Support for dropping the last nap age 2-3 yrs

[EloysH]

Oliver, its a fine line between not letting them get OT and also not robbing their night time sleep with the nap.  If he's soooo tired at bedtime I'd think maybe he would benefit from the 45 min nap at least.  I think cold turkey is alot harder to cope with when the nap is being dorpped altogether but that's just be two cents worth.   If you think he's really OT, I would let him sleep 1.5 hours.

[OliverRowland]

Eloise, thank you.  Cold turkey really is tough on all of us!  The trouble is I have a hard time determining how much is OT.  He had a 45 min nap yesterday (with another 20-30 just to wake up), then fell asleep at 7:50 and awake at 6:15am.  It was nice not to be up before 6am   I will go without nap for another few days and maybe try a longer nap?

[EloysH]

sounds like a plan.   Trial and error 

Today LO did not cope very well without the nap, and I was soo disappointed when he didn't sleep.  He's behaviour has been awfully tired and short fused all day.  So I am really hoping that he naps tomorrow!!!!

[OliverRowland]

fingers crossed for you!

Ds didn't nap yesterday but did sleep 11 hrs (7pm-6am!) !!!!!!!!!!!!!  Day 2 of no nap, let's see what happens today.....

[pazzy]

hi everyone, just a question what age do toddlers drop nap . my lo is 29 months and takes ages to got to sleep on a night. she goes cot at 8pm and fidgets til 9.30 pm. no crying just talking to bear.
routine
get up between 8.30 and 9.00 breakfast etc
play
dinner 12.30
nap at 3pm til 4 dinner
tea time 5.30
bath bed 8pm.
not sure if she is ready as we have to wake her at 4pm. so she still needs nap or does she.
do we leave her til she starts to cry at bedtime and makes a fuss.
its not a problem just wondered what others do when this happens. thanks for any replies

[EloysH]

age 2 is young to drop the nap its rarer but ih happens. my LO only turned 2 last week, and he has been not napping a few days a week for a few months now.    The first sign we got was that at nap time he just played and played in the cot, so we moved nap time later and later, now we get some success with a 2pm nap.  ON the days where he does nap for 1.5 - 2 hours, he will talk to himself in the cot for ages at night and fall asleep really late like 9pm and then be a mess the next day due to short night sleep.  that's a classic sign that they got too much sleep during the day.  SO we're working on cuytting that nap at the moment.

      So yes, it sounds like you LO might be ready to not nap on some days, I would maybe just cut the nap to 45 mins or so  and if you can get the napping to be finished maybe a little earlier like 3:30pm that will give her longer before bedtime.

[pazzy]

thanks for the reply i will try that and see what happens. tonight she was still awake at 10pm . but at 9.30 she started to call me which she never does she just lays there and fidgets. i went up she said teeth and pointed to them . i had a look and half of her back tooth has come through on both sides so i gave calpol. she went down in cot lovely .thanks for reply bye

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Enfys started to drop her nap just before she turned 2.  She just would not nap at day care which was hard b/c I work full time!!!  I managed to get her to take a nap on the weekends etc, and by the time she was 28 months she was sleeping an hour in the afternoon and barely 10 hours at night.  We went on holiday around that time and that was it, she wouldn't nap there and hasn't napped since.  She's almost 2.5 now and it's been a good 6 weeks.  She goes to bed at 7.30 and wakes around 7.  Loverly.

[momtonb&ab]

Hey ladies....

I think we might be on the cusp of disaster here - can I run this by you and get some advice?  DD and DS are 32 months.  Our routine for ages has looked like this:

7am wake
12:15-12:30 nap for 1.5-2 hours (some days only 1 hour, others I wake them by 2:30 at the latest - they can get by on 45 mins with early bed if need be)
7pm bed

DD does sometimes take longer to go to sleep at night (and I think at naptime as well although she is very quiet as we require it because they share a room) but it has never been an issue.  I can go in as late as 8 or 8:30 and she will quietly be sucking her thumb and hugging her doll but still awake. DS is sound asleep usually within minutes of bedtime.

In the last 3 weeks DD has missed her nap 6 or 7 times.  Each time it was an occassion where we were away from home and planned to drive at nap time so they could sleep in the car (a common thing for them when we go to my DH's aunts place 5 hours drive away)......they are great car sleepers but she just was too interested.  So DS slept, she watched things going by.

If she is going to outgrow her nap, is it cruel to insist she have a quiet time in the room while her brother sleeps?  I really think if she doesn't go up for nap time he won't go and he NEEDS to nap still.  She does really well (not cranky or anything) on the days she doesn't nap, but she needs to be in bed earlier which is a bit of a problem because DS has napped and isn't ready to go to bed early, but they won't go without each other.

what would you do?   should they both go to bed and the one not tired just be required to rest quietly?  this is scary.....they are so good and I just don't know how to keep it that way.  but if one is going to bed earlier then the other then the whole bath/story/bed routine is going to get so out of control and I am alone with them 5 days a week (DH works out of town) so I don't have the luxury of doing baths etc one at a time.  can you help?  what should I do?

