Q&A: When should my toddler only take one nap?

The amount that a toddler naps during the day can certainly vary from toddler to toddler—both in how long their naps are and how many they take. While I do see some babies who change to a single, longer nap during the day rather than one in the morning and one in the afternoon as young as 9 to 12 months, the one-nap-a-day pattern is much more typical of 1-year-olds. Helping toddlers make the switch to just one nap a day is sometimes as easy as keeping them up and active a bit longer so that they fall asleep right after an early lunch, rather than in the late morning. Then make sure their nap environment is conducive for a good, sound sleep. This common shift in sleep pattern should ideally be accompanied by an increase in the length of the single daytime nap—often to two to three hours at a stretch—since children between the ages of 1 and 3 still need between 10 and 13 hours a day of combined nighttime and naptime sleep.