11 Month Old Naps

Try to keep him up a little longer in the morning, with fun games and toys, until eventually he is only takeing one nap...that may make his nap longer, and more productive. As for nursing him to sleep, I did that with my son, and he is a well rested...long sleeping 13 year old boy now! :) However, my now 18 year old daughter NEVER took naps longer than 15min. at a time...until she was about a year old, then it was one long nap, about 1 1/2 hours. He might just be growing into a person who is grumpy when they first wake up...my daughter is STILL that way...she's not a "morning person" lol!

Have you tried controlling his environment more? White noise or soft music? Maybe household noise is waking him up. Do you have curtains or shades to make his room nice & dark? Just a few thoughts. I'm thinking at 11 mos he still can be taking two decent naps per day....

Maybe he is growing out of his morning nap.. Make sure he is getting lots (at least 1 hour) of really active outside play in the morning.. Give him a quiet lunch and then his nap..Maybe try to start the nap routine at 11:30, so he will be asleep by 12:00.. More active play in the afternoon..

Hi K.,

I agree with the other moms. Maybe he is starting to only need one long nap a day. When my son was about 13 months old he was taking two naps one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Well, some days he would skip his afternoon nap entirely and be really cranky the rest of the day. So I decided I would just postpone his morning nap until around 12:00 or so and he would sleep longer and be happier in the evenings! Sometimes my son will wake up grumpy even after a nice 2 hour nap. A half an hour nap is short I agree, especially for you to catch a break!

I don't think nursing to sleep is the issue. I did that with my son for naps and bedtime until I weaned him at 15months old. When your son wakes up grumpy, try rocking him in the chair for a few minutes or maybe reading a book, he might pass back out!
Good luck
S.

He could be only needing one nap about now - but you know if he's still tired. How does he go to sleep at night? Do you nurse him? I nursed my daughter to sleep untill she was about 8 mos. It was a TOUGH habit to break and eventually help her to learn to go to sleep on her own. We had to put her down drowsy and then sing, rub her back, then leave.... then come back if she was really upset and just be there, but not pick her up and help her learn to put herself to sleep. Maybe it's something like that....?