What to do with naps?

One of my boys is consistently taking only one nap now (they will be 14 months on Friday). Sometimes it's the morning nap he will refuse, and sometimes the afternoon, but only takes one or the other on at least 5 out of 7 days. My other boy is still taking 2, 2 hour naps every day and usually has to be woken from his second or he would sleep too late to go to sleep at bedtime.

I'm not sure what I should do. I know if he is only taking the one nap, I need to get it moved to mid afternoon. Otherwise he's up too long either in the morning or afternoon and gets grupmy, but I don't think my other twin would do well with only 1 nap mid day. He's really tired by 9 am (they wake at 7 at the latest).

I definitely would prefer not to have them on different napping schedules, we would never get out of the house! But maybe that's what I will have to do for a while. Or maybe I would be surprised and they would both do fine with one nap?? Did anyone else have this situation and what did you do? Any advice would be great. Thanks!

 

It seems we are heading in this direction as well, so I am interested to see the replies. Right now I am making the tired one stay awake later. I think we are heading into the relm of one nap a day (I am resisting).

I like to leave the house too :laughing:

 

I transitioned mine early (13 months), out of necessity, because my older kids had baseball this spring that we had to be in town for at 5pm. Since my twins second nap was around 4:30....obviously they were going to be missing it regularily.

So, I transitioned 2 kids who were not quite ready for 1 nap...and it went much smoother than I anticipated. It did take them a few weeks to get used to 1 nap a day, and they went to bed earlier for awhile as well.

If you do want to move them both to 1 nap, (and I would try this first in order to keep them on the same schedule, I know how important that is), then I would try to keep the tired one up a wee bit longer each day. Put them both down 15 mins later for the first few days or week. Then another 15 mins. You may have to still give them a second short nap for awhile until you can get that first nap about an hour later than normal.

Here's what our schedule looked like, I have trouble giving good times for things because we are on a much later schedule than most people.

9:30am ~ wake up

11:30-12 ~ 1st nap for about 1-1.5 hr

1-1:30 ~ up from nap

4:30-5pm ~ second nap

6:30 ~ up from nap, and supper time

9:30-10pm ~ bedtime

So I started by moving that morning nap to 12-12:30 or so. Then to 1pm. And finally, it got to 2pm and it's stayed there ever since. When I did that, they might take a short nap at 5-5:15, but I woke them up at no later than 6pm. (And that was only on non-baseball days) And their bedtime scooted earlier, about 9pm. Once their nap moved to 2pm, they were (and still do) sleeping about 1.5 hrs, 2 hrs on a fantastic day (that's rare), and their wake up time is now 9am, and bedtime is 9-9:30 pm.

 

This is exactly us for the last few weeks. I have 13 month old twins.
They generally wake by 530 or 6 am. My daughter is down for first nap at 8 till 845. My son won't sleep this early, so keep him up with me and his mood is fine. We do lunch at 11 or 1130, then naps around 12 or 1230 till 2 for both. Bedtime is usually by 6-630 pm for both.

We live a bit out of town, so if I need to get out and about, I do my driving during daughters' morning nap. My son is happy to stare out the window in the car and not make a fuss, she naps her short nap, and wakes up when we normally get to where we need to go. I just make sure she gets at least 1/2 hour.

I can't wait until both are on 1 nap a day, I think she will sleep longer and more soundly then her two shorter naps a day.

Good luck!

 

I thought I was headed in the same direction last week. DS wasn't sleeping for his afternoon nap. So I tried them on 2 different schedules. DON'T DO IT!!!!!! Its not just the napping but eating as well. What a pain. Instead when DD wakes from her morning nap I get DS up also. DD usually sleeps for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. DS was sleeping over 2 hours and not wanting the afternoon one. Since I am not letting him sleep as long in the morning he goes down no problem. I'll try to transition them once DD seems ready.

 

My girls (now just over 2 years old) transitioned to one nap a day at about 13 months also. One of them was ready, the other clearly wasn't. Somehow we made it work, because there was no way I was going to have 2 kiddo's on two different nap schedules! My girls have always been early risers (like, 6 to 6:30am - UGH!) When they first started on one nap a day, my routine looked a lot like this:
6am - up, sippy of milk
7am - breakfast
9:30am - snack
11am - lunch
11:30am - down for a nap
They took about a week or 2 to get into the swing of things, but pretty soon they were both napping for 3 hours in the middle of the day. They would then wake up at 2:30 to 3pm, have a snack & more milk then play until dinner at 5pm. Early on, they were in bed by 6:30pm.
As they got more into the routine, I pushed lunch back to 11:30 & nap to noon; now we tend to have lunch around noon & nap starts between 12:30 & 1pm. One of my girls still needs more sleep than her sister, & I will let her sleep for an additional 30 to 40 minutes after her sister gets up. They still take a 2 1/2 to 3 hour nap in the middle of the day, but I don't let them sleep past 4pm or bedtime is a nightmare :wacko: They are down to bed by 7:30pm most nights now.

Hope that helps...it may seem cruel at first, but for the sake of your sanity, keep them on the same nap schedule. Those 2 to 3 hours are such a welcome break in my day...sometimes, I even manage a nap!! :ibiggrin:

 

I didn't read the other replies but here is what we did - we went through a long, like 3 month transition with Zoe. When Jude was just done with the 2nd nap for sure, I would only put Zoe down for the first nap and then I made Jude stay up until 2nd nap and they both went down. When Zoe was transitioning finally I still put her down for a morning nap but woke her after 1 hour. Then they both went to 2nd nap as usual. But when Zoe still needed but refused 2nd nap at the advice of many mommas on here (at this point I had been transitioning for months!) I went cold turkey and decided nap would be at 12:00 pm every day. We had a few sleepy mornings for a while but eventually they got it. Since about 17 mos we have been napping the one nap and I get about 2.5 hours consistently from the time they fall asleep. Usually takes them about 30 minutes to make their nests.

Hope this makes sense. Zoe really needed the sleep and I had no place to be, so this transition worked because I didn't deviate from the original schedule...just moved one off sooner. Fraternals can be very difficult as their sleep patterns/needs can be so different as they catch up with each other. Good luck!

 

I agree Betsy. I know it is harder, schedule wise, to have one napping twice and one napping once, but it isn't forever. I would rather let them have the sleep they need when they need it, versus making one drop a nap when she isn't ready for it yet.

 

I've been trying for the past 3 days to have them go down for just the one nap. Of course life never works out perfectly. I had to run some errands this morning and one fell asleep in the car on the way there and one fell asleep on the way home. :gah: It was approx their usual morning nap time, they only slept for 20 min or so. Now I have stuck them in their cribs for the 1pm scheduled nap and hopefully they will fall asleep. And that will be it for the day. There was initial crying, now talking going on. Crossing my fingers

I think there will eventually be light at the end of this tunnel. Now I just need to figure out when the heck to have a shower??(used to be during the morning nap) Guess Mommy will be getting up early before the girls to shower now.