# 11 month old refuses afternoon nap!!



## LionLady13 (Feb 21, 2009)

For the last several months my 11 mo. old has been refusing to take his afternoon nap. So I've pushed up his BT to 5pm (we start BT routine at 4pm). He sometimes wakes once or twice and then wakes for the day anywhere from 5-7am...His first nap is about 3-3 1/2 hours after he wakes up and he sleeps for 2 hours. I have tried to wake him (advice from a book) in the hopes he'll then take an afternoon nap but he won't. Whether I wake him or not he won't take that afternoon nap. Absolutely refuses and that last stretch is killing me. I've heard that the afternoon nap is really the first to go versus the am nap and that I need to try and push back that morning nap into the afternoon more but he gets so tired and cranky and it's virtually impossible.

We co-slept until he was 5 1/2 mo. until we were literally forced to put him in his own room







b/c he wanted to nurse every hour on the hour and we were both going to have nervous breakdowns from exhaustion.

Any help, advice would be greatly appreciated. The sleep has been by far the worst and the books all suck! I've read Weissbluth but I don't like how it's written (totally confusing; or maybe it's my fried brain from lack of sleep won't allow me to follow).


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## nikkiethridge (May 6, 2008)

DS dropped down to 1 nap a day around 9 months. Maybe yours is just ready for that?

Try a later bedtime, that way he will wake up later in the morning, you will have more time to get out and do stuff, then he will probably take a really good afternoon nap.


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## Drummer's Wife (Jun 5, 2005)

All of my kids went to one nap before they were a year old, and stopped napping daily around their 2nd birthday.


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## plum tree (Aug 23, 2009)

That was about the age my kids all went to one nap. I would keep gently trying to push the morning nap later, if possible.

And this is just coming from my own frame of reference, but a 5pm bedtime seems really early to me. Although there are definitely days when I would give anything for a 5pm bedtime







. I know shifting bedtime to try and get a longer morning sleep often backfires, but that might be worth a try too... maybe it would shift everything back a bit and get him on a better schedule for a single nap?


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## SoxMama (Jul 7, 2009)

Can you try to put him down for his first nap earlier? My 11 month old wakes up at 6:30 on the dot every single day and is down for his first nap between 8:45 - 9:15 which is only about 2.5 hours of awake time after he gets up for the day. Then about 3.5 hours later he takes a second nap. If I miss that morning nap window he gets wired and will only take one nap and he REALLY needs two to make it through the day.

Edited to add: a later bedtime has done nothing to help a later wake time for us. I wish.


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## slgt (Feb 21, 2007)

DD dropped to one nap at 9 months. By about one year, she was consistently going down around 10:30 and sleeping for 2-4 hours. Now, she goes down any time between about 11 and one, and sleeps for 1.5-3 hours, usually around 2.

Bedtime is 8-8:30, and she's up anywhere between 5-6:30 in the morning.

So in my limited experience, one nap is normal, and you'll figure out the right timing - your LO will let you know when he is ready for a nap. We have not had good luck with trying to "force" different bedtimes or naptimes.


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## Latte Mama (Aug 25, 2009)

I also have an 11 month old and he is in the midst of dropping his 2nd nap. Even when he does take one, it's usually quite short, around 20-35 minutes or so. I wish he would keep taking it because he does much better with it.

I agree with PP, 5 pm seems like a really early bed time. My son goes to bed between 8-8:30 and usually sleeps until 7 or 8. Then his morning nap is around 11-1. Then if he takes another nap it's around 4ish. I would definitely try a later bedtime but you might just have a one napper on your hands.


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## shaunnam (Jul 27, 2009)

I'm having a similar experience as a couple of the other posters. My 10 month old DD dropped her afternoon nap a month or so ago. She sleeps from 7pm to 7 am and then goes down for her morning nap at 9 or so. She usually sleeps for 2-3 hours. She still gets pretty tired mid-afternoon, but won't nap unless it's on me at the breast. And she'll only nap like this for 30-45 minutes.

I've thought about trying to move the morning nap later, but she's already so tired by 9, I can't imagine forcing her to stay up. I'm hoping her single nap will move later on it's own!

Are you BF? Maybe your DS would take a cat nap at the breast like mine does mid-afternoon and would keep him going until bedtime. It works fine for us.


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## Dreamy (Jun 1, 2007)

My DS dropped a nap at 11 months. He gets a little tired still in the morning, but the key is to keep him occupied during that time, and he pushes through and has a decent 2.5-3 hour nap at 12:30.

His day usually looks like this:

6:00 AM wake up
9:30-11 play outside (key for not getting sleepy)
11:30 lunch
12:30-3 nap
8PM bedtime

If he doesn't play outside in the morning he gets cranky and needs an earlier nap, but then he ends up taking another nap around 4PM, which REALLY messes up bedtime. so keeping him busy in the morning really helps.

It might be a good idea to start shifting his entire schedule forward by 15-30 minute increments each day (I'd start with pushing back bedtime, which, for us, pushes everything else back), and get lots of outdoor/sunlight time in the morning, if you're not doing that already


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## LionLady13 (Feb 21, 2009)

Thank you all for your advice!

This seems to be the challange of my lifetime, I swear (and these last few weeks *I seriously think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown*)! I've tried to push his naptime earlier into the morning, and that doesn't work, he won't nap that early (needs at least 3-4 hours of being awake before first nap). Then I tried pushing his nap by 15 min increments, into the afternoon (for example today he woke up at 5:30, and I stretched it out until 10:45, that was about the longest he could go) but he only napped for 1 hour!!!!!(before he was napping for at least 2 and in the past week or so he's been dropping to 1), months ago I tried pushing his bedtime into the later evening and he still wakes up at the crack-of-friggin dawn! I really don't know what I'm doing wrong!!?? I feel like I've tried all the strategies and they either fail or backfire. He's now in his crib and for the past fourty five minutes he's been in there just playing; *won't sleep*! None of this would seem so utterly unbearable if he wasn't fussing every few hours at night (last night was bad and husband, trying to help, brings him in without looking at the clock to see he just nursed three hours before...argg!). So I end up getting horrible, cut up sleep.

If anyone can make anymore suggestions, I'd appreciate it. I'm desperate here.


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## LionLady13 (Feb 21, 2009)

Well, guess who started napping like a champ again about two days after my last message?!!!! I'm so happy and I have no idea what I did, lol. DS is rising between 5-7, then starting around 11 he's napping for at least an hour and a half (lately 2+ hrs), and is still going down at 6 for bed (seems to be the perfect time for him). SO all's well that ends well!


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## AKA_PI (Oct 16, 2007)

Could be a growth spurt right now. You could try a massage or some other soothing rountine. And it just might be that he's not wanting to nap then anymore.


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## OkiMom (Nov 21, 2007)

My 10 month old only takes one nap as well. She goes to bed between 8-9pm, wakes up at 6-8am and takes a 1 hour nap around noon.


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## twilight girl (Mar 7, 2002)

I know this isn't much help, but it really doesn't sound that bad, or that unusual for the age.

My two year old still wakes up during the night. He goes to bed late, wakes up 2-3 times at night sometimes and is up early. He takes one nap, sometimes.

Both of my kids dropped their afternoon nap around 10-11 months.

I envy your sleeper! I would give almost anything to have even a 7 p.m. bedtime!!


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