Dropping the nap - what to expect?

[elf]

DD (3.5 years), I think needs to drop her nap.  The past month she has shown signs, but not enough to do something as dramatic as not offer it.  However, the past week, with a nap, she has been struggling to fall asleep at night.  She was playing in her room as late as 9pm/9.30pm then waking around 6am and very tired in the morning from losing that good night sleep.  We've done a few days with no nap and she has been in bed anywhere from 6pm - 6.45pm and asleep straight away and is doing a very good night of around 12 hours, perhaps more as I'm not sure what time she actually woke this morning.  But she seems so so tired during the day.  Should I offer her a few nap days or given that she is 3.5 years, let her body adjust to this change.  Just curious what to expect.  I know she would happily take a nap during the day, but even though she wants to go to bed on a nap day, her body finds it very hard to fall asleep at night.  And the nap was getting quite late in the day anyway, around 1.30pm sometimes 2pm - but I'd wake her at 3.30pm and like I said this has only just started to affect her bedtime.  With the nap I was quite happy for her to stay up a bit later and go to bed around 7.30pm/8pm - as long as she was getting 10 hours sleep at night and a 2 hour nap, she was good.  Now that nights are less than 10 hours, I think something needs to change.  I have thought about waking her after an hour of her nap but she's absolutely miserable if I do that - almost better to either let her sleep her 2 hours or not offer it at all.  I've also thought about her napping every 2nd day so she doesn't feel so tired?

Thanks...

[EloysH]

Elf we are in teh exact same boat.  I could have said your post word for word, except that he has been napping about 1-2 days a week for about a year now. We have been going through the vicious cycle for about a year, but finding now that he is worse the next day after the late night than the tiredness we get at 6-6:30pm when he hasn't napped.      We have also starting cutting his nap to one hour, he is so tired and cranky when woken at this time and needs to be carried aout or else he will keep sleeping.  If we don't cut it to one hour the vicious cycle goes on and on.  But even at a one hour nap. he is still getting to bed by 9pm, and waking at 6am a mess, yawnign and tanruming all day with such a short night.   If he doesn't nap he does a 11.5 hour night. 7pm - 6-6:30am.

So what we are thinking of doing now is still offering the quiet time everyday, but not pushing for the nap unless he is sick, clearly had a very big day and needs one like the beach or something or else had about a week without a nap.    He won't nap during that time unless we go in and say time for sleep and rub his back or get him to stop reading his books etc.  His body still needs to rest.  He is still tired building up to the nap time.

I can't imagine him not napping again.

I would be interested to hear what others have to say.  Maybe he won't need his rest time soon, but at the moment I feel it is still very important.

[elf]

I tried a few days of no nap but she was an exhausted mess.  She would do an 11.5 hour night but was so tired so I am offering the nap again and choosing a couple of days during the week where I just do a movie on the couch instead.  With a 2 hour nap she will do 10 hour nights.  Same thing here with nap cutting - just have a grumpy girl so no point.  How old is your boy again?  If DD was falling asleep at 9pm and waking at 6am then I would drop the nap and do quiet time - for us a 1.5 hour suitable movie on the couch works well.  I think that an 11.5 hour night every night is fine - I know some do longer but if he was going to bed at the same time each night and consistently doing 11.5 hour nights every night, he'd probably get out of the rut?   I have just decided that she can stay up and eat dinner with us at 7pm (she used to eat it at 6pm after her bath) and have her in bed around 7.30pm knowing that by 8pm she is asleep.  She's up at 6am so it makes for a long day without a nap.  Plus (we're also in Australia) with it getting so light outside around 5.30am now I don't see her actually tacking on the extra sleep when it's so light outside.  Nap transitions have always been long in this house!!!

[EloysH]

Ds2 is 3 next week but was always low sleep needs end of the spectrum transitioned to one nap around 10-11 months.     We are in Sydney - our family is up by 6am too  

Good luck, I hope that is works out for you  

He is very very close to dropping his nap  now, the nights are getting later and later.  We have had to dig in cut his nap to 1 hour.  He is much better for 10 days without a nap than one late night and EW due to napping the previous day.

[elf]

I'm not giving her a nap on our quiet days but days where she goes to playgroup and does lots of physical activity in the morning with friends etc, then she needs her nap.  But if days are quieter and mostly at home or doing some errands with me, then she is fine without it, but very tired come 6pm but I'm doing 7pm bedtime as then we get a 6.30am wake up!  Slightly better than 6am!  Now that her brother's morning  nap is getting later and later I actually don't want her to sleep as it would mean someone in this house would be asleep at every moment of the day with no opportunity to go out at all!  So I think, we'll slowly ease into it over the next few months and be flexible...