Help with dropping the morning nap

[jessmke]

Isla has started waking up super early in the morning, around 5 am. She isn't ready to get up yet (yawning, rubbing her eyes, cranky), but is too awake to go back to sleep. I think she is getting too much sleep during the day and I wonder if she would sleep in a bit later if she dropped one of her naps. Today she was up at 5 am, napped for an hour and a half this morning and 2 1/2 hrs this afternoon. The problem is that if she wakes up at 5 am there's no way she could manage on just one nap, because she isn't actually ready to get up that early she ends up desperate for a nap around 7:30 am. In order to accomplish one nap I think I need her to sleep until her normal 7/8 am wake up, then she could manage until 11 or 12 without a nap. But how do I go about getting one good sleep in from her in order to kick start this experiment?

 

[xdxxtx]

Okay, I'm BIG on nap and feeding schedules. My children are all expected to stay in their rooms until 7:30am (except for bathroom. They're allowed to read as much as they want during this time). My 11-month-old sleeps until around 8am, or he will at least stay in his room, quiet, until then. He gets his milk and then breakfast. He plays until lunch, at 12. He gets milk and then lunch. We have family reading time until naptime. My under-4s are all expected to take a nap starting at 1pm. They sleep until at least 3pm, but the baby sleeps closer to 4pm. At 4pm, everyone has a snack, and the baby gets milk at 5pm. Then, we do family dinner at 5pm. We have family time after that, then baths at 6 and bedtime routine. By 7pm, all the kids over 18m are in bed. They are allowed to lay in bed and read until 7:45 when I shut their light out on the way to put the baby to bed. The baby gets one last good feeding and is in bed at 8pm.

I think a schedule based on your family and needs will really help. I think the best piece of advice I have is that waking up too early usually means they're going to bed too late. I have put my LOs to bed as early as 6 to help them sleep later.