when did your toddlers naps stop? - Page 2

[ellemenope]

Originally Posted by LadyCatherine185

well when it takes 30 minutes to get him to sleep, he only sleeps for an hour and 15 min's, and then is a total grump for the hour after he wakes up.. and fights bedtime like the plague and doesn't go to bed until 10 pm or later, only to wake up at 6 AM....... sometimes they are telling you they need to drop their nap.

I hear you. I have been at this point for at least 6 months now.

We just prefer to call it a struggle and haven't thrown in the towell yet. I think some kids are just like this. I have tried an earlier naptime and it helps when we can get her to fall asleep that early. If she did not fall asleep in my ergo I would not even be able to talk. Still, it does take her at least a half hour to fall asleep in it while I do chores and dance around.

I am finding her attention span is much better in the evening when she has had a nap, but that is the only thing I can really notice. I just want her to be firing on all cylanders all throughout the day. The later bedtime sucks, but I really can't blame her. 10pm bedtime isn't that hard. She is just difficult to get to sleep the whole way around and it doesn't matter what we do. It is my battle.

I think this is just my personal thing. Everyone has a thing, right?

[Peony]

Originally Posted by LadyCatherine185

well when it takes 30 minutes to get him to sleep, he only sleeps for an hour and 15 min's, and then is a total grump for the hour after he wakes up.. and fights bedtime like the plague and doesn't go to bed until 10 pm or later, only to wake up at 6 AM....... sometimes they are telling you they need to drop their nap.

Totally. But for my last dropping nap kid it was the 30 minutes of trying to get her down, a 20 minute nap and then a bedtime that was delayed for hours, and this was with a strict 12pm nap time! So NOT worth the battle.

With my first kid, we did the 10pm bedtime thing for years and that was fine but now with 3 kids in the house, they have to go to bed at a decent time. I need to actually work and do other things that do not involve multiple small monkeys hanging off of me.

[MamaPhD]

DD's been sleeping through the night since 9-10 months old. Now if she naps one hour any time of day, she will stay up 3 hours past her bedtime. So it doesn't work for us to keep at a routine so DD can sleep less.

[JamieB]

Originally Posted by LiLStar

I'm desperate for ds to get back to normal napping! He's nearly 18 months and for the last month or so, either hasn't napped, or napped after 3pm. Before, he was on a great routine of waking around 8, give or take, napping around 1-3 (sometimes till 4!), give or take, and then going to bed around 8-9pm. Perfect. He WAS teething, but they're all in now. He had a couple weeks where I'd try so hard to get him to sleep at his normal time, and then he literally would not sleep until 3pm!! Then I'd wake him at 5, and then he wouldn't fall asleep till like 11 Then sleeping in later makes the nap even more impossible. Skipping the nap in hopes of early bed, earlier wake, and nap the next day. Doesn't work. I even tried a *very* small dose of melatonin (cut a tablet into 8ths) around 8:00pm to try and reset his rhythm. It worked in that he went to bed early. He did not wake any earlier. Even on the days that he DOES wake at like, 7:45 he still. will. not. nap. at a reasonable time. He might pass out in the car at 4:00, however. But that just makes bedtime hell. Thats pretty much the only time he sleeps during the day. After 3, and in the car. *Sigh* I'm NOT ready to give up naps!! There's gotta be some way to fix this? A food allergy? Aaaanything?!

Try reading the book Sleepless in America. It has some great advice!

Originally Posted by ellemenope

I guess I don't believe in cutting a todders nap.

We might go a couple of days without one. We might go a couple of days with one. We just take it day by day. But, we do keep encouraging DD to nap.

I love rythm. I love schedules. I love consistency. And, we try. but, I will sacrifice that over "cutting" her nap for good.

This is how I feel too. I can't believe how little sleep some of the LOs in this thread are getting. My DS is 33 months and naps every day unless there is something going on and I need to keep him up.

[ChetMC]

Oldest - stopped at about 20 months, the first two months were a little difficult while she transitioned, but she definitely did not need a nap by 22 months.

Second - also stopped before she turned two, but she still needed the nap. Honestly she's five and she could still benefit greatly from a nap. Unfortunately, she is an extremely wound up kid and has a very hard time relaxing to fall asleep. I believe that most of her behaviour problems would go away if she could nap. She had a very difficult time from 24 to 28 months, and looking back, her problems were definitely all from lack of sleep.

Third - DS is 2.5 and his naps are no longer sanctioned. He will lay down and have a nap on his own sometimes, but not every day. We stopped putting him down for an official nap in the summer (around 28 months). A big nap during the day will mess up his sleep, a small cat nap in the carrier or on the floor is fine.

One thing I've found useful is to figure out the total amount of sleep a child needed in 24 hours. Once they were capable of getting that amount at night they didn't need a nap anymore. My experience has been that kids don't drop naps without adding some sleep at night.

