Hi I'm Jilly, from Baby Sleep Made Simple and today I'm going to answer the question
"when do babies drop to one nap".
So in this video I'm going to explain when your baby is ready to drop to one nap,
signs that your baby is not ready for one nap and then we're gonna actually walk through the steps
of the two to one nap transition. If you'd like to check out my full guide on this nap transition,
you can click the link right here and also there's a link in the description below.
Let's get started. So, when do babies drop to one nap? At Baby Sleep Made Simple we have a rule and
it's never before the first birthday. So, if you're struggling with your little ones two
naps but they haven't had their first birthday yet, then they're just not ready for one nap.
By and large babies are ready for one nap between 15 to 18 months old. Sometimes we have a 14 month
old that's ready for one nap and others that aren't ready until they're 19 or 20 months
old. But by and large 15 to 18 months is the age where your little one is ready. And the reason
why is they have to be able to handle quite long awake times for their age.
Once your little one drops to one nap they need to be awake between 4
to 5 maybe even 6 hours at a time. And babies that are younger than
14 months really just aren't ready for these long awake times. Also your baby
has to be able to consolidate their daytime sleep and take one long nap of 2 to 3 hours.
Signs that your baby is ready for one nap is they're 15 to 18 months old
and they have to be showing at least one of the following signs for a two-week period. So we're
not talking about two days where your baby's nap will get a little bit weird. We're talking about a
15 to 18 month old who's consistently showing at least one of these signs for a two week period.
That way we know that your little one really is ready to drop one nap.
So we often see nap refusal. So your baby was taking a great two naps every single day, you
know going like clockwork, everything was fine and now they're resisting at least one of their naps.
So you put them in the crib at the usual time and they're playing, talking, laughing rather
than sleeping. Or maybe they're crying. Maybe they're really upset during nap time.
You may also find that your little one falls asleep at their normal nap time but only takes a
20 or a 30 minute nap. So suddenly their naps get really really short. You may find that your baby
refuses to nap at their usual time but they're ready to fall asleep maybe an hour or so later,
so they're still taking decent naps but not at the times that we're working before.
Suddenly awake times need to be a lot longer. This starts to interfere with bedtime, it
pushes bedtime too late. Maybe your little one's waking in the night now or maybe they're waking up
early in the morning. So this beautiful schedule that you had of a two-nap schedule is suddenly
getting wonky. Awake times are way too long and you just can't figure out how to get your little
one to take their two naps to go to sleep on time at bedtime and sleep through the night.
This is the characteristic sign that your little one is ready to drop the second nap.
Signs that your baby is not ready for one nap are
that they are younger than 14 months old have I said that enough yet.
Also if your little one is going through a big milestone right now, like walking or an explosion
in their vocabulary, It's really common to see sleep struggles and nap specific problems when
our little ones are trying to work through a big milestone. So what you want to do is
wait for your little one to kind of get through this milestone. And also remember we need to see
consistent nap problems for a two-week period before we consider dropping down to one nap.
Another sign your little one's not ready for one nap is
on days that they take one nap. Even if it's like two to two and a half hours
but on days that they only have one nap everything else falls apart. So they're super moody,
they're crying a lot, they're not eating their dinner well because they're so tired.
Night sleep often gets interrupted, you might see more night wakings, you might see them wake
earlier in the morning. Things just kind of go crazy when you're trying to transition to one nap.
So if you've been trying for a few days but everything else is sort of falling apart
then I would say it's definitely a sign that you need to go back to two naps for just a while. And
you can try again in a few weeks. So remember we need two weeks of consistent nap problems
for a little one that's at least 15 months old and not going through any huge milestones right now.
Okay so let's say you've decided that your baby does fit the criteria and they're ready
to drop to one nap. Here are the actual steps of the 2 to 1 nap transition.
Just so you know you can check out my full guide on this transition here and also if
you're struggling with this transition you can consider signing up for my nap training program,
where I walk you through the steps of getting your little one taking long and restful naps every day.
Just if you're going through a transition I would encourage you to sign up for the option
that includes personal support so that myself and my support team can walk you through this
together in detail. You can ask us questions
anytime and we answer seven days a week. So if you're really struggling with this transition
you can consider joining my nap training program and also signing up for a support package.
So in general when you're trying to drop down to one nap you want to
typically work on the morning nap and extending that nap and pushing it a little bit later.
