Hellobee

In this edition of the Swarm, the bees share the ages their little ones dropped to 2, 1, and 1 naps!

E L L I E  – 6  Y E A R S
L O R E L E I  –  1 4  M O N T H S

Ellie was, and is, somewhat of a non-sleeper. This has drastically improved since we got her sleep apnea sorted, but she still tends toward needing less sleep rather than more.

Transition to two naps: 10 weeks. This was the last week I was home with her, and believe me when I say that I had no part in it whatsoever. The daycare provider appreciated that she had two predictable nap-times (9am and 1pm), but I didn’t mind back when she was a sleepier little thing and might throw in an extra just for good measure.

Transition to one nap: Around 6 months. Again, not a lot to be done, that’s just the way she operated. She slept a longer stretch at night (though would take many “dream-feeds” during that time…).

Transition to 0 naps: Age two and a half. This was a longer transition, taking many months to work itself out. At first I tried having her drop the nap because she was starting to stay up late enough to watch the Late Show. Not cool. And not that she watched any TV… but man, she was up into the wee hours. She would make it about three days, and then desperately need a nap on the fourth. Eventually she settled into a routine of not napping, but kept an earlier bedtime (around 6:30 pm) until this past year.

For all naps she would start off alone, and then I would go lay down with her (and a good book!).

Lorelei is a little more typical, I would guess.

Transition to two naps: Around seven months. She would then take a morning nap around 9am and an afternoon nap around 2:30pm. At first both naps were about 1.5 hours, but gradually the morning nap got longer and the afternoon nap got shorter. Up until ten months I wore her in a wrap for all naps. Then she started to want to “spread out” a little more, so I would lay her down in her room (she has a mattress on the floor in there) and I would go lay with her for the rest of her nap after she woke the first time.

Transition to one nap: Just happened! We are still in-process, so 12 months. She will still take an afternoon nap if we are out and about in the morning and she doesn’t get enough sleep then, or every few days, but they are short. Typically she has one nap in the morning from about 9:30am-11:30am, sometimes until noon.

J A M E S  –  4  ,  J  O E  &  N  I C K  –  3
L I L L Y   –  1 9  M O N  T H S

James was a cat napper for six weeks then we went straight into two naps. He dropped his morning nap to one nap a day when he was about 18 months. It was a tough transition because his younger brothers still needed a morning nap, and then he was ready to nap earlier than they were for their afternoon nap, so we took about an hour walk every morning so the twins could nap and he could relax and look around. He stopped napping completely at around 2.5. We had a nightmare transition to toddler beds and it resulted in no more consistent nap times. Eventually he would sometimes just crash on the couch, but there was no schedule and it wasn’t everyday.

Joe and Nick. To be honest I can’t remember much about the first six months with timing and naps. I was just nursing around the clock and praying they would sometimes sleep. At about six months I was getting a solid routine with a morning nap and and afternoon nap. At 9 months their morning nap got reduced to one hour when we went for a walk. They gave that nap up completely by the time they were 15 months. Before they turned two, we lost the afternoon nap with the toddler bed fiascoes. Oh I wished they would nap but they just wouldn’t.

Lilly was a cat napper for a year. I never got more than a 20 minute nap out of her. At about a year I started forcing her to stay awake in the morning in the hopes that I could get one long nap in the afternoon. That is where we are now. She is 19 months and takes one nap in the afternoon that’s lasts for about an hour, sometimes two.

C H AR L I E  –  3  Y E A R S  ,  6  M O N T HS
O L I V E  –  2 0  M O N T H S

C H A R L I E

For most of his life, Charlie has been an excellent napper, and probably napped too much in the daytime instead of sleeping a little more at night.

He dropped from 3 naps to 2 when he was 9 months old as he was able to stay awake longer and longer between his naps. The transition was seamless and pretty much happened overnight. We had no 9 month sleep regression issues, and his sleep continued to be just as good with 2 longer naps as they had been with 3 shorter naps.