[EloysH]

Interesting situation!

1.  I would insist on the quiet time every day I think it's crucial that they get the down time in their cot to recharge, I think the day is just too long without a little rest.   My son will play happily in the cot paying quietly for an hour, he only naps half the time.  He comes out much more recharged.  Look at it like you are doing them a favour, teaching them how to switch off and have down time, everyone needs to learn that!

2.  If they won;t go to bed without eachother and you must do their routine together, then I would do everything as normal and bring the routine forward to suit when DD needs to go to bed. I think it's fine if DS is laying around for a while,  its all rest.  MY DS will sometimes lay around for up to an hour before going to sleep.  He doesn;t mind, he lOVES it in his cot, its his safe litlte place to play with his stuffed toys. I would try it and see if  your son will comply.  If he doesn't and disturbs her sleep then maybe you'll need to try staggering them into bed. I would  do everything the same up until bedtime, then put DD down and read DS one more story.  Maybe you could talk about it with them during the day preparing them, saying that DD is very tired and needs to go into the cot first today. ANd make it special for DD< saying she gets a special teddy or something for going first, and then DS will come later and give her a big kiss in her sleep....  what ever makes them both feel special about the change.   I would try not to compromise DD's bedtime too much, as she will only become OT and cranky after a few days of not getting to sleep early enough, and then your life will get really tough.      The OT builds up over time, and creeps up.  We were find for a few weeks, then he became a mess.

[Mama2C]

I posted this elsewhere but realize perhaps I should post it here. Any help would be great. Tonight we actually did Lights out at 6:30pm!! She resisted bedtime a lot less.

My DD will be 3 in a month. She is dropping her last nap and is having trouble. While she is a textbook baby, she has always needed a lot of help regulating her sleep.

This was her schedule up until 2 weeks ago:

8:00 Wake up
12:00 Lunch
1-3:00 Nap
8:00 Lights out
She would fall asleep anywhere from half an hour to an hour after lights out.

For over a month she had been resisting nap and bedtime, it became harder and harder to put her down etc.
So two weeks ago we switched to this:

7:30 Wake up
12:00 Lunch
1-1:30: Rest with music
1:30-2: Books with music
7:30 Lights out, falls asleep with lullabies.
She falls asleep within half an hour.

Some days she would fall asleep at rest time at 1 and I would let her sleep for about 45 mins.

For the past 5 days she has not slept at rest time and has no indication of being tired until bedtime.

The past 2 nights though have been really hard. She resists the winddown so instead of taking 30 mins for that we take an hour to give her more time to transition to sleep. But when lights go out there is more resistance ("Mommy I need you to help me" or "Sleep is no fun".). I urge her to listen to music (soothes her). That's the easy part compared to middle of the night. She has been waking 3-4 times the past 3 nights! She wakes up crying, needs to pee, needs comforting etc. Can't put herself back to sleep. Even her soother (sigh!) isn't soothing her. She used to wake up once every 2-3 nights to go pee (my DH and I both have small bladders so we understand the need to pee at night!). Once is okay, but 3-4 times every night is too much.

I am 6 mos pregnant and this is now making me sick to my stomach with all the interrupted sleep.

Do I need to start to insist on naps or put her down to bed at 6? I used to have her schedule down pat but now with this transition I am at a total loss!!

I found that in the month transition from 1-0 naps that on days when she'd nap she would have awful night sleep (NW) and be awfully cranky the next day and on days when she didn't nap she'd have better sleep and be happier the next day. But now that isn't working!

Please help!!

Thanks!

[Mama2C]

So I thought I'd update on last night. We put her down at 6:30 and she fell asleep immediately. Then she woke up 5 times between 6:30 and 10:30! Crying and saying "no no no" each time. Perhaps bad dreams. So then we went to sleep at 10:30 and she slept through to 7:30!!! That was the first uninterrupted night of sleep for me in a week!!!

We're going to have bedtime be 6:30 for the next 2-3 nights and then move it back to 7 gradually.

I hope this works!

[EloysH]

mama2c: how have the last few days been?


Well we have to report a successful 2 weeks of napping - only 1-2 days each week we have had a missed nap.    I am consistently putting him down later at 1:30pm - 2pm so he is tired enough for the nap, toherwise he just plays and plays in his cot.

Schedule looks like this:

6am wake
1;30pm - 4pm in room for nap  usually falls asleep around 2pm
8:15 - 8:30pm bed


on a no nap day, bedtime is about 7:15-7:30pm.

[sherry lynn]

How long is it taking him to go to bed on average?

[EloysH]

about 10 mins to fall asleep for bedtime these days. It's lovely.