3 year old stopped napping

[ele]

our DD was never a great napper, but we got to 3 yo with naps. she has now stopped napping completely. She is clearly tired and yet she doesnt fall asleep. We stay with a quiet time instead for 1-1.5 hr to at least give her an option of falling asleep (or rest), which often ends up with her being angry at me not talking/engaging with her (at first i kept leaving her room, but as she started destroying things, i decided to stay with her every nap time). she dropped the nap same day we stopped her sucking the finger (and i appreciate its a tough change)
her routine is
wake up 7
going to nap at 1:30
sleep 7
while she sleeps through the night, i can see she is getting very tired by 6,sometimes naughty. and she has been getting to sleep with a little more difficulty and getting up a bit earlier with evry day. i feel like she needs a nap, and of course i need some rest time too.
should i keep the quiet time? how to actually make it quieter so that she can relax/go to sleep when she is tired. did i push her nap time out too far or should i push it out more?

[Haribo2012]

Hi there, it’s very normal for the nap to be gone at this age, 1.5 hours is quite a long time to expect her to be alone and quiet so you could try shortening this. For us quiet time alone never worked so I used to set up the sofa with a blanket, some books to read and if all else failed some nice calm tv programme to watch. Sometimes DS1 would nod off but mostly he’d just sit and chill. Alternatively you could have a walk or drive around the 2/3pm mark and just let her have 20 mins to see her through till BT.
Have you tried an earlier BT? When nap dropping the day often needs to be shortened x

[ele]

thank you. we put her to sleep at 7 when we go without a nap.
i guess i will stick to a quiet time so she can keep that option of a nap.

[eva026]

Dd1 had dropped her nap by 2.8y. In fact I was pretty pleased because she had started waking at 6am, which is far too early in my book.
We did a book / audiobook or a walk in the pram instead. Just had to push through the tiredness by the end of the day till she got used to it.
By age 3 over half the kids at her kindergarten weren’t napping anymore