Oh no nightmare sleep day!

[snowboarder]

Thought these days were behind me.... Decided young master snowboarder was ready to start having just the one nap/day - as is now 16 months - he's been having great naps for a while now at 9 and 2, but waking up super early in the morning. Not a good decision - seemed fine until had hysterics over early lunch and screamed himself to sleep at 12.30. Woke screaming again at 1.10 and no more sleep. Earlyish bedtime seemed fine until 5 mins after put to bed when screamed for 10/15 mins (went in, nothing wrong) - v unusual - lately has been taking a while to fall asleep but sounded perfectly happy. Have very bed feeling for tonight now too!!

Am distraught that have totally thrown everything, and don't know whether now to persevere OR give up, he's clearly not ready, and go back to previous routine. Tsk. Bad day.

[ludoscotts]

oh no bless you! If I were you id carry on, Its always hard with a change in routine but if its best for you then he will adapt it might just take a few days.

Do you have a nap routine? my little one started creating a huge fuss when we tried to change her naps and was very unhappy and wouldnt settle.

I used to just put her in her cot and she would lie down and nap but once I changed the timings she would scream and scream.

I bought a set of books that I only kept for nap time and introduced a nap routine of change nappy, some juice or milk and 2 stories then put her in cot, that did the trick. Doing a routine seemed to relax her into knowing nap was coming and after a few days was brilliant at nap times again.

good luck with the change in your routine.

[charlottep]

my son went to one long nap a day at about 15 months, but we did it slowly after he was showing very clear signs of not needing his morning nap, i.e. waking early and taking a long time to drop off at 9am. Perhaps instead of cutting it out altogether you could start by cutting short his morning nap, say no more than 10-15 mins just to take the edge off, but not enough for him to to wake up early knowing he can make up for lost sleep at 9am, if you see what i mean?

[randomv]

How was last night?

There's definitely a tricky phase when they no longer need both naps (or one in the case of my LO) but are not quite ready to last without it. In my experience it's just been a case of bearing with it while they get used to it, keeping things as low key as possible and keeping a sharp eye out for signs of overtiredness. I always think it's better to have an early bedtime (even if it means a slightly earlier start)as that can always be pushed back again once they have adjusted, as LOs sleep so much better when not OT, which obvioously has a knock on effect the next day. My son wakes early if I put him to bed at say, 6.30pm due to no nap, but he'll wake at 5.45 if I keep his bedtime at 7 or 7.30 on those days - they're crazy I tell ya!

[snowboarder]

Miraculously good night's sleep (woke at 6.10 huzzah has been 5am for a while now!) - and I have cheated today - he had 10 mins cat nap in the car this morning which seems to make all the difference. Quite hard to make sure they only have 10 mins in cot though - hard to work out when they fell asleep!! I think it's a combination of not quite being ready, waking so freakin' early all the time and the fact I have almost 'trained' him to sleep in the mornings after breakfast! I thought going to one nap might help with the early wakes....but yes there will be a bit of a transition I think. He'd better hurry up though - lots of the toddler activities start 9.30-ish - on the assumption they don't nap I suppose!!

[randomv]

How about you don't put him in the cot for that morning nap? Much easier for him to grab 10 mins in the buggy en route to an activity? My LO hated (still hates) being woken in his cot but he's fine if he just has a catnap in the buggy or car. I'm sure that reducing that early nap and working towards 1 nap per day will help with the 5am starts long term.

Glad you had a better night though - you must be feeling a bit better?

[Pickle]

When M was working towards dropping her morning sleep (much earlier - she was down to one nap a day before she was 1, whereas C continued with 3 naps a day until 18 months) we did exactly as proposed by randomv. If we had an activity to go to at 9.30am I would just get us organised and out the door about 30 mins earlier and go for a walk, 9 times out of 10 she'd fall asleep and have a short nap prior to arriving which did seem to make a huge ability to her then managing to get through the morning without any major meltdowns and successfully eating lunch before naptime.

In the earlier days I then left the groups a bit early to get home for an early lunch, but gradually was able to drag it out a bit longer.

P x

[Belle]

I think this sounds like a gd idea. Although in our case my little boy seems to have completely lost the knack/will to sleep in buggy, prob because has been largely put in the cot to nap for months.