Our 2-1 Nap Transition
Our 2-1 transition started about 6-8 weeks ago. Lukah was around 14 months when he had his first one nap day. He randomly slept in one day and since I don’t typically wake up my babies (do what works for yours and I do what works for mine), I decided to go for one mid day nap and an early bedtime if needed.
He did really well with that one nap day, but I could tell it wasn’t something he would need to permanently start doing because he gladly took 2 naps each day. We had very little trouble with 2 naps (he would occasionally take awhile to fall asleep for either nap, sometimes skipped a nap inconsistently, and had some protest going down for naps or bedtime) so it wasn’t really something I wanted to rush.
He was much like Hannah with 2 naps and no real signs of needing to transition, so I knew it would be something I’d likely have to force.
I was nervous because his one nap days were inconsistent in length– which I know is normal, but I *need* that mid-day break with all 3 kids to happen around the same time so I didn’t have a ton of wiggle room with when the nap happened.
I stuck with the nap happening at 12:30 because that is what works best for all of us and I knew, as a generally well-rested, sleep trained kid that he would eventually adjust just fine.
So we did a mix of 1 and 2 nap days for 6-8 weeks when needed (morning plans, sleeping in later, etc) and finally decided the week before he hit 16 months to just go all in.
We stuck with the 12:30pm nap time and he’s napped 2-3 hours each day on 1 nap. This is surprising since he was doing 1.5-2 hours at most when we did random 1 nap days.
His 2 nap schedule was:
7/7:30am wake up
10/10:30-11:30am nap 1 (we usually woke him so he would take nap 2)
2:30-4/4:30pm nap 2
7:30pm bedtime
I chose to not max out his schedule because I really couldn’t let his second nap get any later while allowing the nap to stay around the same time as the big kids. Again, this worked fine for us but might not work for you and that’s okay!
I expected him to consolidate his 2.5-3 hours of daytime sleep into one nap and he started doing it as soon as we committed to the 1 nap schedule.
By the clock nap times have always worked well for us and it’s been no different with this transition!
The biggest change we’ve had with this nap transition is moving his bedtime to between 6:30-7. He can get a little cranky in the evenings, and I can tell the long wake times can catch up to him.
So far, he’s had no other signs of overtiredness. This has been a pretty seamless transition, but we’re not out of the woods yet! It can typically take 3-5 weeks to really feel like you’ve settled into a new nap schedule.
Again, setting the nap time has worked best for him (and the specific time we set). But that may not be the case for every kid, which is totally fine!’
If you’re struggling with any nap transition, the schedules and transitions package is the perfect option!