We pushed Charlie to drop from 2 naps to 1 when he was 15 months old. Though he could have continued taking 2 naps for a while, he could only take 2, hour-long naps that we had to wake him up from so that bedtime wouldn’t go past 7:30pm. It took over a month for Charlie to nap around 1pm consistently. Sometimes he could barely make it past 10am because he was an early riser. We had to be extra active in the mornings so that he could stay awake, and we had make sure that he wasn’t in the stroller around his usual morning nap time or he’d fall asleep. But he was actually getting more sleep with one nap than he was with two because he was able to take one 3+ hour nap instead of two 1 hour naps. From 1 1/2 – 3, Charlie could easily nap over 4 hours, but we would usually wake him up at the 4 hour mark. I didn’t like the transition to one nap at first because Charlie was an early riser and I really needed that morning break. But with our mornings free, we were able to go on a lot more adventures.

Shortly after Charlie turned 3, he started fighting his one nap. We knew he still needed it because he would often meltdown near bedtime if he skipped his nap. He also continued to nap well at daycare, but fought naps at home on the weekends. We instituted quiet time for one hour in his room, and Charlie napped about 40% of the time. That was a phase that lasted about 2 months, and he’s back to napping every day. His bedtime was around 8:30, but it kept inching later and later (it’s 10pm now!) because he just wasn’t tired enough at bedtime with the 2+ hour naps he was taking at daycare. I think he still needs a nap, but we need to limit it to 1 hour or he’s not tired enough at bedtime. Since he’s on the same nap schedule as Olive now, we still let him nap 2-3 hours on the weekends because we need a break and would rather deal with the later bedtime than a short nap.

Come September he’s starting pre-k when he will not have a nap, so we figure it’ll all sort itself out then and he’ll be back to a more reasonable bedtime of 7-8pm.

O L I V E

Olive dropped from 3 to 2 naps when we nap trained at 8 months. The transition was seamless because she started taking longer naps, so she no longer needed a third nap. Prior to nap training, she was a cat napper and often needed 4 naps on short nap days to make it to bedtime.

We tried pushing Olive to drop to 1 nap when she was 16 months old because she was starting daycare, but she just wasn’t ready. Luckily our daycare was flexible and kept Olive on the two nap schedule. It was hard with two kids on different nap schedules — Olive would take her morning nap, then Charlie would take his early afternoon nap, then Olive would take her late afternoon nap. Between all the naps, we were homebound a lot because Olive wouldn’t sleep in the stroller!

When Olive was 17 months, daycare transitioned her to 1 nap. I think being in daycare made the transition easier for her since there was so much activity there, and it was easier to stay awake for that long stretch in the mornings. She usually naps at 1pm at daycare, but at home she always napped around noon, or even a little earlier following the transition. Now that she’s been on the one nap schedule for a couple of months, she can easily stay up until 1 – 1:30 on the weekends.

Several fantastic things happened once Olive dropped to 1 nap a day:
– Both kids nap on the same schedule now. I was very much looking forward to Olive dropping her morning nap!
– Olive will now nap in her stroller when she rarely used to before. Now we’re finally able to go on all day outings with both kids and not have to worry about their naps.
– Olive used to only nap an hour and a half at a time and wake up like an alarm clock, which made the 2 to 1 nap transition hard because she needed a long nap to make it to bedtime without being overtired. Now she consistently sleeps 2 1/2 – 3 1/2 hours. I’ve generally found that overall sleep — both night time and day time — improves when kids are on one nap.

W A G O N  J R  –  3  Y E A R S  ,  6  M O N T H S
L I L  M I S S  W A G O N  –  10  M O N T H S

Gonna have to dig into the blog archives to track this down!

W A G O N  J R .

From 3 naps to 2: 10 months. Before this I would stroller or car nap him for a third nap. I was a SAHM so I was able to spend my afternoons doing whatever it took to get him to take that third nap!
From 2 naps to 1: 18 months. We pushed him at this point because he started daycare.
Dropped napping: 3 years, 4 months. This is happening right now. He hasn’t napped at daycare in almost a week, and on the weekends he usually naps in the car while we’re out and about.

