24/10/2025
The 2-1 Nap Transitions Key Points:
🔑Making this transition before babies are ready can lead to a really overtired baby.
🤗Most babies will hold onto two naps until closer to 13–18 months.
🥰To make sure they are ready, you can also:
Spend a couple days logging the perfect wake window for baby’s second nap by using motion or bedsharing. This will remove the stress and avoid frustration. Log the time baby falls asleep. If your baby is now still taking second nap, could you accommodate with a slightly later bedtime? If you want to keep baby’s schedule and get two naps, consider capping the first nap at one hour.
This will keep baby’s second nap and bedtime around the same time until your baby is really ready in order to drop down to one nap.
Keep in mind as mentioned above, you want to protect the last wake window. If your baby's max wake window is 4.5 hours, then if they wake from their nap at 2:00, then you shoould aim to have your baby in bed and asleep by 6:30. Therefore, during times of nap transitions when some days your baby may take two naps and some days they may take one, keep in mind that sometimes you need to do an afternoon "rest" time in order to get them to bedtime without being too overtired, whether that's a 20 minute cat nap or rest time in the stroller on a walk for 20-30 minutes around 4:00.
For support for contact naps to starting crib naps, to roadmaps nap transitions comment NAP and I'll DM you the link to my Naps Guide!
