Author’s practical guidance
When the second nap goes
Source named in the book: rhythmicity and adaptability (Chess & Thomas)
Dropping a nap is not a single day.
Say this now
“Rest time is after lunch now. Every day.”
Names the new fixed point. During a transition the time matters more than the sleeping.
“You don't have to sleep. You do have to stay in your room.”
Asks for something they can do, and keeps the hour while the nap sorts itself out.
Do this
- Move the single nap earlier at first — half past eleven, then later as they adjust.
- Bring bedtime forward by half an hour through the whole transition.
- Expect two or three bad weeks and change nothing else during them.
- Keep the same short pre-nap routine you use at night, in miniature.
- Judge it across a week, never on one afternoon.
Avoid this
- Dropping it on the first day they refuse — refusal comes and goes for weeks before the change is real.
- Keeping both naps because the afternoon is easier — the second one is now taking an hour off the night.
- Alternating one nap and two by how the morning went — the schedule then never settles into either shape.
If it repeats
If the transition is still unsettled after a month, look at what the night is doing. A child sleeping eleven hours overnight often needs less daytime sleep than the schedule assumes, and the fight is about the amount rather than the timing.
Why the book suggests this
Dropping a nap is not a single day. There are weeks where one nap is too little and two are too many, and both versions of the day end badly. Nothing has gone wrong — you are between two schedules and neither fits.
Chess and Thomas treated regularity as a trait rather than a habit. A child with a strong rhythm holds the old schedule long after it stops working; a child with a loose one drifts into the new one alone. Both are ordinary and need different amounts of help.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Night
45 prepared situations in this family area.