Question about 1-nap timing

I have moved Zoe back to two naps but have started letting her only sleep for 1 hour in the morning to try to get the second nap to be the longest.

Jude has been on 1 nap for a long time, however, it is still falling between 10:30 am - 11:00 am and lasts 90 mins. Their bedtime has to be between 6-6:30 pm because they just cannot make it. I have also been napping them separately again to make sure Zoe gets her sleep. Wakeup up time is still 5:30 - 6 for Jude, which means Zoe too, but she could sleep until 7:30/8 am.

All that being said, I am ready to try a drastic change as these little increments are just not working. Should I just try to keep Jude (and Zoe for 2nd nap) up until 12:30/1 pm and just go for it for a few hard days? Did anyone ever get to this point? Today Jude lasted until 1 pm but with crankiness and a lot of "keeping busy." She just fell asleep at 1:30 pm so she is overtired, and I don't expect to get an amazing nap, but I have to start practicing something. I would like to shift their bedtime to at least 7/7:30 so that they wake up later and hopefully nap later. Nothing in the book works with these little girls anymore. Thoughts or suggestions? On a side note, when they go to an in-home daycare occasionally, nap time is at 1:00 pm for the afternoon nap and they go down for 2 hours no matter what. She never has an issue. Maybe I need to drop the tired sign method for a while and just try to force a schedule change? Pretty exhausted.

 

I've never been good at the "gradual change" thing; I guess I'm just too impatient. ardon: When we moved to 2 naps (at about 9 months) and to 1 nap (about 15 months), I just bit the bullet and did it! If I were you, I would just make their nap time 1pm (so it coincides with what they're doing at daycare) and do what you can to manage the fussiness. Be prepared for them to fall asleep in their high chairs a few times; my guys have *just* stopped doing this! If 1pm is too late and you can't keep them up, then I would move lunch earlier (11:30 or so) and plan on doing nap right afterward. Don't worry if they don't eat well at lunch because they're so sleepy. You can make up for that with a bigger snack after nap. :good:

Good luck with the transition! It's so hard when you have 2 LOs with such different sleep need; my guys are the same way.

 

I agree with Valerie, I would do a 1PM nap time to keep in line with the daycare. When I switched to one nap, my two were long ready and boycotting their AM nap (I wasn't ready though!)...I just went to 1PM and during the transition, they did not nap for long so I would do an earlier bedtime until they started to stretch the nap 2 plus hours.
I also agree with moving lunch earlier if the girls are having trouble staying awake until 1. Good luck!

 

i agree with Valerie & Nancy - it sounds like it might be time to bite the bullet & to go a little more BTC now. my girls current schedule is up around 7:00am, lunch at 11:00am, nap at 12:00pm, and bedtime at 6:30pm. i tried a 1:00pm nap for a couple of weeks but found we were getting more night wakings so i went back to 12:00pm. but if your girls can make it to 1:00pm at daycare on a regular basis, i expect they would do fine with it at home too - you may just have to be the entertainment monkey for a while till they get with the program.

 

I'll jump on the bandwagon and agree, when we went to one nap I bit the bullet and put them down when i wanted them to nap, and then adjusted their bedtime for a few weeks to compensate for their tiredness!