changing to one nap

My girls will be 11 months next week. Are there any others out there that went down to one nap around this age? My girls were napping 3-4 hours per day (during two naps) for a while and for the past week I’m lucky to get 2-2 ½ hours out of them. They sleep about 10 ½ - 11 hours per night and do seem ready for naps when they go down and are happy when they wake up. BUT they now start getting fussy well before 1 p.m. (afternoon nap time) and start afternoon fussies much earlier than before. Their bedtime has always been right around 6:30 but now we’re struggling to keep them up past 6:00!! We have been lucky that they pretty much nap the same, other than Emma occasionally sleeping longer. There is nothing I can think of that we have changed in their routine. They did start crawling last week and I swear Emma is (finally!!) teething. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions? Should we keep this schedule and hope this is just a phase or start the transition to one nap? Thanks so much!

 

We went down to one nap right around this age too. they would just play during one of the naps when I put them down for two.
mine usually wake up around 8am and then go back down for a nap around 11:30 or 12 after a small snack and a sippy of water. they usually wake up around 2 or 2:30 and we start bedtime routine around 6:30 with dinner, bath, bottle and to bed between 7-7:15pm
Good luck. It's a little frustrating trying to work it out. It'll probably take a couple weeks.

 

I remember going through this when mine where about 10.5-11 months too. Most people told me it was just a phase (which I think it was) due to developmental milestones and teething. This went on for about 3 weeks. I ended up adjusting their nap schedule a little bit and shortening the morning nap to make them more tired for the afternoon nap. This seemed to work and now they are back to their normal nap schedule (2 hr morning nap and 1.5-2hr afternoon nap).

Your schedule sounds pretty much like ours. On days that they didn't nap well, I put them to bed early, like 6pm. Otherwise they would be so overtired and have a hard time falling asleep at night which lead to less overall sleep, starting a vicious cycle of sleep deprivation. Check out Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, it has some good information on fighting naps, switching from two to one nap, etc.

Hope that helps! It will get better!
Jennifer

 

It probably is just a phase...my girls' naptime always seem to go crazy during teething. And, if you have to put them to bed earlier, then they will probably wake up earlier, and be ready for a nap earlier, and that might get them to take another nap. It might be an every other day thing or something for a few weeks until it works itself out. You just have to figure out how to adjust their schedule and things will start going smoothly again. Our girls sleep about 12 hours at night, and therefore have never been long nappers. We are lucky to get 1.5 hour naps.

 

Mine dropped to 1 nap at 9 MONTHS of age. yikes! They take a 2.5-3 hour nap about 2.5 hours after they get up in the AM, and that's it! But they do sleep 11-12 hours straight every night. I wish I had better help for you

 

We went to one nap a few weeks ago, but are now back to 2. They go to bed about 6:30, but are up at 5:45 for days I end up going into work. For us, I think it was a teething, everyone is really crawling and one is almost walking thing. Or at least I think so...

 

Yep, my girls went to one nap at 11 months. I actually found the one nap thing to be quite liberating and less stressful than trying to put them down for naps they were resisting, and they handled it well.