How and when to drop from three naps to two

For parents and caregivers, naps can be one of the more challenging aspects of figuring out baby sleep. Keeping up with how many naps their baby should be taking, how long those naps should be, and when to drop a nap can seem overwhelming, confusing, and difficult to navigate!  

One of the biggest nap transitions that parents struggle with is dropping from three naps to two, which usually happens around 8-9 months. 

To help make this transition easier, here are a few signs that your baby is ready to transition from three naps to two naps: 

1. The first two naps are longer than two hours. 

If your child’s first two naps seemed to have consolidated well and are consistently longer than two hours each, then it may be a sign to drop the third nap, as there will not be enough time for this nap without pushing bedtime too late. Pushing bedtime too late can inadvertently create sudden night wakings that were not happening before, so as your child gets older, we recommend an earlier bedtime rather than a later nap. By 16 weeks, we usually want to see babies on a 12-hour sleep cycle, aiming to be in bed 6pm-6am or 7pm-7am. 

If, on the other hand, your baby does not nap longer than 1 hour at a time, we recommend reading How to manage short naps.

2. There is too much day sleep with the third nap. 

Most babies will make the transition to two naps around 8-9 months, and at this stage, daytime sleep should be between 3-4.5 hours. While that third nap is typically just a cat nap of 30-45 minutes, it could be pushing their daytime sleep total over the recommended range and therefore cause night wakings. There definitely are babies with higher sleep needs that may do fine with more day sleep, but if your child is experiencing sleep disruptions in other areas, you may want to cap their day sleep at 4.5 hours or less, depending on their age.

3. Your child starts suddenly waking early.

If your little one begins to experience early morning wakings (between 4-6 am) that were not present before, this could also be a sign that they are getting too much day sleep and it is time to drop a nap. If this is the only sign you are experiencing, please see our blog on How to manage early morning wake-ups. 

4. Your child is refusing the 3rd nap.

This is typically where we see the 3-to-2 nap transition happen too soon. Parents and caregivers notice that their child begins to refuse the third nap and they think that means it is time to drop the nap. However, we recommend you don’t attempt to drop the nap unless the baby has refused the third nap for at least 10 consecutive days. 

During this stage, awake windows tend to lengthen naturally, so the transition from three to two naps can happen fairly smoothly and easily. If you are seeing more than one of the signs above consistently, it may be time to drop to two naps! 

Related articles: 

Five signs your child is ready to drop a nap

Sample sleep schedules for 0-18 months

The most common nap transitions your child will experience