Grace is 18 months and not ready to drop her morning nap.
My daughter is 19 months old on 4th February and still has a morning nap when at home. She goes to nursery three days a week and sleeps for 2 hours at lunchtime. She is always in bed for 7pm and sleeps through till 7am. On the days I do not work and I usually wake Grace at 7 -7.15am. She always shows signs of being tired at around 9.15 -.9.30am. She will even start climbing the stairs so rather than keep her up as I have in the past to attempt to cut out the morning sleep, I let her have a nap for 45 minutes. She always falls asleep immediately so is obviously tired. At the weekend we usually leave Grace to wake herself. Even if she wakes later such as 8am – 8.30 she still is ready for bed again a couple of hours later, so I put her to bed and we alter the routine from there.
I truly believe she is not ready to drop her morning nap, but I’m concerned that she should have by this age. I will look out for signs though such as early waking or being hard to settle at lunchtime nap so I will reduce and gradually cut out morning nap. Is there anything else I should look out for?
On the days I have tried to keep her up she is too tired to eat her lunch and will end up screaming when she is put to bed for a sleep as she is obviously overtired.
Many thanks
Nina
As you rightly suspect, it would seem that Grace is not ready to drop her nap on home days. She is probably kept going at nursery with all the other children around her but then catches up when at home. You are doing all the right things. As she is not cutting back on her midday sleep or waking early just let her drop it naturally. Be guided by her. If you notice that she is going down at 9.15/9.30 but not falling asleep straight away, or begins to be more interested in playing with her toys than climbing the stairs to bed then that is the time to think about dropping it.