Day sleep help and 15 months routine

Ella still has her nap at 11.30ish. Gradually her morning naps got slighly later and we finally settled on 11.30 which works for us. She has lunch at 11 and in bed at 11.30 and normally sleeps until around 2.

 

Maybe while he is making the transition you could take him out in the late afternoon for a walk in the buggy so at least he is getting a bit of rest (and you never know he may fall asleep while you are out). Or you could put him to bed slighly earlier in the evenings- on daycare days when Ella doesn't have a sleep she is in bed by 6.30 (and if she is really, really grumpy then 6 and she still goes staight to sleep).

I gradually just started holding Gabrielle out longer before her morning nap - over the space of a few weeks I moved the morning nap to 9.30am then 10am then 10.30am etc. Some days she would only sleep half an hour or so and I'd still try and sneak a half hour sleep in about 2pm, but mostly just made bedtime earlier.

So she went something like up at 6am, bed at 9.30/10/10.30, lunch after that then possibly afternoon sleep 2pmish (depending on how long she slept) but not letting her sleep longer than 3pm, and then bed 5.30/6/6.30pm.

Gradually I moved the times week by week and now Gabrielle wakes sometime between 6 & 7am, has morning tea at 9.30am/10am then lunch at 11.30/12 then straight to bed for her sleep. She doesn't usually sleep longer than half an hour to an hour and then dinner at 5.30pm and bed sometime between 6.30 & 7pm.

It was a bit of a difficult situation - I put her to bed earlier at night so she woke earlier in the morning and then wanted an earlier morning sleep. It did take a while to get sorted out but we got there in the end.

Re the lunch question - I often did a big morning tea rather than lunch at a regular time for lunch if that makes sense. So if her sleep was at 10.30am then she would have big morning tea at 10am and then a small half size lunch when she woke at 12.30ish.

I found that I just couldn't push that morning nap out to begin with, for either of mine. I ended up taking the easy route and just pushing out the afternoon nap... they would have a nap at about 4 for an hour, then up again, then back in bed at 7-7.30pm. It never seemed to alter their bedtime that much, only by about half an hour, so I just pushed the afternoon nap out. I found that way they would be able to go longer in the morning before the nap (weird huh) and then gradually their morning nap turned into an after lunch nap.

It was tricky working lunch out. I would just make sure they had a good healthy morning tea, then if they couldn't make it until after lunch, put them to bed and give them a late lunch when they wake up.

I started taking Callum out morning in the mornings to keep him up till about 11am instead of gradually pushing the nap later as I found he was just a grumpy poo if we were home doing stuff when he was tired.

We had about 2-3 weeks of one-nap-days and then went back to two naps for a month! But one day he refused his afternoon sleep and the second time it was much easier to go back to one nap if that makes sense.

When C was napping 11-1ish he would sometimes be in bed by about 6pm (usual time is 7) but he would still wake at the normal time in the morning. Then we settled at 12-2/2,30 for ages and now he's going down around 1.30 for a couple of hours and back to 7pm bed time.

As for lunch, I would do a bigger morning tea (with protein like cheese or yoghurt) and then give C a good lunch after his nap. Once he started going down at 12ish I would give him lunch at 11.30 and then straight to bed. His naps were longer after that too