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by JamieB

This is how I feel too. I can't believe how little sleep some of the LOs in this thread are getting. My DS is 33 months and naps every day unless there is something going on and I need to keep him up.

Some kids just need less sleep. Believe me, I have spent my entire DS's life trying to get him to sleep more. He just doesn't. He has been a sleep fighter since Day 1. I would love it if he would still nap and go to bed at a decent time and wake up at a decent time in the morning.. but it just doesn't happen.

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by Peony

With my first kid, we did the 10pm bedtime thing for years and that was fine but now with 3 kids in the house, they have to go to bed at a decent time. I need to actually work and do other things that do not involve multiple small monkeys hanging off of me.

I wouldn't mind the 10 pm bedtime for him so much if he didn't wake up at 6 AM every morning.. And I need at least 30-60 minutes of "down time" in the evening before I can go to sleep.. And we are getting ready to have our second, and I need more sleep than that at night.

[belltree]

Originally Posted by ellemenope

I guess I don't believe in cutting a todders nap.

We might go a couple of days without one. We might go a couple of days with one. We just take it day by day. But, we do keep encouraging DD to nap.

I love rythm. I love schedules. I love consistency. And, we try. but, I will sacrifice that over "cutting" her nap for good.

My child just stopped napping, he would get up, run around, laugh. If he goes down, he naps 15-20min, that's it. He sleeps about 10hrs at night.

If he does take a longer nap, he is up at night for hours. Some kids just don't need as much sleep as others. If he'd be all cranky and miserable, I'd change the situation, but I don't see the point of making a child taking naps, that does not need naps. Which is an ongoing discussion with care providers.

[alegna]

Yep. Another with kids who need less sleep than "they" say. Dd WAY less sleep than they say.

-Angela

[LiLStar]

ITs. a. miracle!! ds is napping right now. He fell asleep right at 1:04!! his previous NORMAL nap time! I don't think he's napped this early in over a month. I hope this sticks..

[Kreeblim]

Originally Posted by JamieB

This is how I feel too. I can't believe how little sleep some of the LOs in this thread are getting. My DS is 33 months and naps every day unless there is something going on and I need to keep him up.

Not every young kid that doesn't nap is lacking sleep. My DS3 who dropped his nap at 18 mos. gets 14 hours a night average, though sometimes it's as high as 16-17. Plus his sleep is much more regular because no matter when we have stuff going on during the day, he is always awake then anyhow (when he was a "napper" those off days were just horrid). Not every kid can sleep so long at night and go without a nap during the day, but it works out pretty well for my kid, and if I tried to force him to stay up later and nap during the day he'd be pretty miserable...I know this because when we had it in our heads that all children NEED to nap at that age he WAS miserable.

[dividedsky]

one of my kids is still napping, the other is dropping his nap. they are going to be 2 in january.

the one who is dropping it just simply refuses to go down. and he used to take like 1.5hr - 2hr naps no problem. a couple of weeks ago he just started to refuse. i think he still needs it though... he crashes out for a catnap usually around 4 (in the car, or on his beanbag chair or something). but you can't force someone to go to sleep, so it is what it is. he is definitely more high-strung of the two, for what it's worth. the other guy is really mellow.

they both sleep about the same amount of time at night, from 8ish to 7ish, and have been STTN since weaning at 15mos.

[Aufilia]

They haven't. DD is 4.75 and still naps most afternoons. She's STTN since about the time she turned 2. On days she's unable to fall asleep, she sits on her bed and reads books quietly, but that's maybe 1/5 of the time lately. She has been through phases where she wouldn't nap for a week or two for some reason, but she always goes back to napping.

[MountainMamaGC]

My DD skipped a nap a few weeks ago but had a meltdown at bedtime. I even tried putting her to bed an hour early that day so she wouldnt be overtired. SO it was back to napping. Honestly I think this one is going to nap all the way to highschool.

Right now she falls asleep for both her nap and her bedtime with ease. She sleeps from 9 pm - 8 am and then goes down at about noon till about 2 pm. So she gets about 13 hours total, sometimes a little more.

If she starts having trouble with nap or bedtime, I may cut an hour off her nap and see how that goes. Right now there is a strict no napping past 330 rule.

I do a similar thing as one of the PP. I tell DD to read her baby a story and tell her baby what she did today and wants to do tomorrow, if she cant sleep. She usually passes out 10 min later.

[Megan73]

Don't panic just yet. DS (27 months) has several times had DAYS of bad, or even no, naps, in a row when I feared he was given them up then fallen back into the routine. We just kept up the routine. He sleeps from 7:30 p.m. to 6:30-7 a.m. and from 1-3 p.m., BTW.