How Do You Juggle Two Different Napping Schedules

Try to transition the 24 month old to a little bit later afternoon nap. Gradually keep her up 15 minutes longer for a couple of days, then another 15 minutes, until you have her at 1:30 to 2:00 ish time frame. And maybe she can start sleeping in a little later in the morning to help stretch her to that time. If you can get the baby to do one mobile nap in the morning, and they both get at-home naps in the afternoon, you should be able to get out of the house a bit. Good luck.

It all depends, of course, on what your baby wants his napping schedule to be, but one thing that worked for us was to keep our son taking three naps a day for as long as possible (until about 8 months). He would take a short one in the early am and I would use that time to get my daughter ready for the day. Then they would both take a decent length one in the middle of the day, and then he would take another one in the very late afternoon. He would then go to bed just after our daughter, around 8.30 or so. He was pretty amenable to this schedule, and we didn't mind having him up later for the convenience of the early AM nap. He's now almost 10 months and taking two naps/day, but I'm actually hoping to just switch him to one since both of his naps are less than two hours long. We'll see though.

Hi, I have a 3 year old girl Sophia and an 11 month old boy Sammy. Sammy has been on a 2 nap schedule for a while. At the beginning he would sleep a long nap in the morning and wake up closer to lunch time. We all have lunch and Sophia would go down right after. By the time Sammy was down for his second nap, Sophia was getting up. It was crazy! Now I try that Sammy's morning nap is early and short something around 45 min to 1 hr and that he'd be up by 10:30 so he can take his second nap at approximately the same time with Sophia. Also I have pushed Sophia's nap a little later so it used to be closer to 12:30 and now is more like 1:30 to 3:30. It does not work out well all the time but most of the times if Sammy's morning nap was 1 hr or less his second nap is 2 hrs from approx 2-4. So at least I get a 1:30 hr for myself (2 if I'm lucky). I do not worry so much if Sammy takes his morning nap on the car seat or stroller since I really want it to be short so I take them to the groceries or to the park in the morning. But I do want them both to have the afternoon nap at home so it's nice and long! I hope this helps

If you are going to be strict about it, then I don't think you are going to get out of the house at all. Yikes. I was never strict about my son's napping schedule. He would often fall asleep at 11 oclock on my way to my sister's house which was an hour away. It didn't do any harm to him to sleep in the car or in the stroller. He would often takes naps in his carrier, which was fine with him and me. If you want a life, you will have to be a bit flexible. Today we spent the whole day at the beach and my son who is 14 months took a nap from 6 to 7:30. He'll then go down at 9 o'clock for the night and get up at around 9 tomorrow morning. With your little one being so young, I think you can be flexible with his nap schedule and location. It worked for me and my son sleeps fine at night. Good luck and hope you'll be flexible so that you can get out of the house. :)

When I had my second child I thought for sure I would never leave the house again. How would I fint time between naps, feedings etc??
You just do and you will! It takes a few months to adjust and get the confidence. Also, you might need to let them fall asleep in the car if their is something that really needs to get done. You def have to be flexible with a toddler and an infant!

If you want them napping on the same schedule i would suggest moving your 2 year old's nap to the morning. If your 2 yr old gets up at about 7am she can go back down at about 9:30 and get up at noon. Both my 18 month old and my 2.5yr old do this right now so we can go to the pool in the afternoons. The biggest obstacle will be changing a pattern that your 2yr old has had for as long as she can remember but if your isistant then it can be done.

I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 3 month old so I can relate a little. My 3 month old right now is usually up by 7 and back down again at 8 or so. She'll usually sleep until about 10 when I feed her again and then we're out the door. There have been times when we've had early errands and she'll just nap in the car seat. My son will take a nap after lunch (anywhere from 1-2) and I feed her again about 1 and she's down at about 2 which gives me about an hour/hour and a half alone since my son will usually gets up around 3:30. It works out perfect for us. The rest of the day my daughter's nap time is shorter and shorter and we're usually out so it doesn't matter to us.

As my 3 month old gets older and wakes up later in the morning, I'll just deal with her sleeping in the car or carseat - and be home by the afternoon so both can take a relaxing nap in their own beds. But like the other poster mentioned, you definitely have to be a little flexible with two children....Ahhhhh, the days when it was just the one! LOL.

