Support for dropping the last nap age 2-3 yrs

[EloysH]

Yea! thanks Sherry!
Although he didn't nap today     But as said before at least we get him in bed by 7pm on no nap days so that is one kid less to worry about through the evening 

[michaeljacknnugg]

Hi guys,

I'm just jumpign on here as DS is dropping his last nap - only 2 in the last week. Seems like since he turned 2 last month he's decided he doesn't need it. I don't think he needs an awful lot of sleep anyway - approx 11hrs in 24, if he gets too much we get EWs which are killers - so for us it will be great when he just goes onto the nigth sleep permanently.

Just wondering how quickly you push them when they have started to drop the nap themselves? DS only had 2 naps last week and is quite happy on it; I thought he'd be tired by the weekend so put him down for a sleep Fri and Sat, but only got 1 sleep in the end. I thinking soon I won't even bother trying as he is so resistant to napping now! At bedtime he is tired enough to go to sleep a bit early (say 7.30 instead of 8pm) but not loads. He doesn't have a big problem with OT - he'll go short on sleep for a while then catch back up later.

We're off in a couple of weeks and have loads of good stuff planned. I'm considering trying no naps at all unless he looks seriously knackered. What do you think?

[alexr]

Hi,

I am at loss at what to do about my LO's early morning wakings. He is 17 months old and for the past few months has gone from two naps to one nap in the afternoon. The problem is he is consistently awake and ready to go at 5:30 in the morning. He bedtime is between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. If I put him down early or later, the result is almost always the same - up before the sun comes up.

Some mornings he is just so tired that he wants to sleep before his afternoon nap (which we have pushed up to between 11:30 and 12:30 depending on when he first wakes). If he does nap in the morning even just for five minutes, the afternoon nap is sometimes completely rejected. It can make for a very long day.

For his sake, I would love to figure out a way to have him sleep an hour longer in the morning. I just think he would be happier and make it to his afternoon nap. He has always been a child who seems to need maximum 11 hours at night. And he can't stay awake past 7:30 p.m. He literally waves good bye and grabs him hand to take me to his room for sleep!

I am wondering if part of the problem is that he still has a bottle in the morning with us in bed. When he wakes, I try and keep him in his cot at least until 6:00. I then bring him in with us for a cuddle. He then has a bottle of milk with us. Some mornings he has his milk with breakfast but other times he demands it first thing.

Also he sleeps in a sleep sack and lately has started furiously pulling at it when he wakes. Could it be time to move to a quilt?

Any suggestions are most welcome. I just want him to be less knackered during the day and us too!

[sherry lynn]

alexr - I really apologize for taking so long to respond to this post.
This is a thread for dropping the final nap. Your LO just dropped his second nap
Here is a better thread, and a much more active thread.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=161785.0

[Zeitel]

Hi

Was wandering if anyone can give me some advice. I have a 34 month old-- 2 months before his 3rd birthday. I am deciding whether to drop his nap. Here are the facts:
1. I can either let him go to sleep around 8pm-6am with a 2 hour nap in the day
but...
Firstly we enjoy having the evenings to ourselves as we also have an 18 month old so time to ourselves is vital. We both study at nights to so they are important to us. We dont love waking up at 6... 6:30 would be great. The thing with 6 is if they have an early day its 5:30 whereas if they are generally wake up 6:30.. then an early day would be 6.

Secondly I woulld prefer to leave him at daycare till about 2. If he naps then I would bring him home at 12. They eat lunch at school at 12:30 but i feel a nap from 12-2 is the best bc anything later and he prob will struggle to go to sleep. This means that he would only at lunch at 2.

Thirdly he is potty trained and its such a mission to chnage him into his diaper..then when he wakes up he doesnt necessarily love to put it back on whereas without a nap he is fine without it all day.

Also.. i would def need to wake him after 2 hours and he often is cranky from getting woken...

ALL THAT SAID-- without a nap he gets cranky..and not just a bit cranky that I can deal with..but he gets aggresive towards me and his sister, complains, whins..the whole terrible twos without sleep..

OR

2. NO NAP- pick him up at 2.. deal with the CRAZINESS until 6 and bedtime- will he get used to it and is it healthy for him? he really gets frustrated from EVERY thing ..even if building a tower gets a bit tough...he normally isnt like that at all.

3. someone suggested a 45 min nap- what do u think of this? wont he wake up more cranky? will it acutally help or just push up his bedtime? if I do this what time is bed time. Also where do i put him for such a short nap- in his bed? do the whole diaper change??

