Baby sleep schedule at 15 months: settling into one nap
Lulla TeamPublished Updated
At 15 months your toddler needs 11 to 14 hours of sleep a day — 10 to 12 at night, plus 1 to 2 naps. The short end of the wake window has moved up, so your toddler now goes 3.5 to 4.5 hours between sleeps, which is the practical sign that the two-nap day is running out of room.
For most families this is the month the single nap stops being an experiment. A nap around the middle of the day, roughly two hours long, with a long stretch of awake time on either side, becomes the default. Some toddlers still need a second short nap on rough days, and that is fine.
See the full wake-window table, from newborn to 2 years→How many naps by age — the full table→When your newborn won't sleep: what to check, in order→
Does this 15 months schedule match your day?
Lulla times the naps and tells you when the wake window is closing, so you do not have to keep count in your head.
If the transition is still in progress, the last piece is usually nap length. A single nap that runs 45 minutes can't cover an afternoon of four hours, so the nap has to grow before the day stabilizes. Keeping it at a consistent time, in a dark room, with a short predictable lead-in, is what helps it stretch. Early bedtimes remain the safety valve while it does.
The first molars often arrive between 13 and 19 months and can make a few nights uncomfortable. Real teething pain is short-lived, though — a couple of days around eruption, not weeks — so if broken nights persist, look at nap timing and the length of the last wake window before blaming teeth. Anything that looks like more than mild discomfort belongs with your pediatrician.
A sample day
This is a one-nap day at 15 months: a long nap after lunch with wake windows of 3.5 to 4.5 hours on either side. Treat the times as a starting point, and on a day when the nap is short, bringing bedtime forward is a better response than holding the times below.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake-up and first feed |
| 12:30 | Nap 1 · approx. 120 min |
| 19:45 | Bedtime routine and lights out |
A sample day to give you a rough idea — every baby is different. Adjust the times to your child's sleep cues, and talk to your pediatrician about anything that worries you.
Your baby's sleep schedule, by age
One table with everything that matters: total sleep per 24h, wake windows and number of naps, from newborn to age 3. Total sleep follows the National Sleep Foundation recommendations.
Tips for this age
- Aim for the nap to start at roughly the same time daily, because consistency does more for nap length at this age than anything else.
- Keep the nap room as dark as the night room; a bright room caps a midday nap at one sleep cycle.
- Lulla's history shows how nap length is trending week to week, which tells you whether the single nap is really consolidating or just having a good day.
- Cap the nap if it starts running past mid-afternoon, so there is still time to build sleep pressure before the night.
- Bring persistent night waking, snoring or anything about your toddler's breathing to the 15-month check-up.
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Common questions
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Keep reading
- Baby tiredness signs: how to read them before the crying starts
- How to build the perfect sleep routine for your baby
- How much do newborns sleep? What's normal by age and when it's too much
Sources
Total sleep per 24 hours follows the National Sleep Foundation's ranges (2015); at 3 months we smooth the step between two of them to 13 to 16 hours. Night sleep, wake windows and the number of naps are Lulla's own reference points, not recommendations from the organizations below. This information is educational and does not replace advice from your pediatrician.
- Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, Alessi C, Bruni O, DonCarlos L, et al. National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40–43.
- American Academy of Pediatrics — Safe Sleep
- NHS — Helping your baby to sleep
- World Health Organization — Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age