From 13/18 months to 2,5/3 years old
If your baby is between 13 and 18 months of age you may start to notice some things that tell you that dropping the second nap is right around the corner.
These signs are:
- Baby is difficult to put to sleep that second nap
- Baby doesn't nap at all and she does fine the rest of the day (no meltdowns or grumpiness)
- When baby does 2 naps, bedtime takes a lot longer or is delayed
- When baby does two naps, there are wake ups
You don't have to observe all of these signs but you certainly want to make sure that your baby is showing them for at least a week or so before you start to gently move him to the new 1 nap schedule.
So what does that schedule look like??
To create your baby's schedule you need to have in mind two things:
Your baby's sleep needs
Wake windows
Your baby's sleep needs
Around this age your baby needs 11-12 hours of night sleep and between 1,5 and 2,5 hours of daytime sleep.
Usually, with my clients, I tend to establish a 2h of daytime sleep total. From then, you can see how your baby reacts to it and can adjust the time of the nap if you see that night sleep is not great or if your baby simply wakes up after 1,5 hours and is ok the rest of the day until bedtime.
My advise: Wake your baby after 2,5 h if you don't want bedtime to be disturbed
Wake windows
Your baby can now stay awake for 5 to 6 hours! The first wake window is usually shorter than the second, so we have a first WW of 5 hours and a second of 5'5-6 hours.
Knowing that your baby still needs 11-12 hours of sleep, your schedule could look something like this:
What's going to change your schedule is the time your baby is awake and how long she naps.
In any case, my advise to you is that you create the schedule that works for your family and stick to it. Babies need the routines and their little body clocks do better when they have regular times.
Do you have any question regarding your baby's schedule? Feel free to contact me! I am happy to help :-)
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