How to know when your baby is ready for 1 nap

Let me tell you how to know when your baby is ready to drop to one nap and it doesn't matter what age they are. That doesn't come into it at all, to be honest. Let me tell you. I felt hundreds of families get sleep with no sleep training. I don't use cry it out for a method or extinction method because I'm a gentle sleep consultant. I take a very sensible approach to baby sleep. So couple of these things are nuances and just based on my experience because I have worked with so many kiddos now. One thing I do see quite a lot is little ones start to refuse their second nap because they're having a longer morning nap and then they don't need the nap is long because their sleep pressure rises a little bit slower. If you need to know about sleep pressure, I do loads of posts on it and I have a whole workshop on it. The link over my Instagram. But their sleep pressure rises slower. So then if you give them the same nap in the morning, then they don't have enough sleep pressure for the second nap. Then they start to refuse it, it gets later and then it pushes at bedtime. Waking up more is a big one. Early rising generally them just seeming like they're not quite tired enough for their sleep or they're waking up in the middle of the night, ride wide awake and ready for a party. Don't seem that tired anymore. This also doesn't mean that your little one is ready for one nap forever and always. I rarely see one day they're on two and the next day they're on one. That's just the way it is. It's quite a gradual change. And it starts with phasing out the morning nap in order to keep the second nap at the same time or start to bring it a little bit earlier and help your little one start to get used to longer wake windows before bed. Don't be afraid of dropping naps. Don't be afraid of overtiredness. Again, I've loads of posts talking about this. You really don't need to be afraid of it. You don't, but I promise you don't rush it either. I always see little ones around 11, 12 months. Parents think that they need to drop to one nap because those kind of signs can start to creep through, but it's actually more to do with development. So if you start to move them toward one nap, no difference or they make things worse, they're not ready. Just ride it out and then try again in a few weeks.