ANY ADVICE/COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS WOULD HELP

THANKS!

[babybarr]

I would try the 45min nap or even a 1.5hr nap (they tend to have 45mins sleep cycle so they *should* wake less cranky if you wake at these times)

It does sound like he needs a nap of some sort and it probably isn't right to keep him up without a nap if his behaviour is that bad.

HTH
Laura

[sherry lynn]

I agree with Laura. If you push the no nap issue you might end up in a MASSIVE over tired cycle.

[mylittlelovelies]

if you are thinking of doing only a 45minute nap....try to get him to have that nap as early as you can possibly get him to go to sleep, so that he is less tired and copes better when you wake him early. Having said that, with my DD it got later and later in the day otherwise she wouldn't fall asleep at all, but as a result she dropped her nap at 2.5years (she needs way less sleep than average). But i have friends who have hung on to the nap longer by having it as early as possible.

for what its worth, with my DD it took about 2-3 months for her to cope fairly well without a nap, and now at 3 years old (she stopped napping about 5 months ago), i can't get her to nap even if i want to (annoying if we have to go out around dinner time and i know she's going to have a late night) and she is happy as a lark right through till bedtime

good luck!

[babymunkey]

Hi girls - just dropping in real quick (should be working). Will be back later to read back a bit, but we are having bedtime dramas which I think are in part due to the fact that we need to drop his nap completely at least a few days a week.

Currently he's at the childminders 4 days a week and has a nap like clockwork straight after lunch. He's cut it down himself to about 40 minutes and wakes up happy. (would be around 1 ish?) Normal bedtime is 7.30, and up until recently he would have been asleep by 8, and then wake up around 7 - 7.15, sometimes maybe earlier but he's upposed to stay in bed til his sunshine clock gets up so I don't know how long he's been awake (we're still in the land of nod until he comes into us!)

The other 3 days, he has refused naps in his bed for probably the last 6 months, so he just cat naps as and when in the car, or if we don't go out, will cope OK without a nap.

LAst week, we have been gradually getting worse and worse bedtime dramas. Sometimes its taking up to 2 hours to get him to stay in bed and settle down. We allow him to read books, but not toys or noisy books and he must stay in bed.

So I am thinking 2 things -
1. is that he's testing us a bedtime cos the penny has dropped that why whould he stay in bed (had been in a BBB for 9 months and no prbs before)
2. He's just not tired...........

Back later to read back

H

[michaeljacknnugg]

We are down to a couple of naps a week now. On days he has a nap I really struggle to get him into bed, he is just not tired! Maybe if you cut down the days he naps you will have less trouble at bedtime.

So glad for this thread as I really didn't realise this transition would be so long and painful! We've been dropping this nap since at least April and his total sleep varies from 9.5-12hrs in a day. I wish we could get to a stage that had some predictability, so that I know what I should be doing in a day! And so I can have a life!

[~Karen~]

We're soooooo going through this right now!  Got to try and go get him down for a nap as he's been up since 5am but will be back to read up later.

[sherry lynn]

*hugs* so are we. We are up to about 2-3 days a week now with no nap.

[~Karen~]

He's still having a nap most days because if I don't put him down at home then he falls asleep later on in the car/buggy.  Yesterday he had nearly a 2 hour nap at home but didn't go to sleep till 9pm last night.  Oh well, at least he didn't get up till 7am.

[babymunkey]

7 am is a whole lot better than 5! Did Lewis sleep through that morning? That must have been annoying 

Lyle sounds like he's doing OK without it Sherry - does it make him wake early for OT?

Hmmmm, so last 2 nights have been no better. The childminder asked him last 2 days if he was tired and/or wanted a nap and he said no - she kept an eye on him the rest of the day and he coped fine. But bedtime both nights has been a disaster. Basically if we have a disagreement about any part of bedtime routine, it's all over - he disintegrates into crying/yelling, won't calm down, all my old negotation/threats/consequences etc don't work and just make it worse, so then I put the gqate on his door, shut it and leave him to it for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. We go through 2 or 3 rounds of this until eventually he gets so tired he just caves and passes out. But this was happening before no naps? HAsn't affected his wake up time thought - still 7/7.15 ish.

[~Karen~]

Lewis woke about 520am for I feed I think as that's generally around when he feeds so Ethan was awake first!  He still only had a 10 hour night though which I guess isn't too bad.  Oh and he stayed in his bed quietly and shouted for me after his light came on so I guess that's progress. 

Helen - Same here, it takes something so simple to send him into meltdown when he's tired like that!