Our Experience with an Early Transition to One Nap

EVERY resource that exists recommends holding off on the 2-1 transition as long as possible, with the average sleep needs child transitioning around 14/15 months. The 2-1 transition can happen any time between 13-18 months (I mean any nap transition can happen at ANY age, but these are the ranges we are most familiar with).

I have 4 kids; the first one transitioned at 15 months, the second one transitioned at 18 months, and the third one transitioned at 14 months. All well within “normal.”

The 4th little wild card transitioned at 11 months.

He has ALWAYS needed higher than average awake times to take a solid nap and not wake up early in the morning. The problem with that is then he would take longs naps but not have enough time in the day for as many naps as a specific wake time would support. (This problem could potentially be solved by capping day sleep, but if you know me, I’m a risk taker and I’m not about that limiting naps life.)

*I thought he was low sleep needs, but now, I’m not so sure given how much sleep he gets!

Around 10 months, his awake times were 3.75/4/3. He has always had a low wake time before bed, and in fact, it never actually increased after we transitioned to 2 naps. He was happy to go to bed around 7-7:30 regardless of how long he had been awake; that is still true today.

At 3.75, he began taking a 20 min morning nap. Basically non-existent. I knew our days with 2 naps would be numbered. I was right.

I increased his wake time to 4 hours and he began taking a massive nap again. He likes long naps and long wake times. That doesn’t work for multiple naps 😂

Since I didn’t care to wake him (we homeschool, the more time he is napping, the more un-interrupted time I get with the older kids), I scooted his nap later to align more with the mid-day quiet time/nap time with the older kids and called it good.

He napped around 12/12:15 for 2-3+ hours and went to bed between 7-7:30. No overtiredness, no night wakings, no early mornings after things settled.

As with all transitions, naps and overall sleep can feel wonky while it settles. We had plenty of short naps and 6pm bedtimes (EMBRACE THEM, your days with that early of a bedtime are numbered). It probably took a couple of weeks for things to feel consistent again.

On one nap, I try my best to not move the nap later if I don’t have to because, with so little to manipulate on one nap, you can further number your days with a nap. It’s been almost 4 months and his schedule hasn’t changed once. At 15 months now, his schedule is:

7/7:15am out of crib (sometimes he’s awake earlier than that, sometimes he sleeps later than that)

12:15pm nap (he is usually awake by 3pm, occasionally 3:30pm and one random day, he slept until 4:15pm). He has also been awake around 2:15/2:30, but hangs out until 3pm for consistency (and he prefers this— if I get him too soon after waking, he screams and cries).

7:15pm bedtime (sometimes 6:30, 6:45, or 7pm depending on his mood and how his nap went). We don’t go later than 7:30, no matter how long he napped.

I think most kids and their sleep needs are trial and error! It takes being open to experimenting and accepting the fallout to see what exactly you can get away with when it comes to manipulating their schedule. But having a baseline first is important! If you’re not sure where to start, my logging sleep freebie walks you through it.