My 12 month old is starting to fight naps... could he already be transitioning to 1 nap? He goes to daycare 2 days a week and they sometimes nap him only once a day?!
I feel like my first son transitioned later, like at 15 or 16 months.
When did your toddler transition to 1 nap?
nectarine / 2243 posts
It was much later. Closer to 19 months
However she's not in day care. My friends who have kids in day care, they were all transitioned to 1 nap at 1 year
nectarine / 2018 posts
It was a little after 18 months. She's not in daycare though, like Littlebit7 most daycare kids I know were transitioned right around a year.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
My oldest transitioned around 16 months, but my youngest transitioned at 11 months! Some kids have higher sleep needs than others.
persimmon / 1272 posts
Daycare pushed my LOs to 1 nap at 10 months!
I was really worried about it but it works fine. They do nap in the car sometimes (maybe 50% of the time) on the way to daycare or home from daycare.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
My older daughter was later, but my younger one started fighting the second nap before a year. I finally have in and it made it easier to do stuff during the day for sure. She's not in daycare, so it really was just her not needing the second nap.
nectarine / 2951 posts
Ok cool. It actually will make mornings so much easier! My almost 4 year old will be psyched to get out earlier!!
@meadow He feel asleep on the way to school yesterday!
honeydew / 7463 posts
For us it was a long transition between like 16-18 months.
I know every kid is different so SOME do transition at 12 months (and often daycare force it) but for most 12 months is way too early. There are often short term sleep disturbances and they'll go back to their normal routine if you give them a little time. They say to wait 2-3 weeks of consistent disturbance/change before making a permanent change. ie keep the same routine and keep trying for 2 naps and if after 3 weeks it's still going on, then try to make adjustments.
That being said, transition to 1 nap can take forever. So it is possible that he will be ready at 15 months (which is average) and he's starting the process now. Some days 2 is too many, some days 1 isn't enough. It's a brutal few months. I still would wait 3 weeks or so continuing to try for 2 and if it just isn't happening I would come up with a plan to help the transition, knowing it will be a painful couple of months.
apricot / 275 posts
Daycare transitioned her at 13 months. I was really concerned at first because she's always been higher sleep needs, but it went SO smoothly and has been great. She was constantly fighting her 2 naps there (even though she slept great at home). She'd sleep for 30-45 minutes for each nap. When they switched her to 1 nap, she started sleeping 2-3 hours. I don't know how that happened - it was magic. I did move up her bedtime about a half hour as well to compensate for a bit.
pear / 1728 posts
Daycare transitioned her at 13 months when she moved to the toddler room. We continued two naps on the weekends for a few weeks and then decided it was probably easier on her to have a consistent schedule.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
12 months for daycare and what my pediatrician recommended also. My daughter is 15 months and occasionally has two short naps on the weekends still, but only naps once at daycare.
grape / 92 posts
12 months. The one-year-old room at our daycare only does one nap a day, so they essentially forced the switch. He's adjusted well though.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
12 months! I was surprised it was so early. I love the one nap schedule though.
nectarine / 2636 posts
I forced her at 13 months because we were selling our house and I needed to be able to have a set "no showings" time for her nap time. She did awesome.
clementine / 933 posts
My son transitioned last summer, somewhere between 16-19 months. He wasn't in preschool for the summer, and it was kind of a brutal transition, but only because I was the one fighting it! Once he went down to 1 nap/day, we were all much happier. Good luck!
pear / 1697 posts
My kid transitioned gradually between 11 and 14 months. Basically, if he wasn't willing to go down for a first nap by 10:45, we did only an afternoon one. One nap gradually became more and more frequent, but, we kept offering the morning nap until he'd gone well over a week on just one.
persimmon / 1479 posts
DD is 15 months. Some days we do 2 naps, some days 1. They only do 1 in her toddler room at care though.
pear / 1961 posts
DD1 switched at around 10m. She would sometimes take a quick catnap in the morning (esp on weekends if she was in the stroller or car), but we only protected her afternoon nap starting around then. She was in daycare FT and it was better to transition her early because she would take one GOOD afternoon nap instead of 2 crappy naps! Plus, at 1y, they move up to the toddler room that only naps 1-3p.
DD2 kinda did halfsies from about 10m-13m. On the days she was home with me and we had no plans, she would do a morning nap. On the days she went to childcare in the morning, or if we had a playdate, she would skip. But she was still fully transitioned to one nap shortly after one.
DS is currently solidly on 2 naps (almost 7m), but I'll plan to try the halfsies thing with him starting this fall, too. But we'll see! He seems to have sleep habits more like DD1 so may just end up transitioning really early.
I'm a big fan of one nap, since it means you can do things in the morning and often the afternoon nap is long! 
so I probably push my kids to get to that point instead of drawing out the 2-nap schedule.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
15 months! Her bed time was getting later and later due to the late 2nd nap so we went for it!
cantaloupe / 6131 posts
@Alba4: DS1 transitioned to one early single nap around 1130am by 14 months. BUT the transition started at 11 months when he'd fight his PM nap, but sleep great for his morning nap. So we started slowly cutting down his AM nap whenever it affected his PM nap. I want to say we chopped it down 30 minutes at a time every 2 weeks or so until even a 30 minute catnap was disrupting his naps. After we initially transitioned, he usually woke up at 1:30pm and was a grouchy mess that needed an earlier bedtime until he could push the nap back later. By 16 months, his nap was at 1230pm and he slept for 3 hours until 330pm and that could get him to his bedtime.
