Hellobee Boards

@pwnstar: ditto
The transition to one nap is rarely going to happen "cold turkey". Usually it's a long process of pushing the morning and afternoon nap later little by little (and maybe cutting them short) until the morning nap gets late enough that you can do just that nap plus an early bedtime. And then eventually it settles into that nice 12/12:30/1pm nap time.
And for a long time it'll feel like 2 naps is too many but 1 nap isn't enough.

Also be aware that when you do get down to one nap they still might be shorter for a little while since they are still feeling like it's their first morning nap. Does that make sense? My son took two 1.5 hour naps and when we finally got to a single nap, t was still 1.5 hours for a little while until he fully adjusted and consolidated his old 2 naps into one longer nap of 2.5-3 hours. Hope that makes sense.

@paigeface: When we first did 1 nap we had to put my DD down at 11:30am for her nap and were eventually able to push it back to 12:30pm. We did a small meal/snack at 11am and then "lunch" when she woke up at 1:30 or 2pm. Switching to 1 nap is the longest and most challenging transition

@paigeface: there are two ways you can go. Early bedtime or you can keep the morning nap limited to 45 mins (wake him) and then do a nap a few hours later IF you think he'll do it...then a bedtime that's later than your 6:15 but still reasonable for his age - say 7/7:15. It al depends on how much time he can spend awake before getting overtired. Mine is over 2 and to this day he still can't do more than 4.5 hours in the afternoon (he does about 5.5 hours in the morning). Mine did take a 2nd nap for the most part and I just kept pushing that morning nap till it was at a reasonable time that we could do bedtime without him being overtired.
I have a couple of friends who worked with sleep consultants and they said it's super common for LOs to have a crazy early bedtime during the transition to 1 nap. One actually called it "crazy stupid early bedtime". It's that whole "1 isn't enough but 2 is too many" thing. They can't make it the whole way to normal bedtime after a late morning nap, but they also can't do a 2nd nap with a reasonable bedtime! That's why it's so tricky.
The consultants said you have way better success doing an early bedtime (like 5:30) vs letting them get super overtired and doing normal bedtime. We did do 5:30 bedtime for a while and he did fine. But I've always had a kid who is super sensitive to overtiredness and loves sleep. The positive is that it's pretty dark by 5pm (or getting dark) so it shouldn't be TOO hard to get him down.
This transition is so hard! It's a lot of trial and error and constant adjustment as the nap gets pushed.

My 16 month old wakes up early (6am) and he's always asleep by 11 or 11:30. Some days it is a stretch to keep him up that long! He could not make it til 12:30. That bring said, even with a 2 hour nap he's usually a mess by 5:30. I think the longer awake times are still tough for him, but he won't take 2 naps anymore.

We transitioned at 15 months and 12:30 would be too late. DD1 woke up between 6-7 and for the first month or so needed to go down by 11-11:30. It was awkward, but slowly she was able to stretch it out longer. At first we did lunch after nap, and then waited till she could stretch out to noon to do an early lunch. It was a little painful in the beginning b/c she would needed to be in bed by like 7-7:30 so we were always rushing, but it didn't last forever!

@SweetiePie: @MrsADS: My oldest had a 6:00-6:30 bedtime for the longest time! It was such a struggle to do dinner/bath/bed after work/daycare pickup, but it was so important to make sure LO got as much sleep as possible.

@Grace: I actually remember that back when I was stressing about dropping to 1 nap it was your method/advice that I used

@SweetiePie: YES YES YES x 1,000 to everything you wrote. I know it's not everyone's experience, but it was was so true for LO, and essentially life changing for me/us.

@paigeface: That's freaking outstanding! I hope it continues to get better--well done mama!