Because I have found over the years that the majority of babies and toddlers
prefer that morning nap. It's the afternoon nap that gets tricky so we want to work with that.
For instance last week I had a mom named Eli and she's like I don't understand why
this isn't working. My 16 month old is taking a two and a half hour nap every
morning and then she doesn't want her afternoon up. And I'm like of course
not. Because she's napping over two and a half hours in the morning. So we want
to take advantage of that long nap that your little one wants and we want to push it later.
So we're going to start with the morning nap and you're going to push the morning
nap later by about 20 to 30 minutes every 2 days. So if your little one was used to
having their morning nap at 9 am you're going to push it to 9.30 for two days.
Then you're going to push it to 10 o'clock for 2 days and you're gonna very slowly push
the morning up until you get to a 4 hour awake time from the morning wake up time.
And then you're gonna sit there at that point. You're gonna work on extending your baby's nap so
that it falls between 2 to 3 hours every day. For some people this may take one or two days only.
For others it could take a week or two. It just really depends on your little one's adaptability,
their ability to be able to handle a bit longer awake time and also to consolidate
this. So don't get too frustrated if it doesn't happen straight away. This can take time.
All nap transitions take about 2 to 3 weeks to work through.
You probably have some days where your little one needs two naps and other days where they
can handle one. It's just you know, a bit of going back and forth until we get to one long nap every
day. So as you're working on this morning nap if your little one naps 2 to 3 hours then you want
to go ahead and skip the afternoon nap and pull bedtime early. As early as 6 pm. I have found
over the years that this works far better than trying to get like a 20-minute afternoon cat nap.
Because that can kind of throw bedtime off and interfere with nighttime sleep. Also what's
essential for your little one to be able to take a long and restful 2 to 3 hour nap every day is
they need to be sleeping independently. If we're helping your little one fall asleep at nap time
it typically leads to perpetually short naps. And the reason why is baby sleep cycles are about 45
to 50 minutes long. And it's very common for our little ones to stir or wake up between
sleep cycles and they need our help to fall back asleep. What's essential to get your little ones
sleeping a long stretch every afternoon is they have to be able to fall asleep on their own at
nap time without you in the room. Without any help from you. And that way they're able to transition
themselves between several sleep cycles, so they can take a long restful nap every day.
So if you haven't yet taught your little one how to fall asleep on their own for naps that's okay.
But now is the time to start. So that you can set your little one up for the next year or two
to take a long amazing nap every day you can join my nap training program and I will walk
you through all the steps of getting your little one falling asleep and sleeping independently for
naps. So that they can take long naps every day and the link for that is right here.
So once you get to the point where your little one has a four hour awake time in the morning,
falls asleep on their own, naps for 2 to 3 hours pretty much every single day, for several weeks
then I would start to push the nap a little bit later. So that your little one's nap happens
anytime between 4 to 5 hours awake time in the morning. The reason why, is we don't want to have
a really long awake time in the in the evening. So if your little one has 4 hours awake time in
the morning, naps for 3 hours every day, we don't want the awake time before bedtime to be too long.
Ideally not longer than five hours. So we do the same method. We push the nap a little bit later by
about you know 15 to 20 minutes every day until you get to a 5 hour awake time in the morning
and that way the nap's going to fall pretty much right in the middle of your little one's day.
So it's kind of more appropriate. And again they can nap for 2 to 3 hours and that helps them have
a nice age-appropriate bedtime usually between 6.30 and 7.30 every night. And ideally they
sleep through the night as well. So you do not have to rush this. There are many clients that
I've worked with that had the nap fall after four hours of awake time in the morning for 2 months,
maybe even longer. But once you've had that going for quite a while it's fine to start pushing
the nap a little bit later. So for example your little one wakes up at seven in the morning. They
have their nap at noon for 2 to 3 hours and then bedtime can be between 7 to 7.30 every evening.
If you'd like to see some example daily schedules for a toddler taking one nap every day
you can find a link in the description below,
where you give me your email and I'll email you several examples.
OK guys that covers when your baby is ready to drop to one nap and how you
can work through the 2-1 nap transition. I hope you found this video to be helpful.
If you have any questions please post them in the comments below.
Make sure you click subscribe so that you can be notified every time I add a new video and check
out babysleepmatesimple.com if you'd like any more resources to help with your little one's sleep!