DS2 had to be forced to transition at daycare much earlier than he was ready for so I'm not happy about that. He's enormously overtired during school days. He's 13 months now and on the weekends he takes a quick catnap in the morning from about 1030-11am, which is long enough to get him through lunch and a 1pm naptime with DS2. He sleeps for 2.5-3 hours.
pomelo / 5573 posts
Weston is 15 months, and he still naps twice at home but only once at daycare. He started at daycare at 12 months and they pushed back on two naps (he was the only two-napped they had and I think it was inconvenient for them) but I asked them to keep trying. About 14 months they started telling he was not falling asleep, probably because there was too much noise from the other kids, and now they seem like they've stopped even trying.
I wish he was still having two naps, because on the days when his one nap is short he's pretty unhappy by bedtime.
grapefruit / 4988 posts
I think it was around 17 or 18 months. Basically, it was when she moved from the infant room to the Toddler 1 room at daycare. That transition was supposed to be 15 months, and I remember at the time being glad that there wasn't any vacancy in the toddler room for a couple months because she still got her second nap.
Apparently the new thing at our daycare is to transition to a single nap in the new "Toddler 0.5" room at 12 months! My 7 month old still takes 3 naps, there is no way he is going to be ready for that.
hostess / wonderful grape / 20803 posts
14m for DS1 (started fighting the pm nap)
17m for DS2 (tried a few times before and he couldn't handle it)
clementine / 778 posts
A little bit after he turned a year. He was going to have to drop down to one nap when he moved up to the next daycare class, so it worked out nicely.
pear / 1737 posts
I transitioned at 11 months because I was taking care of another 11 month old on a one nap schedule all day everyday. It ended up working out well.
clementine / 830 posts
relatedly, i have a 16 month old who i think is getting ready to transition. it is very hard to get him down for second nap, or he's only ready for it when it's too close to bedtime. but, he is still seeming pretty ready for milk and nap relatively early in the morning (though it's variable). what time are most people on a 1-nap schedule putting their LOs down? did you gradually push that morning nap back or do it suddenly? thanks!
pear / 1737 posts
@nwm: did mine suddenly but she's had always had good staying awake stamina during the day and naps were often tricky for a long time. So she was up at 6:30. Nap at 1-3:30 ish. It's different now because she's older (20 months and in a big bed instead), but it was like that for a good 6 months.
nectarine / 2951 posts
@nwm: I'm in the midst of figuring it out too! Today he fell asleep on the way home from the park @ 11, but I woke him up for lunch. I put him back down at 1. I'm hoping he'll sleep until 4.
cantaloupe / 6131 posts
DS1 has always been on a 730am-730pm schedule. When he was on 2 naps, it was AM nap from 10am-12pm, then lunch, and then PM nap from 230-430pm, then 730pm bedtime. He never had issues with the AM nap - it was always the PM nap that went to hell.
At the point he started transitioning, we first pushed his AM nap by 30 minutes and distracted him until 1030am. We would usually have to wake him at noon. Once that stopped working (i.e. he started fighting the PM nap again), we cut the AM nap down and woke him at 1130am (so 1030am-1130am). When that stopped working, we woke him at 1115am and made his PM nap at 2:15pm. Then we woke him at 11am (meaning he got a 30 minute catnap) and put him down for PM nap at 2pm. PM naps I let him sleep as long as he wanted.
At the point even the 30 minute catnap in the morning had him fighting his PM nap, we dropped the AM nap completely, gave him a heavy snack at 1030am and put him down for his single nap at 11am. I then let him sleep as long as he wanted (they usually don't nap longer than 2 hours when they begin the transition because they're not used to taking 1 long nap yet). He would be up by 1pm and we'd do lunch then, a light snack at 4pm, and then dinner at 5pm so that he could go to bed earlier.
I think every 2 weeks after that I pushed the nap a little later - so 11am, then 1130am, then finally 12pm by 16 months. By the time he was at 12pm for nap, I moved lunch back to 1130am. Be warned that during this nap/meal time transition, they will probably wake early from naps because they poop. It will take their stomachs a while to adjust to a different digestion pattern!
At 16 months, I would feed him at 1130am and then try to have him run around so that he'd poop before nap. If he hadn't pooped by 1215pm, then I just knew to expect him to wake up early from nap!
It takes about a month in my experience for the kids to stretch out that nap to 3 hours. By 18 months, DS1 was going down at 1230pm and pooping before nap and sleeping until 330pm (at home anyway). They put the kids down by noon at daycare and he usually only sleeps about 90 minutes to 2 hours there during the week.
coconut / 8483 posts
We did it around 12 months because his naps sucked. They got better!
DD loves to sleep in so we have been letting her just have 1 nap for a while now and she just turned 1 a week ago.
nectarine / 2436 posts
My 17 and a half month old still takes two naps often. I read somewhere it doesn't have to be set in stone, they can nap twice on day and once the next few. He takes a cat nap around 9 then 1-2 hours at 1pm. He definitely fights naps with me and sleeps great at daycare. Very frustrating!
nectarine / 2436 posts
@Alba4: omg I would kill for even a 2 hour nap! With me, he often only takes a 30 min nap!! Arg!
cantaloupe / 6791 posts
Both of mine were on the later end. We basically had to force it with DS1 at 20 months. DS2 started fighting his afternoon nap and went to one nap at 17 months.
persimmon / 1322 posts
My kid dropped her second nap very early, at 8 months. She naps much better as a toddler than she ever did as an infant.
pineapple / 12053 posts
@catlady: DD1 was still taking 3 naps, but transitioned to 1 by 13 months on her own!
DD1: 13 months
DD2: um.... around the same time?? ha!
clementine / 856 posts
13 months. He started fighting the PM nap hard, so one day I just extended his morning wake time and that was that. It started at 11am first, then gradually became later. He was never a 2-plus hour napper though.
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