- How would you like two to three hours of time
to yourself every afternoon?
That's what we're going to talk about here, today.
Dropping from two naps to one.
The good news is you're going to get a nice chunk
of time in the afternoon for whatever.
A nap, get some work done, do some housework,
have lunch, call a friend, whatever
you want to do.
It's one of my favorite times in my children's lives
were when they were on one nap
and we had this, lots of time in the morning,
lots of time in the afternoon to do activities
and then they took this beautiful two
or three hour long nap in the afternoon.
It was glorious.
So I want to help you create that situation for yourself.
Now, I want to tell you some of the signs
to watch for that indicate that your child
is ready to make the switch cause that's important too.
You don't want to go too soon with this.
So what typically happens is your child will
happily take her morning nap and maybe
that nap is actually turning into a really nice
long one of two hours or more.
But what happens then is when we get to afternoon nap,
she's either playing for an hour before she sleeps
for 20 minutes or she's fussing and crying
in there for an hour and not really sleeping at all.
And that's a good sign that they're ready
to make the transition.
Now the tricky part of the whole scenario
is that it won't happen everyday.
You know, it might happen for three days
in a row and you start thinking okay,
that's the sign, I better make the switch
and then on day four she takes two beautiful naps.
Right and you're wondering, it's very confusing.
Should I, shouldn't I?
So a good rule of thumb around it is,
if it's happening four to five times a week,
for longer than two weeks, then it's
a good indicator that it's time to make the switch.
Why I like it to be at least two weeks
of trial first is sometimes developmental milestones
like learning to walk and things like that
can cause some sleep regression
so I just want to make sure that that's
not the issue.
But if after two weeks, it's still occurring
four or five times, then go ahead and make the switch.
So basically what you're going to do
is keep morning nap and just start moving
it down slowly.
So my rule is 30 minutes every three days
until that nap hits about 12:30,
is when I like to see that afternoon nap happening.
Now this is a bit of a tough one.
This is one of the harder nap transitions
so I want you to make sure that you're giving
yourself about four to six weeks
to make sure that this is all in place
and before you start seeing some really great naps.
It's going to take time.
It's a pretty tough one for the body clock.
And you'll also find that your toddler seems
really tired at her usual morning nap time
and that makes people a bit worried that maybe
they've gone too soon or maybe she's not ready
but once you've made the decision
to do this, my advice is to just go for it.
You're going to get the body clock in line
with it much faster if you stay consistent
with it instead of waffling back and forth.
So what you can do in the meantime
is offer a snack at normal nap time.
And let's say she has always taken her morning nap
at 10:00 and now we're pushing that down,
we've got to try to get her to 10:30 or 11:00 now,
that's going to be a bit of a push for her.
And she'll seem tired and grouchy at 10:00.
First of all, avoid going in car or stroller at 10:00
cause that's a pretty good indicator that
she's going to fall asleep there and we don't want that.
But make it snack time instead and give her
some sort of fruit, either in juice
or natural fruit, apples, bananas, whatever
you like to give her.
That little sugar rush will help take
the edge off a bit so that hopefully
you can get her to hang in there until
your new morning nap time.
Now as far as afternoon nap goes,
you might have to bridge the gap a little bit
with either trying for a second nap in the crib
or going out in the car seat or stroller
for a little bit of a catnap in that
later afternoon, around the 3:00 3:30 mark.
Or she's just not gonna have the stamina
to hang in there until bedtime.
Now you may also need to move bedtime
a little earlier, just for the short term.
So I can remember with my kids, they were
in bed by 6:30, lights out while we
were transitioning to one nap.
After about four weeks, and their body was used to it
and everything was clicking into place,
then we could move back to their usual 7:00 pm.
Now, also the length of the nap will take time.
The body has to learn now to consolidate
what used to be two separate naps into one big one.
And that again, is going to take about
four to six weeks so don't panic if she's only
doing an hour or so for the first week
or two you're in this.
It'll come it's just a matter of time.
Thanks for watching, sleep well.