How Long Does Your 2YO Nap For? Sleep at Night? - UPDATE

[Mom to M&M]

DD (25 months) would nap for 2.5-3 hours most days if we let her. But it seems to affect nights so we've been trying to wake her after 1 hour 45 minutes or less (unless sick of course). She's often hard to wake (yesterday it practically took a marching band) but she's generally in a great mood once she gets up and to herself. But yesterday, since she "stole" an extra 15 minutes dozing since she was so hard to wake, she had a rougher night and woke earlier this morning.

How long do your 2 year olds nap for? Do they wake on their own or do you wake them? How much do they sleep at night?

DD seems to do best with a nap between 1.5-1.75 hours and 11 hours at night but that's the ideal, not the norm... Yesterday was about 2 hours at nap and 10 hours only at night and now she's a crankpot...

Also, when your DC have a rough night do you let them take a longer nap? Or continue to cut nap and just get to bed earlier at night?

[* Paula *]

We were having the same problems with our DS, and found, that he could have up to 2 hours nap during the day, as long as it was not past 2pm. 

He will then go to bed at 8pm and usually wakes anywhere between 7:30ish and 8:15ish.  So we generally have around 12 hours at night.

Sometimes he will only nap for about an hour at nursery, and then we find that we will have to wake him in the mornings.

Depending on his mood with a shorter nap, we will either have a longer wind down routine, or some extra quiet time in the evenings before bed - we find on these days he usually falls asleep within about 10 minutes where if he has napped well, he will take up to 1/2 an hour to fall asleep.

Hope this helps.

Paula x

[Mom to M&M]

Thanks Paula! I originally thought the same - that as long as DD was up by a certain time the nap could be longer. But alas that doesn't seem the case. Yesterday she was up by 2:30 (tried to wake her at 2:15) and was asleep by 8:20 or so. But she woke once around 10 briefly, cried out at 3am or so and was up at 6:30 for the day (instead of 7 or later). The day before she took an early nap because of her cousin's birthday party. So she was asleep at 11:30 and I woke her a little after 1 and she slept from 8-7:20 that night.  There was also a day very recently where she didn't nap until 1:30 and I woke her at 3 and she slept from 8:30-7:40 that night.

[* Paula *]

We have gone through quite a few days like that.  Naps and night time sleep had just gone haywire.  Do you think it could be something developmental?

[Mom to M&M]

It definitely could be - so hard to say. She is likely working on her two year molars (not sure how close they are as she won't let me see/feel) and she's been talking a TON. Maybe for now I'm best off though limiting her to one hour 40 minutes and hoping for a longer night?

[Shdef]

13.5 hours at night, 1.5 during the day... we are outside a lot and he always needed quite a bit of sleep...

[Mom to M&M]

Jealous Steffi! We are outside a ton too and DD is very active but still seems stuck at 12.5 hours total (or maybe 12.75) and that's on a really good day.

[Shdef]

That's pretty good! We are just lucky, honestly.

[Deb_in_oz]

2 (occassionally 3) hrs nap and average of 10.5-11 at night.  she only sleeps because we make her!

[ks6]

11 - 11 1/2 at night,  1 1/2 nap.  We wake him 5 hours before bed in order to keep his bedtime the same.

If there's no nap, he does 12 1/2 at night.

[Colesmom]

i don't think you want to hear from me .  We get 11 hours total.

9 hours at night 10pm-7am

1.5-2 hours for nap.

I am determined to cut nap to 1.5 hours and change sleep schedule to 9:00-6:30

[newmumto1]

Ben is 10 p.m. to 8.30 a.m. I would like to try to get him to bed earlier but he seems to be happy enough with 10 bed time. He naps for 2 hours. I am surprised to see that these times seem to be average. Getting something right.  :)Yeah!!!!

[Mom to M&M]

Good to hear from everyone. Traci - does that mean that Cole is still sleeping straight thru at night? I hope so!

Hmmm maybe I'll try for a week straight (at least) to cut nap at no more than 1 hour 40 minutes and see if I can get back to an 11 hour night or at least 10.5

[Colesmom]

sssshhhh Karen, not too loud   It is RARE that he wakes up now...sometimes around 5:30-6am and I lay down next to his crib and he falls right back to sleep.

Last night of course was the exception.  3am, 5:00am and 6:15am   then WOKE him at 7 and he didn't want to get up!  I tell ya, he doesn't like going to sleep, but now he's very hard to wake (especially from nap).

I have read that if they are hard to wake from nap then they are not getting enough night sleep because they are crashing.  I knew that...hence my effort to cut the nap.

good luck!

[Mom to M&M]

Glad to hear it Traci and hope it continues and doing anti jinx dance too! Yes, DD is definitely harder to wake from her nap when she gets less night sleep. Today she fell asleep around 12:10 and I woke her at 2 (took 5-10 minutes from there for her to fully wake though) so we'll see what happens