L  I T T L E  M I S S  W A G O N

From 3 naps to 2: 6 months. Her napping was incredibly spotty until her second teething stint ended around 4-5 months. Then her sleep got so much better and settled into a 2 nap routine at 6 months and she slept through the night at around 7-8 months.
From 2 naps to 1: Not yet! Some days if she falls back asleep in the morning before we get her, she’ll sleep in til 8 or even 9, and if she takes a super long first nap she’ll end up taking just the one nap. But we still count that falling back asleep as a nap so that’s still two naps.
Dropped napping: Not yet!!!!

R I A  –  3  Y E A R S  ,   2  M O N T H S
S U N N Y  –  1 4  M O N T H S

Ria dropped to 2 naps at 7 months. It was so nice because that was when we could figure out a proper schedule. Then she dropped to 1 at 11 months which I thought was insane as she’s always had a high sleep need, and sure enough she went back to two naps at 14 months and kept them both until 18 months. She’s 3 and 2 months now and still naps every day for 1.5-3 hours in the afternoon.

Sunny was the world’s worst napper and dropped to two naps at 5 months (and I had to wear her for the morning nap every time). At 11 months she dropped to 1 nap and is now 14 months and napping 1.5-2.25 hours every afternoon.

And they nap at the same time now! Bliss!

D R A K E  –  3  Y E A R S
B A B Y  C H O C O L A T E  –  D U E  J U N E

I have a hard time remembering. Drake was an awful sleeper so my first year was a real blur. I don’t remember when it was, but at some point he did have a somewhat consistent nap in that 2 hours after he woke up (around 6-7 AM) he would go down for a first nap and then he would have a later one as well. I don’t recall when he stopped doing that early morning nap — maybe 10 months? Then started staying up later and taking one longer nap. At 3, Drake’s naps are hit or miss these days. He usually will take one, but the length is questionable and if he falls asleep in the car, even for 5 minutes, that’s his nap for the day. When he does nap, it’s usually about an hour to two and half hours depending on how much sleep he got the night before.

M A V R I C K –  2 Y E A R S  ,  10  M O N T H S
S I E N N A – 1 0  M O N T H S

Both my kids love to sleep and nap so transition from 3 to 1 was a work in progress.

M A V R I C K

When he was a baby, Mavrick would nap 3-4 times a day and it meant I was able to do a lot around the house. He went from a solid 3 naps to 2 at about 10.5 months old, just when he started daycare. The routine at daycare really helped him get less sleepy. Plus he was so excited to be around other kids and toys, he didn’t want to sleep anymore so by 15 months he went from 2 naps to 1. He was still tired at night though and would often be in bed at 6:30-7:00.

Now that he’s almost 3, he still needs his afternoon nap but definitely goes to bed later at 8pm. He needs to sleep so I doubt he will drop his afternoon nap anytime soon.

S I E N N A

Like her brother, Sienna was an intense napper. She would nap 4-5 times a day even if they were short naps. She would get tired easily and that was my cue to put her to bed. Unfortunately past the 6 month mark, she was no longer the type of baby that could sleep anywhere so I was home bound because she rarely slept in the stroller if I was out and about.

At about 7 months she started sleeping longer during her afternoon nap so we went from 4-5 naps to 3 — one in the morning, one in the afternoon and she would often take a cat nap before dinner.

When she started daycare at 11 months, she found it extremely hard and was overtired often. She was cranky and cried often. It took about 2 weeks for her to get used to the 2 naps a day routine, but now that she’s got it down pat she sleeps through the night! (yay for me!!!)

I have no idea how long she will take 2 naps since she doesn’t like sleeping elsewhere but in a crib. But for now we will stick with 2 and we put her to bed at around 6:30-7:00.

N O E L L E  –  2 Y E A R S  ,  5  M O N T H S
J A R E N —  3  M O N T H S

From 3-2 at 7-months – When she had 3 naps a day, it was usually two longer naps of about 1.5 hours long, and a short 30-min catnap towards the end of the day to get her to bedtime so she wouldn’t be overtired.

