Is she ready to stop napping or is it something else??

[janelle]

DD will be three next week.  Up until about 3 or 4 weeks ago she has been a brilliant sleeper.  She would nap from 1:00pm until 3 or 4pm and then go to be from 7pm til 7am.  We never had any issue of her coming out of her room when put down for naps or night........then everything changed

Now she fights everything.  Somedays she will ask to nap and still sleep until 4 if we let her, other days she will come in and out the entire nap time (2 hours) without sleeping, or will fall asleep at 2:30 and be in a foul mood when I wake her at 3pm

At night I am ready to kill her.  she goes to bed happily enough at 7 but will come in and out sometimes till as late as 10pm and is waking up at 6:30 the next day.  Even on days she naps poorly we are still having the same problem.  Consequently I have one tired, grumpy 3 year old!!!

I am wondering if it is an attention thing as I feel she has been missing out lately as I am spending huge amounts of time trying to get ds to sleep for naps and at night.  Could it be a reaction to this???  If so what do I do, we are in the middle or rather beginning of sleep training so I have to spend the time.  How do I know if she is really ready to drop her nap...I am so ot ready for her to.  Even if it means pushing bedtime back I would rather keep her nap, but 10pm is waaaaay too late!!

Any advice or ideas???

[imsmum]

I think you've hit it when you say that she may be doing this for attention.  She probably sees that you are spending all this time with ds when he is acting up at sleeptimes and figures "Hey, if that works for him..."  And I don't know about your toddler but mine has certainly realized that she can take control of a situation by her behaviour and has been taking every opportunity to do just that!

I think some lo's give up their nap around this age but given what her sleeping  has been like in the past I don't think that is what she is doing.  My older dd was a brilliant sleeper like yours and we eventually had to stop her nap at 4.5 years to go to kindergarten, although we did have to shorten it to one hour sometime after her 3rd birthday because it was taking her forever to fall asleep at night.  I suspect that if she was really ready to drop her nap you would have seen either the nap getting shorter or later bedtimes/earlier wakeups, without all the monkey business!

I assume when she is up and down during naptime you are taking her back and telling her it is naptime.  Would a sticker chart help here?  You could tell her that even if she doesn't sleep she has to stay in her room quietly to get a sticker.  If she still doesn't sleep when she stays quietly in her room you'll be able to get a better sense if she is really ready to drop her nap, but even if she is, she--and you!--probably need that down time.   

[Lana]

Could be a bit of both Janelle.  Ewan dropped his nap at 2 years 9 months when Bram came.  So we did quiet time int he afternoon instead.  Maybe just tell her she doesnt have to sleep but she needs to stay in her room until you come to get her.  And let her have soem books and stuff in bed with her.  Then if she falls asleep you wake her by three and go on from there.

[janelle]

Thanks Ladies...well yesterday was a disaster.  She went to bed a 1pm, wuold not stay in her room, by 2:30 I gave up as we had to go out to take my sister to the airport anyway.  So we left home and 3pm and she fell asleep in the 10 min drive to mums   Got her out of the car and she would not wake up just fell asleep on me so I laid her down on the floor and she slept until we left at 4:00!!!!!!  Last night, of course she would not go to bed.  It was after 10:00 before she went to sleep and was then up at 6:30 this morning!!!!!!  Ugggh.  Going to try some of the suggestions...Thanks for your help!!!