My daughter is 13 1/2 months and is currently at daycare. She is still in the infant room but are trying to move her up to the next toddler room. In order to do that, she has to drop her morning nap. Well, DD is extremely fond of her morning nap. She could sleep 2-3 hours and skip her afternoon nap if needed. Problem is she needs to ween off her morning nap.
I have heard that "they will do it themselves when they are ready." But, I am ready and really would like her to move up to the next class. Has anyone tried to "sleep train" them to skip their morning nap. Slowly moving it out until she naps at around 12/12:30 only? If she isn't doing it on her own, is there anything wrong with pushing it a little?
Anyone had any experience with this? Am I crazy or am I going to really wreck havoc on her sleep patterns if I try to push it along?
Thanks for your feedback.
Last week we started pushing her morning nap out from ~9am to ~11am. She was pooped the first few days, and a bit cranky. But going on week two and she is pushing it to around noon time, and taking about a 2hour nap. She is also sleeping on a cot, no problem. The trick was keeping her busy (the school would send her over to the next toddler room around 10am) and then by lunchtime (11:15) she was ready to fall asleep. But they worked with her and she seems to be making nice progress. Whew...I was hoping it wasn't going to take months to get to this place.
Thanks for all your wonderful feedback!
It is really more difficult than just "skipping" a nap. They slowly move the morning nap later and later. My son dropped his PM nap at 13 months. We have increasingly pushed his AM nap later and later. It has taken us 6 months to go from 9:30 AM nap to an 11:30 nap time. It is a process, not an elimination. If you are determined to do it then just push it 1/2 hour every few weeks until it reaches 12/12:30.
I was worried about this with my son, too. He naturally started going down for his morning nap later and later about 2 weeks before his 15 month birthday. Now he's been in the toddler room for 6 weeks and he does OK. But when he's at home he tends to nap a little earlier (around 11 instead of 12:30). The peer pressure generally works well in this situation too. She'll be busy and will be very tired when it's time to nap, but she will be ok. Like another poster suggested, you can try gradually pushing it later - maybe by 15-30 minutes a day - until she's at the big kid's nap time.
Hi L., I am an in-home chldcare provider(since 1996), this really is an easy transition for toddlers, because they are so busy, that the morning goes by in a flash! Usually, it is at home when it takes a little longer because they don't tend to be as busy, therefore, they feel themselves becoming tired. Don't worry I have done this with many children and it works fine. Hopefully If she absolutely cannot stay awake, no big deal, they should just let her rest, why make a child miserable when all they want to do is sleep? Good Luck:) Ms P.
At daycare our daughter was "visiting" the toddler room and was taking the nap at 12 with the other kids but was only taking an hour or less, which before she would sleep a couple of hours at each nap break in the infant room. On weekends we kept the two naps gradually pushing back the first one and shortening the second until we had no nap in the afternoon and going down at noon for the first. She is now going down for two hours at noon. It took us a couple of months to get to this point. Be patient it won't be perfect for a while. Good Luck!
Nothing wrong with pushing it back a little at a time. Most babies seem to prefer the morning when they go down to one nap, but it sure makes for a LOOOOONG afternoon if they were to do it. Like you mentioned, I'd just push that morning nap back a little at a time until you are at the desired time for a middle of the day nap. The babies generally adjust easily and actually sleep better in the toddler room a lot of times because there is not so much distraction with everybody going down for nap at the same time, lights out, and usually relaxing music playing to drown out background noise. Shouldn't take too long for her to adjust to the new nap schedule, especially since she seems she'd be okay with one morning nap now anyway.
