Nearly 4 year old napper - wrecking evening

[marilyn73]

Hi,
My nearly 4 year old DD is an all-star napper - still enjoys 2+ hours (1-3pm+) daily - but for the last month at least, has been fooling around in the evening after going to bed, and takes forever to fall asleep (sometimes hours).  I've come to the realization that the nap probably needs to go (so sad though since I have a 4 mth old who naps at the same time giving me a blessed 2 hr break!).
No nap seems to work maybe 50% of the time.  The other days she will announce "I'm going for a nap, close my curtains!" around 3pm, or will pass out on the couch either after lunch, or late afternoon.  This kid loves her bed.
But, she shares a room with her big sister who is exhausted from school, so they need to go to bed at the same time.
Not really sure if I should just give her a short power nap, enforce staying awake (would have to be a very entertaining mamma), let her decide….
Oh, and bed time is 7:30pm, asleep by 8.  WU around 7am.
Any hints on effective nap weaning of the preschooler? (p.s. sister napped until school started at age 4.5 - and cried that she couldn't keep the nap at school - so new territory here)

[Truly Blessed]

Hi Hun,

Wow, you'll incite jealousy around here posting this lol. It all boils down to 'how' a LO needs their sleep spread, and obviously your girls do best with it spread out in the way they have chosen. But of course there always comes a point where it stops working, and as you have described bed time becomes a problem as they often start to struggle to get to sleep. It certainly is a tough call, and I suppose depends on how she would handle being woken from a nap? Would she be really grumpy for the rest of the day, or would she be easy to distract? if the latter then it may be worth trying to ween her off it, and giving a much shorter nap in the first instance, then see if BT improves.

As she is announcing her own nap of her own accord on some days, can you tell me what happens on those nights that she does nap? I am wondering if she goes no nap, but has one every so often if she is actually' self regulating' which is a good thing, and maybe if it wasn't too often that could work for her? Also on NN days, are her nights longer?

When will she start school? or full time nursery? Obviously this is something to look ahead to, as if it's like the UK there will be no opportunity to nap, so she would need to get fully used to not taking a nap well before that, as it can be very tiring for LO's when they first start, as you will already know from DD1, so having her prepared and on really solid long nights is pretty much a necessity by then. How did you handle this when DD1 was still napping?  I'm posting this link for you Hun, as she is older some of it may not be relevant, but it may give you some ideas about how best to handle this.

Hope this helps

((HUGS))

Vicki.x.

The 1-0 transition...Advice and Tips to help you through.

[Hedgehog17]

I dropped DS's naps down gradually, to every 2nd day then every 3rd day. He also loves his bed!

He took his last nap the day before his 4th birthday and has been ok without one since then  He does get tired, but I just sit him down with TV or a book for a bit of chillout time and that works.

Maybe try a nap every 3rd day and see how she gets on?

[marilyn73]

Hi ladies,
We've pretty much had a self induced nap every day this week (crashes after lunch during our quiet "movie time"), and after a day of outside play on the weekend, she fell asleep on the floor for an hour before supper.
The last 2 bedtimes have been awful - fooling around and keeping sister up from 7:30 - 8:30/9:00 or later.
I would say that a single nap doesn't affect bedtime too much, but if she has a bunch in a row, it gets bad.
Likewise, once she's nice and rested from all those naps, missing a day doesn't improve bedtime that much either.

Today we went swimming and biking in the morning, so I offered a nap in her bed (since it was inevitable anyway) - I woke her after 1.25 hrs, and she wasn't cranky (although sometimes is).  She just said, in a very nice voice (surprise) "can you get out of here, I'm staying in my bed".  OK.  I guess I've been told - and I even bribed her with baking cookies.

She starts school in Sept - no nap or rest time here in Canada either (at least in Ontario), so we have a few months to go still.

p.s. the bonus the other day was that I had no sleep at all myself due to illness, and I was able to nap simultaneously! 

[~Sara~]

My DS napped most days until he started kindergarten...sooooo...not sure how much help I'll be but figure I'll offer my two cents anyways.

ITA with cutting back on the nap length, no matter how kindly she tells you to, well, leave her alone and let her sleep, lol!  (That was very cute of her.)  That plus the fact that you're having her go a day or two without one sounds like the best...sounds like it's already working for you!  Just one of those fun transitions that we get to experience, eh?

[creations]

Wow!  Just wow!
I cannot imagine a child who naps like this. She also sounds such a character too and that you cannot stop her napping even if you want to. The only advice I have is something Tracy said in the BW books, "do a fan dance if necessary". I'm afraid it may actually come down to that for you to keep her awake so that her big sister can get to bed on time without disturbance.

One idea may be to put a light on a timer in her room to cap those naps for you, that way you don't get *all* the blame, a bit of it can be passed onto the lamp saying it's WU time. So when she says you are to go the lamp is still on keeping her awake keeping the room bright to help wake her up.

[marilyn73]

You know, I fully credit all things Baby Whisperer in producing my 2 (and now 3) nappers. I was clueless about all of this until reading Tracy's books!  It helped that my babes were receptive to the idea though.  I did actually climb in the crib with one as suggested, and shushed and patted and picked up and put down my heart out.  I used to paralyse my right arm hanging over the crib in the night while soothing!  Happily #3 is easier than the first 2!

I will shorten the nap further I think, maybe 45 min or so…. and let it go entirely on days that we have an afternoon activity.

[Truly Blessed]

I did actually climb in the crib with one as suggested, and shushed and patted and picked up and put down my heart out.  I used to paralyse my right arm hanging over the crib in the night while soothing

Ha ha, yes I think many of us know that 'dead' arm feeling around here, sounds like you've been super dedicated, good for you!!!

I will shorten the nap further I think, maybe 45 min or so…. and let it go entirely on days that we have an afternoon activity.

Good luck Hun, I like the idea of having a light on a timer too, I've read it's a really good tool amongst our BW's.

x.

[creations]

I did actually climb in the crib

Hang on, I did that and mine still dropped his nap at 2.5!

Good luck with your plan x

[Truly Blessed]

I did actually climb in the crib
Hang on, I did that and mine still dropped his nap at 2.5!

Ha ha to all of this!

I am almost 6 foot and kept re-reading that sentence in the book where Tracy says to climb in, I thought I had misunderstood lol Obviously I never did it, I just had to opt for the 'dead arm' method instead

x.