How to Help Your Baby Drop A Nap

Sleep promotes sleep right? So how will I know when my baby is ready to drop a nap? Many babies are ready to drop from 2 naps down to 1 after 12 months of age. Some parents find it hard to part with a nap while others find it a blessing.

Will Baby Cope if They Drop A Nap?

The question is really about whether your child can cope without their nap. As much as they might like to give it a miss, you might find them falling asleep very late in the afternoon because they haven’t had enough sleep. Or you could find them hot wired at 7pm and not ready to go to bed because they are now overtired and their little body is running like an energiser battery.

Do not feel pressured to change your baby’s sleep patterns in a hurry. Sleep helps babies grow and thrive so making sure baby has good quality sleep is a priority.

How Do I Know My Baby Is Ready to Drop A Nap?

• waking early in the morning
• baby is protesting about having a nap. Baby goes to bed and mucks around, chatting and looking around. This could happen now and then but if you notice that it is happening every day for a few days in a row then it could be a sign that baby is ready to drop a nap.
• baby can stay awake longer without getting grumpy or fussy this could be 4 or 5 hours before they are tired again.
• waking up earlier than normal from a nap
• baby goes to sleep well for one nap, but not the other
• baby sleeps well during the day but is not able to settle easily at night time

How Do I Transition From Two Naps to One?

The key here is to be flexible. Baby may drop a nap for a few days and then have a catch up day. Baby might catch you off guard by suddenly falling asleep unexpectedly. This is all fine if you are prepared to go with the flow and help your child navigate their way through this tricky period. Dropping a nap is a gradual process, so your baby may need to alternate between 1 or 2 naps for a short time.

If you think baby is really ready to drop the nap then you have to try to delay the morning nap each day for say 30 minutes each day. So if baby was napping at 9am then move it to 9.30am. The goal is to merge the morning and afternoon naps into one big nap during the middle of the day.

As the morning nap gets pushed back, you might want to introduce some quiet time mid morning to help get baby through until the main nap. You might find that your baby’s sleep crosses over your usual lunch period so make sure your baby has a big snack (or half their lunch) before the nap and then the other half after the nap. You definitely don’t want baby waking up because they are hungry.

At the other end of the day, you may need to bring bedtime forward slightly to compensate for the baby waking up earlier in the afternoon from their now one and only nap.

It’s all a bit of a juggle for a couple of weeks, tweaking and gradually shifting the timing until your baby sleeps for a longer period of time in the middle of the day.

Is It Just a Sleep Regression?

Sleep interruptions often coincide with big milestones in your baby’s life such as crawling or walking. In other words a sleep regression equals a learning progression. So give baby some time to establish if it’s just a little “regression” or if baby really is ready to drop a nap. You might like to read more on sleep regressions in our blog here.

Use baby’s mood as a guide as to whether they are coping after dropping their nap. If your baby is unusually fragile, they might need to have the odd nap to catch up or go back to the double nap for a little while longer.

As always we recommend that you follow the Red Nose safe sleep guidelines, even as baby grows and changes, make sure their sleep wear and sleep space is safe.

In my experience, baby sleep stages are very transient. Just when you thought you were getting into a regular sleep routine, everything changes again. It’s a good sign that your baby is growing and developing so just go with the flow and put baby’s needs first. Sleep is so important for a happy family!