Your baby is likely to drop to one nap at 12 to 18 months.
It’s impossible to be any more specific regarding when your baby may go from two to one naps because every baby will develop at a different rate.
The nap that gets dropped will be their morning nap – which is typically the shorter one of the day.
A typical routine for a 12 month old may see a nap at around 9.30am to 10am and then another starting at 1pm that lasts a couple of hours.
When that morning nap gets dropped your baby will then just have the 1pm nap – which may stay the same length or increase to 2.5 hours.
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Is 12 months too early for one nap?
It wasn’t too early for my eldest daughter, but it could be too soon for your child. Once your child has turned one it could happen at any stage in the next year.
Most babies will be down to one nap long before they turn two.
Our one year routine with just one nap looked like this and worked well for us.
Remember this is just a sample and every baby is different.
Signs baby is ready for one nap
The signs your baby is ready to ditch a nap can be subtle at first and you may notice a gradual creep towards it being the right time. Watch out for these things.
- Baby is difficult to settle to a nap or won’t settle at all
- Baby wakes early from the morning nap
- Difficulty settling to sleep at night
- Baby doesn’t seem at all tired for nap time – this suggests their wake window has lengthened
Transition from 2 to 1 nap
You can make the transition down to just one nap easier by trying the following things.
Only do these things when your baby is genuinely ready to drop to one nap – it’s not worth trying to force your baby if they aren’t ready.
Consider bringing the afternoon nap forwards
If at present your baby’s afternoon nap begins at around 1pm then you may want to consider bringing that forwards to midday to help them through the transition.
You can then gradually make the nap later over the course of a few weeks to see how your baby copes – if that fits in better with your own routine.
Swap the nap for quiet time
Rather than swapping the morning nap for a busy and action-packed morning of activities you could instead spend it quietly.
Do this for the first few weeks after dropping the nap and see how your baby gets on.
Just drop the nap
You don’t have to overthink this mama!
When we dropped naps for my kids we literally just did it with no strategising when they were ready.
Sometimes their schedules then shifted a little but generally it was just a case of the nap being done and dusted.
I would say it’s easier to go from two to one naps than any of the other nap transitions. The move to no naps can be challenging but you won’t have to worry about that until after your baby turns two.
Play it by ear
It’s OK to see how your baby is and decide that on certain days they actually do need two naps.
Reasons could include they are teething or they haven’t slept well at night.
Keep it flexible and give your baby a morning nap on a day when they need it, then revert to just one nap the next day.
This switching between the two routines may continue for a few weeks until finally your baby definitively doesn’t need the morning nap.
