From 3 Naps to None: Navigating Every Transition

 In this episode of The Things No One Told Us, we chat all about nap transitions, from dropping the third nap to navigating toddler nap struggles. We break down the signs your child is truly ready for a schedule change, common mistakes parents make during transitions, daycare challenges, and practical ways to handle overtired little ones without turning sleep into a battle. A relatable, supportive conversation for parents trying to make sense of changing sleep patterns. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, hi, welcome back to the things that no one told us. I'm Liz. I'm the founder of Growing With Hope. I also work with Sleep Child of Mine, and I'm also a mom. I'm a pediatric sleep consultant and early childhood educator.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And I'm Abby. I'm a pediatric sleep consultant, full spectrum dual-a. I am working on my hypnobirthing certification as well, which is super exciting. And I'm a mom too. And we're also friends. So we're getting both the professional side and the real life side.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

All of it all together. So today we are talking about nap transitions. So that's where your baby will be dropping from either three to two naps or two to one naps or one to nothing. Those transitions can feel a little crunchy for people. So we thought we would chat about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, and parents start to notice like, hey, used to be that I would put my, you know, baby down at 9.30 a.m. for their morning nap, and I'd get them up at 10. And now I put them down at 9.30. No problem. No one's crying, but they just aren't sleeping. Like they just stay awake and babble and roll around for half an hour. Or they sleep well in the morning and then the afternoon nap falls apart. And they're like, what's going on? Because you had this down for months, and now all of a sudden, you know, this isn't working. So they often think something's wrong, maybe they're hungry, needing to be fed, or I need to, or they're sick, or their teeth, or you know, something's off.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah. It's hard for people to know like the why of things, and therefore hard to know how they should adjust things. But what's actually happening when these nap transitions happen is that your baby no longer needs the same amount of awake time. They need more. And so when we give them less, it's harder for them to fall asleep. Think of their sleep drive or their sleep pressure as a cop. And as they're awake, that cop slowly builds up. And then when you hit nap time, if it's not built up enough, then they're not able to fall asleep quickly enough. And then that's where you see struggle. So it can be a really frustrating transition for people for sure. Usually, so for the three to new two nap transitions, this usually starts around the six-month mark. And it can be a tricky transition because it's not like your kid wakes up one day and is like, okay, I'm ready to drop this nap. Like it's not an immediate right-away thing. For some kids, it's like a slow, gradual shift, or you'll have babies who kind of struggle with that third nap for a couple weeks, but they still need it a little bit. So it can be, it can be tricky for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And you might also see, like, okay, they refused the morning nap or the afternoon nap fell apart for three days. But then there were a few days where things were great, and then you're back to things not being great again. So how, when, how do I know that it's they're ready to drop it, that they're ready for this transition, and that's where a lot of people get stuck. They either jump the gun too soon and they're like, all right, you know, this is it, we're, you know, we're ready, we're cutting down to two naps, and then three days later they're like, my kid's miserable at med at bedtime, or I'm having a super early rise, and all of a sudden now when things were all solid, my kid's up at 6 a.m. or 5 30 a.m. and starting the day, and I don't know what, where, how to pick up the pieces.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah. Sometimes for people, I think it feels like it's it feels to them like it's out of left field. Like all of a sudden, this happens. But there are usually subtle kind of cues and hints that we can look for where baby is showing us that they're ready for something different. This actually reminds me of one of my most recent in-home clients. Baby is seven months old. And before working with me, she was having three-ish naps a day. There were cat naps, so it it clearly was still needed. But once we started working together, it very quickly became like if she napped well during the day, she didn't need that third nap. But if she napped poorly, then she still needed that third nap. So it was a process because on some days she still needed it, and on other days she didn't. And it's really hard for parents to kind of differentiate when do we use it, when do we not, and when is a full stop. Like when are we just giving up on that third nap? And so that can be really frustrating because some days it looked like she was a unicorn, and other days you're like, nope, just kidding. So that that can be hard for people, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

And we also see it around the you know, beginning of toddler phase. So like they're around that 12, 13 month old mark, you know, when we're looking at cutting naps down from two to one. So it looks like, oh, they're ready, they're you know, the morning nap isn't always happening, and we're ready to cut down to one nap, and then they try to cut down to one nap, and then the kids like ready to pass out or falling asleep on their playmat at 11 a.m. and they're like, oh, you know, I guess we're not ready. Or, you know, for three days they made it to noon and everything was fine, but then you know, they haven't made it through the week. So a lot of times when we get to that 12 to 15 month mark, that's when we like start to talk about cutting down to one nap, but we sometimes jump the gun a little too quickly because they have the 12-month regression hitting at the same time. So it's like, am I ready to cut, or am I actually just prematurely, you know, trying to get things going to down to one of my lifestyle would suit that better, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So uh when I met these clients when they're seven-month-old, but when they were at that transition between the three naps to two naps, we we used it as a fail-safe. So on days where naps didn't go the way that we wanted to, we offered a third nap and we didn't make it happen. We let it happen if it needed to. So, example, we would give her a half an hour of contact napping, and if she went to sleep cool, we never let it go longer than 30 minutes. And then we adjusted bedtime accordingly. But it was kind of there. We used it as like our fail-safer if the day didn't go well, but we also were not forcing it because she didn't necessarily need it. She really didn't if she napped well during the day. So that's that's literally how we handled that particular circumstance. It's not the same for everyone, but for her, that that was what ended up working. And I was just talking with them last night, and she had a beautiful day of sleep yesterday and didn't need that third nap. That was great. So it was really fantastic to see that shift for them.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, and a lot of what I like to remind people is that we want to see at least a week in a row of that sign that or that nap refusal. So, for example, we are on three naps and we're looking to work down to two. We're still offering those 15, 20 minutes of that third nap at the end of the day, that four-ish time. And we want to see that for a full week they're actually refusing that nap. So, not jumping the gun if after a day or two days they refused it. That might not be that they're fully ready yet. We want to see that we really tried for a full week, and after that full week, they're still, nope, they're not taking that third nap, no problem. Then you're ready to shift over to that two nap schedule. So just making sure that we're not prematurely jumping to because you know, a few na a day or two, they refuse that nap. Because it could be one day yes, one day no, one day yes, two days no, three days yes. But you want to see a week of no nap, and then you know that you're ready to move to that two nap.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, I always tell people we're looking for that consistency. So, like a one-off, not a big deal. Two days, okay, cool, we're looking at it. Three days we're watching to see if that pattern continues, and if it does, then we know we need to change something. But like the thing about baby sleep is that it changes so much in the moment, literally, like babies can go have one day of sleeping one way and another day of sleeping another way, and that's a very normal thing. Like, just like adults, we have good days, we have bad days, we have days where we sleep well, we have days where we sleep poorly, and and it's it's important to differentiate between what's a good day or a bad day, and what is actually a developmental progression and a developmental need. So I fully agree with that. We we wait for that consistency to tell us what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, and the same thing goes for like the two to one nap transition. So, you know, that typically we're looking at between honestly 12 to 15 months. Every kid's a little different, but we don't want to jump too quick. But um basically what we're looking for is that morning nap dropping off. So you want to see the same thing, you're putting them down at 9:30 a.m. and baby's happy, but they're just hanging out, they're just chilling. And if you see that for a week they refuse that nap, they're showing like they're happy, they're hanging out, but they're not sleeping, then you look at shifting to that one nap schedule. But a lot of parents jump on it too quickly because they're like, great, we're ready. I don't want to do that morning nap, anyways. It really interferes with all my things, and it's gonna make you know our life a little bit easier, which I get it, it does. But if you jump too quick, you're gonna end up with a really overtired kid by the afternoon that can't make it to that noon nap time, and then you're stuck with this kid falling asleep at 11, and you're like, what now? And then they're nap one, and then bedtime has to be like gross early, and then you're dealing with morning wakeup. Early morning wake up. Yeah. So we don't want to jump quickly. You're looking for a week where they're really just yeah, fighting that morning nap, and then you can look at shifting.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, there's also, I know, at least in Canada, here a lot of people start daycare at one year. I know they start earlier in the states, but here there's a lot of circumstance where to conform with the structure of daycare, they drop that nap at a at a year. And whether your baby is ready for it or not, they they have to because that is the structure that the daycare is providing. They need it for like staff breaks or scheduling or whatever. And that use can be frustrating sometimes because, like with the best of intentions, obviously, daycare is kind of trapped in like the structure that they have. And so sometimes you'll have kids who have to drop to one nap in a day, and that can lead to a rocky bedtime, it can lead to more wake-ups overnight, and usually it's like it can be a couple weeks of adjustment because if you've been sleeping another way up until a year, and now suddenly we're like, okay, regardless of if you're ready, we're doing this. That piece can be hard for families. So it's it's also something like it's something there's something to be said about like sometimes we don't have the luxury of giving our baby sleep whenever we want to, and and that's okay, we just support it reactively at bedtime or like with what we can control. But that piece can certainly be really hard. I know that that's also really hard for some of my clients in the states because they start taking her a whole lot earlier down there, yeah, frequently, and that can also be challenging for like navigating sleep, even as early as four months or younger.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Totally. And so when we have and and even here, when they move to the toddler room, which is at 12 months, they are pushed to a one nap schedule. And the kids, I mean 90% of them, are not ready for that. So what happens is you know, by the time they get home, they're falling apart and then they're a mess, and then they're falling asleep too early. So what I always recommend is on your drive home, give them a 15, 20 minute cat nap, four o'clock, four thirty, and then you can move bedtime to its normal time to overcompensate that to compensate for that shift that you need to do to that one nap schedule super early. And most kids, honestly, by that stage, they've had a long day, they're young, let's stimulation, they're passing out anyway. So just do a few extra laps around your neighborhood and and then you can get bedtime to your normal time. Just give them like to just uh recharge a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

