Going Out to Dinner with Kids While on a Sleep Schedule
The Transition to One Nap a Day
Naps are a beautiful thing, and I’m sure you wish you could snuggle down and nap the way your sweet baby gets to each day. At a certain point though, your one year old may not be showing nearly the appreciation for their nap time that you would! If that’s the case, perhaps it’s time to transition to one nap. But how can you be sure?
When do babies start taking one nap?
In our experience, sometimes babies just don’t want to sleep. This can be related to teething, learning something new, or extra stimulation by external factors. However, sometimes it’s that it really is time to say goodbye to that afternoon nap and go down to one daytime sleep period.
If your child is around 13 months old and showing some behavioral signs to transition to one nap, you can be fairly certain that your child is ready for this schedule change.
The behavioral signs your baby is getting ready to drop to one nap that we typically see at Sleep Wise are:
- Fussing during the second nap
- Playing in their crib through the second nap
- Protesting the second nap for a few days in a row
Babies often will protest this nap for 2-3 days and then resume napping again. In this case, it’s not quite time to transition to one nap, but it will be soon.
This behavior often can go back and forth for several weeks. Once you hit a 5-day streak of no sleeping 2-3 weeks in a row during that second nap time, you know it’s time to officially make the change.
How To Transition To One Nap
When your baby takes 2 naps a day, one is in the morning and one in the afternoon with a gap in between. When the afternoon nap is eliminated, the morning nap must move back to later in the day so that it still bisects your baby’s awake time.
Rather than make a jarring adjustment all at once, one gentler strategy we recommend is to ease the morning nap back a half hour every few days. So on Monday, move the 10 a.m. nap to 10:30 and then on Thursday make it 11 a.m. and so on. This is a more gentle nap transition for both of you.
The goal is to land at 12:30pm. This is really a great time for an afternoon nap. Your baby can eat lunch then go for a nap with a full tummy! This time can also help prevent an extremely early bedtime if this nap ends up being short.
Sleep changes take time. You might find your wee one needs a catnap in the stroller or car seat in the late afternoon or perhaps wants to fall asleep a bit earlier at night. That’s okay; her body is getting used to fewer periods of sleep and it will all level out, and we find that this transition to one nap can take the longest to adjust to!
For more information about one year old sleep schedules or troubleshooting sleep issues at this age, check out this related blog, here.