Once she dropped to two naps, I really loved it! She would have 2 naps of 1.5 hours each and were very consistent with them. I resisted dropping to 1 nap for awhile, even though it seemed like she ready to drop around 16-17 months. I could tell she needed to drop a nap because her morning “nap” soon became more play than nap. Of course, it was so nice to have that downtime for me and quiet time for her.

From 2-1 at 20-months (when she started preschool/daycare). When we went to a one nap schedule, it was better than I expected! I thought I would be sad to lose that extra downtime, but instead her one nap consolidated to be one really long 3 hour nap in the afternoon (usually from 1-4 pm)…. and weekend family naptimes became something we often looked forward to!

She’s currently still on a one-nap schedule.

A L I Y A –  2 3  M O N T H S

She stayed on a 3-nap schedule until she was 8 months old. After weeks of fighting naps and what I call “crap-napping,” which consisted of naps about thirty minutes a piece (with about 30-45 minutes of fussing or crying prior to the nap), I figured it might be time to drop a nap. I was a little fearful of the 3-2 nap transition, but was pleasantly surprised when she began napping beautifully after the transition! Her crap-napping ceased, and she began taking 1.5-2 hour naps which I believed to be nothing short of a miracle. Her 2-nap schedule looked something like this:

Wake-up: 7:10 AM
Nap 1: 9:45 – 11:30 AM
Nap 2: 2:45 – 4:45 PM
Bedtime: 8:15 PM

We made the 2 to 1 nap transition between 19 – 20 months. I had been dreading the transition for quite some time. I was afraid keeping her up longer would result in an extra cranky baby in the mornings, selfishly I liked having two “breaks” in the day, and I was not sure how well she would sleep. She was already taking one nap on Sundays since we attend church during her usual first nap time, so the transition has been very smooth. She seems to be sleeping even better during the day (anywhere from 3 – 3.5 hours).

Her 1-nap schedule looks something like this:

Wake-up: 7:10 AM
Nap 1: 1 PM – 4:30 PM
Bedtime: 8:15 PM

L I T T L E  Y  –  21  M O N T H S

Little Y went from 3 to 2 naps around 7 months. There were a couple of rocky weeks where he’d take one longish nap and one short one, meaning he needed a catnap late in the afternoon so that he wasn’t a mess by bedtime. But of course he fought that nap unless he was in the car. We did a lot of late afternoon drives during that transition!

Once he was solidly taking two 1.5 hour naps, he did beautifully until about 12 months, when he would start to fight his afternoon nap. I didn’t think he was ready to go to one, so we temporarily fixed the problem by letting him sleep only 45 mins or 1 hour max in the morning — that generally meant he was tired enough in the afternoon for the second nap.

He started fighting the afternoon nap again at 15 months, and so we went cold-turkey to one nap at noon. The first week I just made sure to keep him really active in the mornings while he adjusted. Car rides around 10-11 were pretty risky during that time! After about a week of short naps (probably because he was overtired) and consequently very early bedtimes, he started going 2-3 hours, and we pushed naptime back until 1. At 22 months, he usually still naps for about 2 hours around 1 pm and never fights it.

I also remember being afraid of the 2-1 transition, and I’m not going to lie, I don’t shower with as much regularity as I used to, but it’s so nice to be able to go on morning or afternoon outings without worrying about naps. It makes the day go faster.

C H L O E  –  1 9  M O N T H S

Chloe dropped to one nap a day somewhere around 10 months old. While she was always a poor napper, I could usually count on her taking a morning nap (around 10am) and an afternoon nap (around 1pm) each day, though her the nap time varied in length (I was lucky to get about 20 minutes out of her).

Once we sleep trained her, around her first birthday, she dropped to one nap a day. Now I can count on one really great nap a day, for about 2-3 hours at a time. This varies if she’s overly tired (she’ll go down earlier than usual) or if she’s teething (she may not nap at all), but in general she’ll take her one nap at 2pm each day.

L I T T L E  M  –  1 6  M O N T H S

Little M moved to two naps at 6 months old. It was a very clear and sudden change. He went from being a horrible napper to all of a sudden taking longer (as in longer than 20 minutes) naps twice a day. He usually had a longer nap in the morning of about 1.5 hours and a shorter 45min nap in the afternoon.

