 12 hours per day.
What I've read states that when going to one nap a day, it is usually the afternoon nap that is kept. Times range from an hour to 3 hours and times range form 1:00 to 4:00. (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child - Marc Weissbluth). You might want to try moving her bed time earlier so she doesn't get over tired in the morning.
When my daughter moved to one nap, we gave her lunch early (between 11 and 11:30) and she was down by 12 and slept 2-3 hours. She wakes up in the morning at 7am and went to bed by about 8pm. You may have to tweak her evening routine to be a little earlier too. If she is sleep past 4pm then it could potentially interfere with the evening routine but before that should be fine.
Good luck!
