Nap Transitions
What is a nap transition?
“Nap Transition” is the term used to describe the period when a baby or toddler drops one of their naps. The transition period usually lasts a few weeks and can be a disruptive time in an infant’s sleep journey. Once a baby can get into a good nap routine – usually from around 4 or 5 months – they typically start on 3 or 4 naps per day. This will typically be 3 if naps are longer, but 4 naps (or maybe even 5) will be required when a baby is cat napping and their wake windows are naturally shorter. These naps start reducing to 2, then to 1, and eventually none.
What age do nap transitions commonly happen?
Dropping from 3 to 2 naps typically occurs around 8-9 months of age.
Dropping from 2 naps to 1 nap can happen anytime from 12 months to 18 months, but most commonly happens from around 14 months - 18 months.
What are the key signs your little one is ready to drop a nap?
Dropping from 3 to 2 naps is driven by your baby’s wake window increasing, making it more and more difficult to fit that third nap in. The third nap becomes too late, pushing bedtime. Frequently, your baby will just not be tired enough for that second or third nap, which leads to naturally dropping the third nap.
In the case of dropping to one nap, having a morning nap means they aren’t tired post lunch, and they push their afternoon nap later. This means the nap finishes later and they aren’t tired enough at bedtime.
The morning nap covers their sleep needs for the day and they fight their afternoon nap as they just aren’t tired at lunchtime. It becomes too long a stretch until bedtime which means they are grumpy and overtired, which can often then impact night sleep and also result in early wakings.
The child is fighting their morning nap as they aren’t ready for sleep that early.
How to manage the 3 to 2 nap transition
The key during this transition is to try and play about with the 2 naps to ensure the baby has appropriate wake windows for their age. The best way to do this is to stretch their first wake window of the day, so you push the morning nap a little later. You can do this gradually over the period of a couple of weeks. This naturally pushes the second nap out too, so it finishes closer to 4pm for a 7pm bedtime. I recommend bringing bedtime forward if the nap finishes too early to avoid overtiredness at bedtime.
How to manage the 2 to 1 nap transition
Once fully settled into a 1 nap routine, your baby will likely go down for a single nap after lunch. However, during the transition period you may find you have to bring their nap forward as they won’t make it until the scheduled nap time. To avoid them being hungry, as the nap may clash with their lunchtime, splitting lunch into two smaller meals either side of the nap can help manage timing. You may need to offer a slightly earlier bedtime whilst going through this phase, if the nap finishes a bit earlier.
Alternatively, whilst managing the transition you could use a “Bridging Nap”. This is a nap which is shorter than a full sleep cycle – usually 10-20 minutes so it's not going into the deep sleep part of the cycle – which allows a little one to get through a wake window (which they’d normally be able to do but are too tired to do on any given day).
For example, a child on a 7pm-7am routine would normally have their nap around 1pm. However, during the transition period, they will often be tired before then and if they had their single nap too early, they will then be overtired for bedtime. Doing a bridging nap mid to late morning helps reduce some of the sleep pressure and allows the little one to get to the normal nap time (i.e. 1pm) without being so tired.
With an additional nap being added to a routine, there is always a concern that it can really make the main nap(s) extra difficult, which is why the bridging nap is short and it’s just to tide the little one over until their ideal nap time. If you let that bridging nap go on too long, it can lead to the next nap being more difficult or being pushed later than you would like.
When does dropping naps completely happen?
Dropping all day naps typically occurs from about 2.5 years old, but some children drop all of their naps as early as 2, and some continue with one until closer to 4. The signs to look out for is if bedtime is becoming impacted - if your little one is still napping but then refusing to go to bed or taking a long time (i.e. an hour or more) to actually fall asleep, you may need to firstly shorten their nap to see if that helps. I would recommend you reduce the nap to 45 minutes initially and do this consistently for a week to see if it helps bedtime. If it doesn’t, you may need to start dropping it entirely. Some children will still need a nap on intermittent days before dropping it altogether. I would always recommend trialling a reduction in length of day nap and the intermittent approach before dropping completely.
The key things to remember during a transition phase
Nap transitions are a difficult process to navigate. It can lead to inconsistent days, impacted night sleep at times and grumpy children! The key things to remember are:
It’s a gradual process done over many weeks, so there will be inconsistent days along the way.
To try and always spread the wake windows rather than having it lopsided where there is a very big wake window to bedtime. It is always better for your little one to be overtired going into a nap than into bedtime.
It’s ok to wake a baby from a nap or bridging nap.