At 8 months he started to fight his afternoon nap, some days taking it, some days not. By 8.5 months he was on one nap a day. His one nap fell in the morning until he was 13.5 months old. Before then it had been pushing a little later and later until at 13.5 months I started a nap routine and schedule. His nap since then is at 12:30 and lasts from 1 – 1.5 hours.

As a side note, since before 6m he has slept 12-14 hours a night, which I think is why he doesn’t take the epic 3 hour long naps my friends’ kids take! Bath is usually at 5:30pm and he’s asleep by 6:15/6:30. This has been his evening routine since he was 7m old.

J A C O B I  –  1 5  M O N T H S

He went from three to two naps very early at 4-5 months. I think it’s because he just wasn’t doing very well with staying on a consistent schedule until he was about 6 months old. We struggled with that last hour before bedtime for several months as a result.

He is 14 months and still taking two naps a day.

L I A M  –  1 4  M O N T H S

Liam dropped from 3 naps to 2 a little bit before he turned 8 months old. We didn’t do anything different, it just sort of happened, but we have never had a super strict nap schedule.

He dropped from 2 naps to 1 around 11.5 months, but he still sometimes takes a second nap if his first one isn’t long enough or if it’s too early. On the weekends, we don’t tend to plan around naps, so if he falls asleep in the car on the way somewhere, we might hang out in the car for a bit to let him have his rest. Sometimes it’s earlier than his usual nap time, so he needs another nap later. However, I have told the nanny to start putting him down for his nap a little bit later so he doesn’t take a cat nap when I get home from work and nurse him, which usually messes up bedtime. So far this has worked really well!

B A B Y  H  –  13  M O N T H S

Miss H dropped from 3 naps to 2 naps around 9/10 months old. We weren’t reading her cues well (or ready for the change!) so she probably could have transitioned a little bit sooner than when it actually happened. But it was a very easy transition because she was ready to be up for longer stretches.

Now at 13 months her schedule is a struggle. She takes a solid morning nap from about 9:30am-11/11:30am. We put her down for her second nap at around 2/2:30pm (depending on when she woke up from her first nap) and even when she is really, really tired there are many days where the second nap doesn’t happen. She would just rather be playing in her crib and won’t settle down! Perfectly happy, but not sleeping. Other days (like today) her morning nap is only about an hour and then she takes an amazing 1.5-2 hour afternoon nap (like she’s doing right now!). So we’re slowly looking into transitioning down to just taking an afternoon nap, but I’m nervous it will affect her sleep at night (she’s sleeps from 7pm-7am and it’s wonderful!).

B A B Y  C O N F E T T I – 1 2  M O N T H S

Little C is very solidly stuck in a two nap a day routine. We transitioned from three naps to two around five-six months when he just fought the third nap SO much that I gave up and just moved his bed time up really early. In the last month of his 3rd nap, I was always having to keep him moving – swing, stroller or car – so I decided to switch him to two.

I know the one nap a day switch will be nice once it’s over, because we can have longer adventures, but I love that morning nap for showering purposes.

S C R I B B L E   –  9  M O N T H S

My kid is an incredible napper. As in two, two-hour naps a day. He napped in arms only until 3.5 months, and from 3.5 to 6 months took 3 a day, of at least 1-2 hr duration. At 7.5 months he was taking 2 awesome naps a day and if one isn’t awesome, he takes one more in the afternoon. He dropped his third nap around 6 months when the time changed. I tried to get him back on one, but it just never seemed to work after that!

L I L  T E A C U P  –  9  M O N T H S

Up until around 6 months, Lil tea cup was settled in a great schedule, where she slept 2 hours in the morning and then had 2 naps in the afternoon: that were 2 hours and 1.5 hours. Around 6.5 months we dropped down to 2 hours in the morning and 2.5 hours in the afternoon. At 8 months we are still doing this. I will keep her with this schedule until I notice she is ready for less daytime sleep.

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When did your little one transition to 2, 1, and 0 naps?