My boys are 2 years apart also, now 1 and 3. My older son was taking a mid day nap when the other one was born. The younger one wasn't really on a 2 nap a day schedule til he was between 4-6 months. He suffered from acid reflux for so long, maybe that is why. So it was hard for quite a while for me to get anything done. It seemed like they were on opposite schedules. But I did get t o a point where by the time the younger son needed his 2nd nap of the day, the older one was sitll sleeping so I would end up getting an hour or so break. Now that he is one now, he does finally nap at mid day when my older son naps. It works out so much better now that they nap at the same time. Good luck. I can suggest when your 2 month old gets closer to one, to gradually hold off from morning nap so that you can give them both lunch around 11:30ish or whatever and then put them to nap at the same time.Unfortunately it does take quite a while for them to be scheduled. Every baby is different!!

Hi Abby-
My kids are 19 months apart (now 4 and 2 1/2), so I know what you're going through! The older one was on a one nap schedule (~1-3) and the little on did 9:30-11 and 2:30-4. The worst days were the ones that there was no overlap all day! Like you, I prefer to have my kids home for naps-- both for them, and also for the break for me. However, with the 2nd child this had to go out the window a bit. I tried hard to be home for atleast one of the younger one's nap, the other she would take on the go. This will get better-- before you know it, you'll be transitioning the younger one to 1 nap (usually around 15 months, but we pushed ours younger-- it was closer to a year). I did find the best time to get out was right at 11am (after the first nap)-- if I was organized, and got out quick, it would give us almost 2 hours for an activity, picnic, grocery run, etc...
Good luck!

Infants are flexible. I have one rule of thumb, one nap is at home for the baby. So if her afternoon nap happens at the park, in the car or poolside, that's ok with me. I make sure one nap is in her comfy crib and let the other be an 'on the go' thing. My 4 year old ditched his nap soit's actually harder because he really wants to get out there and do stuff!

all kids are different and as much as we like them to have the same schedule and not have car naps and such to get anything done you may need to sacrafice one nap as a car nap or stroller nap in the morning and have a good nap in the afternoon..... with both kids asleep for some quality mommy time...... mother of 13 11 8 and 15mths two of my children great nappers and two gave them up at 28 mths jsut different personalities and different requirements of sleep K.

Hi Abby,
I had 3 kids still napping, they are each 1 year apart. For a while I had the little one doing 9:30-11:30 and 2-4 and the older girls 1-3 and i didn't leave hte house much, but brought the monitor outside and played while someone was sleeping. I pushed my little one to one nap much earlier than I did with the others, but it was still earlier, maybe 12 and put the others down around 1:30 to get some overlap time. I actually enjoyed having some individual time with each one while the other was sleeping, although I never got a nap myself. It really is a short phase, before you know it, your 2 year old won't be napping. When the napping stopped for my oldest i kept a basket of special quiet time toys in her closet that only came out while the others were napping and she had to play in her room by herself so i could have a break.

my two boys are 18mos apart, and i was running into the same problem. i eventually got fed up with (and felt bad for my daughter) with no down time with always having one of them to take care of. i would just bug the baby, and put him down at the same time as the older one. they are now 2 1/2 and 13mos, and it still works out great. they both usually sleep 3-4 hrs everyday. the 2yr old doesnt want them anymore, and is starting to fight it, but most of the time i can convince him to take one. good luck!

Well you will have to doing things around the nap time. That's what I did, maybe have a grandparent come over when they are napping so you could run to the store, that was always a great help. You know it's all temporary but assking for outside help would really do the trick! And make sure you don't put them in the same room to nap .. that never works!

I have children 2, 4 and 6 and I felt when they were smaller that it was like prision for me because of the nap schedules. As your baby gets older do your best to try and sycronize the naps so at least if you are stuck at home you have "me" time without any of the kids to enjoy a hobby or pick up the house. On weekends when both parents are home we would do alot of taking turns one parent takes the older children out while the other stays home with the napper and then switch etc...Also make sure the children have excellent sleep at night as well so for special occasions missing or tkaing a nap in the car won;t be too disruptive. We would pretty much demand that our children nap at home and we did miss out on some things but we all surivived