What to do? Fighting a.m. nap but not really fighting it....

So the boys get whiney and act tired around the same time every morning, they normally nap 45mins-1hr but for the past couple weeks when I put them in there they just play, yell, laugh, jump but don't cry until its time for them to "get up". They don't sleep they just play in there.
Are they ready for 1 nap (I mean they really only get 1 nap) or do they just need the little 'time out, quiet time' in their cribs? When I peek in on them they are sometimes just laying down talking to their "babies" and stuff other times they are jumping and laughing at each other (their cribs are across the room from one another).
What would you do? I usually just let them play and when they cry figure they want out and they do seem "refreshed", just wondering how long this will go on for?

 

My boys were doing the same thing around that age and we went to one nap. For me, I felt it was not worth them just playing in their cribs for an hour. It took about 2-3 months before we got to a 1:00 naptime. Until then, it made for some very long afternoons since I would put them down at 11:00 and they would get up at 12:30 and not go to bed until 6:30.

 

at one year I wouldn't go for just 1 nap, but that's just me.

our schedule around a year was
7a wake
9a-11a nap
2p-4p nap
7p bedtime.

now just close to and after 18 mo. they are doing either one of these schedules:

7a wake
10a-12p nap
3p-5p nap
between 7-8p bedtime.

OR...
7a wake
11:30a -2:30p nap
bedtime 7p

I feel lucky that if we have somewhere to be I can mostly choose what type of day we'll have... 1 or 2 naps... in the mornings they get cranky close to 10a, but if I need them to stay up and nap only 1 time I can usually get them to stay up for another hour or so and then put them down for a long mid day nap.

I really liked that ours got in 2 good naps a day and I wasn't ready to give it up. close to 15 mo. I thought they were going to boycott the morning nap, but that was just a phase. Have you tried just extending the morning play time by 30+ min. and then maybe they'll be more tired and sleep?

I have found that when ours are truly tired they go down for naps and nighttime without a fuss... so I'm thinking that when ours are fussy (for longer than 5 min.) that they aren't really tired yet... sounds like maybe yours aren't tired. you could just do a later morning nap and try for a quick catnap a bit later in the day too... good luck

 

Yup I've tried 15min increments all the way up to 1 hour later and they do the same thing! Their day looks like this:

7a wake
anywhere between 9-10a--"nap" for 1 hour
1230p-2p--actual nap
6p--bedtime

They do good when they miss naps (like Christmas for example) but at home obviously I would like the quiet time

 

if the "quiet" time refreshes them in the morning instead of them actually napping, then maybe that's all they need... and you can still get something done while they are in their cribs. I know a friend of mine who has 3 singletons said that she insisted that they have a designated quiet time... which is more for momma!

 

It looks like they are getting 13 hours of sleep a night so I think that is why they don't need that nap in the morning, they are a little tired, but not tired enough for a good nap. I usually go by the total number of hours of sleep in a day and at this age is 14-16 hours with 15 being the most common. If you really want the two naps I would put them to bed at 7, then their first nap would be around 9-10:30 and the second 1:30-3:00. Most babies that are taking 2 naps are usually getting 11-12 hours of nighttime sleep. I think the better question to ask everyone is how many hours of sleep in total are your kids getting a day and try to adjust it to what works for you. Hope this makes sense

 

I would try one nap & see what happens. I used to put mine in their cots with toys if I needed some time to get things done then when nap time rolled round, I´d take out the toys and darken the room and they´d go to sleep. Sometimes, they´d just fall asleep with all their toys! Now, I dont do that as they want to run and play but I still get about 2-3 hours of "me" time whilst they nap. DD takes a while to go to sleep but she´s quite happy playing away. GL!

 

I'm not sure if the toys is a good idea or not... but I do it too! I just leave them with some mega bloks or something that they can't choke on. my dd likes to put them together so it is a nice relaxing thing for her to do. and they do end up falling asleep too... yay!