Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

This week’s question comes from Paige. She asks:

My question is along the line of naps. My son is almost 14 months old and still takes two naps. Is this normal? When he turned one, I tried to transition him from two naps to one, but he just seemed too tired and grumpy, so I went back to two. When is the right time to go down to one nap

That’s a great question, Paige, and I think you’ve answered it yourself in a way. You tried moving him to just one nap and it was too much for him, so it’s great that you were able to see that. You really followed his lead and put him back on the two naps. If I had to give a general guideline, I’d say going to one nap a day happens anywhere from 10 months to 18 months. There really is a big window there.

So how do you know when the right time is? That’s a great question. What tends to happen when a child is ready to transition is, they’ll often go down for the morning nap. Let’s say you’ve got a one-year-old who naps around 10 a.m. Normally, they’ll go down easily for the 10 a.m. nap and probably sleep a good hour and a half or two hours. But when the afternoon nap rolls around, let’s say 2:30 or so, it’s a struggle. Meaning he or she is just in there playing for an hour and then only sleeping for 20 minutes or alternating between fussing and playing or only sleeping for 30 minutes total.

So if you find that one of the naps, often the afternoon nap, is a struggle four to five times a week, then it’s most likely time to start the transition. I’ve also had people tell me that the opposite has happened, that the child is really resisting the morning nap but then taking a good, solid afternoon nap. Again, if any combination of those two is happening a few times a week, I would look at changing.

One thing to remember when you do drop to one nap is, I think it’s better to just decide to do it and then do it. Don’t waiver between two naps one day and one nap the other, because I just think that it’s hard for your child’s body adjust to that. If you just make the choice to go to one nap, it will still be an adjustment, and you can expect four to six weeks of that adjustment period before the body gets in line with the new schedule. And you might find that at 10:00 your child’s really showing signs of fatigue and is a bit grumpy, and you think, “Well, he could really take a nap now,” but try to push through that. A good thing to kind of get over that hump is a snack, maybe some fruit or fruit juice to just give him a little bit of a sugar high, so he kind of carries himself through and gets that second wind.

A great time for the one nap a day is about 12:30. So I would normally do a lunch around 12, and then after lunch, it’s time for a nap. In the transition, you might want to gradually lead into that, where you just keep postponing the morning nap by a half an hour every few days so it’s not too much of a jump. Because sometimes if you try to just make this huge jump from 10 to 12:30, all you’ll do is create overtiredness and then it’ll be even trickier for your child to take a good nap.

With any transition, it does take some time, and you’ll have some good days and bad in there, but that’s the best way to do it. And you’ll find that the afternoon nap will consolidate as well so it become a nice two-, sometimes three-hour nap.

It sounds like, Paige, in your case, you’ve got another month or so to not worry about it. And, again it can really vary, so I wouldn’t worry. I don’t think it’s bad at all that he’s still taking two naps.

Thanks a lot for your question, and sleep well.