a couple of questions about sleep

[neenermom]

Hi, I read through a lot of the toddler schedules - My boy just turned 2 and here's his:
7:00 wake and 2 sippees of milk  (7 is his natural time - sometimes 6:50 or 7:10 but rarely different)
8:30 breakfast
play, play, snack, play
11:00 lunch
12:00 nap
2ish wake and sippee of juice
play, cheese sandwich sometime in the middle, play
5:30 dinner
6:20 bathtime
6:30 put to bed

I've modified his schedule as we saw fit (with lots and lots of help from your site) and made the transition from 4 hour schedule to 5/4.5 schedule because it seemed to work better for him, but lately he has been waking earlier from his nap.  Now, my one friend with a baby says hers naps 30 minutes if she is lucky, and his speech therapist teacher says 2 hours is way too long for a nap... but it has been working for him.. until lately when he wants to nap less than two hours, and then we modify his bed-time.  Please let me know what the reccommeded approximate schedule would be for a 2 year old so I can see if we should be stretching his wake times longer or what we should do to accommodate his growing needs.  Also, at what age should we modify it again?  I know everyone is different, but I just want to know if I could be doing something better.  Thank you.

[Layla]

How much shorter is the nap now?

[LeesMom]

Hi,
DD just turned 2 also and she generally wakes from nap after 1.5 hrs. (if she doesn't wake on her own I wake her). Her schedule is pretty much like this:

Wake - 7:15
Nap - 12:45 (Falls asleep around 1:00 or a little after)
Wake from nap - 2:30 -2:45
Bedtime - 7:45 (Usually falls asleep pretty quickly)

She usually needs at least 5 hrs. A times before sleep, usually closer to 5.5 hrs. and this has been the case for several months. Your DS may just be needing less overall sleep (from what I've read on this site, that's a pretty common thing to happen around age 2) and that's why he's napping for shorter periods. Is he sleeping a 12.5 hr. night (or does he take a long time to fall asleep)? Lucky you  I think most 2 yr. olds are only having 11 hr. nights or so.
HTH 

[dkjokisch]

By this age, it is way more about what works for him that what the averages are.  If he goes down for naps well, naps two hours or however long, wakes content, and is happy to go to bed at bedtime, that's fine.  The nap will gradually shorten itself naturally.  If not and you find yourself dealing with bedtime struggles or early am wakeups, you can make little adjustments, perhaps moving it a bit earlier or waking him.  But if he is napping less, still waking happy, and not super-grizzly by bedtime, I say he's doing fine.

FWIW, dd will be three in January.  She doesn't nap every day anymore, maybe 4-5 days out of 7, but she routinely sleeps 11ish hours at night AND still takes a 2hr nap.

[neenermom]

Hi, thank you for your reply.  His naps are getting shorter... about 1 1/2 hours and sometimes only an hour.  He gets really cranky when he doesn't sleep two hours, and when we first changed to one nap he sometimes slept up to three hours.  so now, 1 1/2 is about average.  We just made his second half of wake time 5 hours also, and he is whiny and clingy, but he goes to sleep about the same time as if he got all his sleep in his nap.  we put him to bed about 7 or 7:30 and most of the time he fusses or plays for about an hour, sometimes more.  Teething is a huge culprit, and sometimes he gets lonely or wants to play.  most of the time after his nap he is happy, but sometimes he cries, is clingy, and upset about everything.  poor teething baby.

[dkjokisch]

I wouldn't expect 3hr naps now, but 1.5-2hr is in the range of reasonable.  If you've been tweaking his schedule, it may take a week or two of consistently being on the new schedule for things to settle out, longer if his teeth are bothering him.  When dd fusses at bedtime, that's usually a sign she is a bit overtired and should have gone down earlier.  When she plays happily, it's usually because she got a bit longer nap and isn't quite tired yet.

[andibig]

I think when they hit the age of 2 their naps can really vary.
DD can take a 2hr nap (and thats usually max for most toddlers this age) or a 1.5hr nap depending on what time she woke up.
Today she missed her nap completely which is something they will do occassionaly but thankfully its not a sign that they are dropping their nap completely.
hth