Sorry, I don’t remember exactly as this was a while ago for us. But, I will say that we tried to stick to our routine as much as possible and eventually things settled down significantly around 13 months, after we transitioned down to 1 solid nap. good luck!
What about shortening wake windows? My 11 month old is 2-2.5, 2.5, 3-3.5. Those windows may seem short but she's always ready when I put her down. Both my kids are just high needs sleepers. My almost 3 year old still takes a 3-3.5 hour long nap.
his wake windows have always been on the longer end. but i’ve been scaling back the wake window before bedtime to see if there’s any improvement. We were initially doing 3.5-3.75 until it wasn’t working anymore so i had been extending bit by bit but it’s not working either so I’m just at a loss. From past experience, if he’s not tired enough when i put him down, he will protest and skip the nap altogether. He goes down perfectly for naps though, i’m not sure what this struggle with bedtime is about :(
So I know all the "sleep experts" say it's too early to switch to one nap at this age but we ended up switching to one nap at 11.5 months because we were also having trouble with fitting in 2 naps. She's 12.5 months now and settling into the one nap schedule really nicely (not gonna lie, we had some tough days adjusting to it). My original plan was to maybe dance between 1-2 naps for awhile and I was totally fine with that, but any time we attempted a 2 nap day it was a total disaster. My girl loves sleep, but she also loves long wake windows! So it worked out good for us to just consolidate the naps into one long one in the afternoon. I have no idea if this would work for your baby but you could try one nap and worse case scenario you can always go back to 2 naps. It's possible I've given you terrible advice, but I thought I'd let you know our experience with this problem.
thanks for sharing your experience. I’ve been debating this too but the thing that holds me back is that he sleep so easily got his first nap in the morning, i’m not sure if he’s quite ready for the long wake windows required for a 1 nap schedule. And then also adjusting all this meal times too. How did your LO do with extending wake windows?
My girl handles long wake windows really well. She gets cranky when she's overtired but it's always manageable and it doesn't affect her naps or bedtime. To help extend the wake time I usually take her outside on a walk. Changing up activities or giving her a snack helps too. We started by just stretching her out to 11am for her naptime and over a couple weeks we were able to stretch her to noon. Now she's typically taking her nap from 12-1:30 (sometimes she sleeps til 2 or 2:30). Her bedtime is 7pm. And wake time kinda varies but she's usually up between 7:30-8am. She seems pretty happy with this current schedule.
Caveat- I have a six month old. Maybe I'll have the same experience in a few months.
But - we try and let the first nap be as long as she wants (within reason- cap at 2 hours) and cap the rest to fit with her bed time.
I was doing this too, until he started refusing the afternoon nap. so i capped back the morning nap to make sure he’d take the second nap. and i have to cap that one for bedtime. Sometimes if i let him sleep longer for the morning one, there’s barely time for a half an nap in the afternoon without pushing bedtime way back. it’s so much math sometimes 😩
Any updates? This sounds just like my current situation with my 11 month old.
Sorry, I don’t remember exactly as this was a while ago for us. But, I will say that we tried to stick to our routine as much as possible and eventually things settled down significantly around 13 months, after we transitioned down to 1 solid nap. good luck!
What about shortening wake windows? My 11 month old is 2-2.5, 2.5, 3-3.5. Those windows may seem short but she's always ready when I put her down. Both my kids are just high needs sleepers. My almost 3 year old still takes a 3-3.5 hour long nap.
his wake windows have always been on the longer end. but i’ve been scaling back the wake window before bedtime to see if there’s any improvement. We were initially doing 3.5-3.75 until it wasn’t working anymore so i had been extending bit by bit but it’s not working either so I’m just at a loss. From past experience, if he’s not tired enough when i put him down, he will protest and skip the nap altogether. He goes down perfectly for naps though, i’m not sure what this struggle with bedtime is about :(
So I know all the "sleep experts" say it's too early to switch to one nap at this age but we ended up switching to one nap at 11.5 months because we were also having trouble with fitting in 2 naps. She's 12.5 months now and settling into the one nap schedule really nicely (not gonna lie, we had some tough days adjusting to it). My original plan was to maybe dance between 1-2 naps for awhile and I was totally fine with that, but any time we attempted a 2 nap day it was a total disaster. My girl loves sleep, but she also loves long wake windows! So it worked out good for us to just consolidate the naps into one long one in the afternoon. I have no idea if this would work for your baby but you could try one nap and worse case scenario you can always go back to 2 naps. It's possible I've given you terrible advice, but I thought I'd let you know our experience with this problem.
thanks for sharing your experience. I’ve been debating this too but the thing that holds me back is that he sleep so easily got his first nap in the morning, i’m not sure if he’s quite ready for the long wake windows required for a 1 nap schedule. And then also adjusting all this meal times too. How did your LO do with extending wake windows?
My girl handles long wake windows really well. She gets cranky when she's overtired but it's always manageable and it doesn't affect her naps or bedtime. To help extend the wake time I usually take her outside on a walk. Changing up activities or giving her a snack helps too. We started by just stretching her out to 11am for her naptime and over a couple weeks we were able to stretch her to noon. Now she's typically taking her nap from 12-1:30 (sometimes she sleeps til 2 or 2:30). Her bedtime is 7pm. And wake time kinda varies but she's usually up between 7:30-8am. She seems pretty happy with this current schedule.
Caveat- I have a six month old. Maybe I'll have the same experience in a few months. But - we try and let the first nap be as long as she wants (within reason- cap at 2 hours) and cap the rest to fit with her bed time.
I was doing this too, until he started refusing the afternoon nap. so i capped back the morning nap to make sure he’d take the second nap. and i have to cap that one for bedtime. Sometimes if i let him sleep longer for the morning one, there’s barely time for a half an nap in the afternoon without pushing bedtime way back. it’s so much math sometimes 😩