The 4 sure-fire ways to know that it’s time to drop a nap.

We have all experienced the great misery of thinking you have sleep under control, only to have it suddenly explode into a chaos mess of tears (yours and theirs). All too often, we never learn the reason for these spurts of sleep strikes. But if your kiddo is hitting a milestone age, it might be time to drop a nap. 

By about nine months old, most babies will be down to two naps a day. This should stay pretty consistent until they’re around 14-18 months old, when they’re ready to drop to one nap. But age is only one of several indicators that help you determine if your baby is ready for a nap transition. Here are some others.

Straight up refusing a nap. This is one of the more obvious signs it’s time to drop a nap. When it’s 3 or more naps, your baby will usually refuse that last nap of the day, which you can then just drop. When it’s 2 naps a day, that may refuse the morning or afternoon nap, in which case you will drop the morning nap and keep the afternoon nap. 

Early wake ups. If you’ve had a steady wake up at 7am, and suddenly your little one is up and ready to play at 530, it might be time to drop a nap.

Resistance to bedtime. Refusing to go to bed might have to do with something else too, of course. Sometimes when they’re really tired, they won’t sleep; sometimes they have intense FOMO, but if they just don’t seem as tired as usual, it might be a sign of readiness.

Middle of the night wake ups. Again, this might be the kind of thing that just happens all the time; every kid is different. But if your baby was once a sound sleeper and now it’s party time at 3am, chances are, it’s worth trying to drop a nap.

Now, one last thing on dropping naps: it can feel like hell at first. Naps were your one bit of downtime in the middle of the day; your one break. How are you going to manage without it? But actually, dropping naps can be great. If you’re going down to one nap, you have enough time in the morning and afternoon to actually get out and have fun. And if you’re dropping naps completely, hello, all-day adventures!

Dropping naps also doesn’t have to mean dropping downtime. You can set up a ‘quiet time’ in the middle of the day, and encourage quiet play, reading, drawing, or screen time. Usually it takes about two weeks for parents to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to dropping naps, but we promise, you will get there. Learn more about how to solve short naps, early morning wake ups, or implementing “quiet time” in our online membership program, Nurture by NAPS.