So they're not a like a pressure release spell. Like if they're if their sleep pressure is so high from not having enough sleep during the day, they're going to fail before bed, whether that means they're having big emotions or not eating or falling asleep in the car. We need to kind of give build in some sort of a contingency where you can. And I have had clients who've needed to adjust bedtime later if their kid naps at that hour of the day at that age. And that's okay too. We we reactively build the day where we can to what the child needs. And that's a great way of kind of building that in. And I've done it many times with clients. Uh, why don't you tell me a little bit about a toddler? So that we that not transition to no naps is actually another really rocky one. Why don't you tell us a little bit about like an instance I've experienced?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, so so a big issue that I see very often, honestly, is my kid climbed out of the crib. And so now we've moved them to a toddler bed. Obviously, you have to, you have no choice, but now they will not nap. Like they will not nap in the afternoon. I'm trying and I'm laying there and they're just playing, or they're getting up and down because they have this newfound freedom and they're like, Whoa, this is awesome. I don't want to lay down, that's boring. So the parents thought, okay, like my three-year-old is just not napping anymore. Like, nap is over, we're done here. And oh my goodness, do kids still need a nap at three? Whoa, they become little crazies if not. So, yeah, what was happening is they would just absolutely fall apart by four o'clock. Like they're just insane. And so they're like, but my kid won't sleep in their bed. Like, what do I do then? I used to be able to just put them in the crib, walk out, no big deal, like this is fine. And you know, they'll fuss a little bit or cry a little bit, but they will get themselves down. But now that they're in the bed, there's nothing holding them there, and now they're just walking out. So I'm assuming are done, and definitely not. And then you end up in like this desperation state. So I'm gonna go for a drive, you know, at one o'clock, and like, cool, that'll work, but then you're driving for an hour to know every day every day, or they don't sleep, and then they have the on-motion, and like what yeah, what now? So yeah, that is definitely a place where people are like, okay, cool, like everything was fine, but now SOS. And that's when through our honestly foolproof toddler system, where we work through the four R's and all that. So there's a way to work around it, and obviously we help families do that all the time. People work with us until, you know, so it doesn't ever, it's not like, oh, I didn't do this as a baby, so now I'm stuck. We we work with toddlers, and this is why.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, and with toddlers, I always talk with parents about how it's more behavior-based than biology-based because they have the cognitive capacity to really fight you or persist on what they think they need, which is not the same as what they act want. They want one thing, what they need is something entirely different. And and so that that nap piece can be frustrating. So typically how I will handle that with clients is okay, we're not gonna take a pressured power struggle approach because having a power struggle with a three-year-old is never in anyone's best interest. So we give them the space to have some quiet time, we don't call it nap time because words are triggering for kids and pattes. I mean, you call it quiet by myself time or something. So we wait until it's quiet by myself time. So we do a quiet by myself time where they're in a room by themselves with some books, and you just have to hang out in there. And if you go to sleep, great. And if you go to don't go to sleep, also great. There's something to be said for just quiet rest time where you're in a room and there's not stimulation and you're just by yourself, and that's great too. When I taught kindergarten, I would, especially in September, have like I don't know, one third of my class would nap every day on the floor because we've so one third of my class would nap, and that was great. We would do like quiet meditation, I would have them all on like yoga mats or foam mats or whatever. And that piece is more restorative, even if they don't sleep. They just need that quiet moment to get them through the rest of their day. And a lot of parents pull this nap early, and then you see massive emotions towards the end of the day. Oh, yeah, and massive like executive functioning struggles, meaning they can't make decisions, they don't know if they want the blue cup or the red cup. It's just toddlers and preschoolers at that age can be exhausting with things, and rightfully so if they don't have enough sleep. So it's always important to kind of try, keep trying.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes. And if you are stuck, that's when you can call us. Because that's what we do. So, you know, you're not stuck and you're not that doesn't have to be the rest of your life. We are here to help.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, we're we're here to help and to to support you guys. Sleep doesn't need to be horrendous, it doesn't need to be a struggle. If it works for you the way it's going, then that's great. I always say that. Like it's not a problem unless it's a problem for you. Yeah. If it stops working for you. But if you want to change it, we're always happy to to chat and support you through it. So that's one of my favorite parts of my job. Anyways, thanks so much for chatting nap transitions with me today, Adam. Yeah. Um and we will we will see everyone soon. Yes. Thanks for joining.