"Quiet time" instead of nap time for a 3.5 y.o. What is it like?

[Ambivalent Dreams]

If you use "quiet time" instead of nap time with your preschooler, what is it like?  Is DC allowed to have toys?  How long to they have to stay in quiet time?  What are the rules?

DD has a IRON WILL.  We just had nap time battle number 654984654 where she screams and cries "I'm not sleepy!"  all while yawning.  I still have to rock her to sleep for a nap and sometimes she still fights it. 

At my wits end, I removed all the toys from her room (all that was in there were a few stuffed animals), put her in the bed and told her I would come back and get her later.  I think there is about a 5% chance she will go to sleep on her own.  I told her that she will have to stay in there for "quiet time" if she refuses to go to sleep.  If she doesn't go to sleep, by 5:00 PM she will be so tired she will hardly be able to cope with herself and will make us crazy.  Lots of crying, tantrums, etc.

Sigh.

[WindyCityMom]

My DD just turned 3 and doesn't take naps anymore (the majority of the time!).  She does sometimes tell me she's going to rest, and she goes to her bed with a few train cars or a playsilk and plays a little, but it's a dreamy sort of play lol.  Not crashing the train cars or anything, just floating them around through the air.  Sometimes she falls asleep, but I find that she's always in a good mood when she's done resting.

[omelette]

We do quiet time at our house.  We started when my son was 3.5ish and he was starting to give up naps.  We would do our usual routine, a story and a snuggle and then he would stay in his room and either play quietly, look at books or fall sleep.  He's 4.5 now and we got our of quiet time for a while but we are doing it again.  He no longer falls asleep but plays quietly for 30-45 minutes.  It gives us both a chance to recharge so we have a better afternoon.  He doesn't play alone at any other time so I think it is good for him to learn to play on his own and he always has fun and has lots to tell me about afterwards.

We never forced quiet time though.  There would be the occasional day where he would put up a fuss so we would snuggle and read books or I'd read my book and he'd look at books or some other quiet activity together.

[K1329]

Quiet time never worked for us. I absolutely loved the theory, but, the reality was something different for us. It was a battle. Ds refused to stay in his room and be "quiet". I gave up - it had become something negative for both of us. We then went through a period where he was transitioning to no nap and he was cranky in the evenings - we just adjusted his bedtime, moved it up, and tolerated some evening grumpiness. He now, at 4, naps rarely and is fine most evenings. Some kids are able to grasp and enjoy the concept of quiet time, but, I could never get it to work. And it wasn't a battle I was willing to fight. Could you just move up your dd's bedtime on days she doesn't nap?

Same thing with dd, now 7. I concentrated on a smooth evening routine/bedtime and could never figure out how some parents get their kids to willingly take naps. It's still a mystery to me, lol!

[Holiztic]

My DS will be 4 in April and has been in and out of napping since 2.  Right now he's napping every day but I think that will be ending (again) soon.  When he's off napping (meaning he does not nap at all for a few months usually) he has quiet time.  We set up a special "new" place (our walk in closet, which has open space and a window) with a little comfy chair, a little bookcase, and some new puzzles, games he can play alone (sitting!) and a small CD player--for which we get read along book/CD pairs at the library. He did really well and would stay quietly in there (door half open, me reading in bed) for up to 90 minutes, coming out once or twice for bathroom or to say something briefly to me.  I think we'll be going back to this soon.

When he doesn't nap AND misses quiet time he's a mess by 5, asleep by 6 (which is too early! He sleeps terribly after 2 am and misses time with Daddy).  When he naps he isn't asleep until 9 (a little later than we like).  But when he doesn't nap and has a good, long quiet time he sleeps at 7:30, which is perfect for us!

[Suki Lu]

I think the best thing to do is make it consistent. Same time of day, same place, same boundaries. Start small, like 10 minutes to build success and be sure you are the one to end quiet time. Define specifically what you expect and maybe practice it with them the first week or so. 

For us it was puzzles or books on or in your bed. And then it evolved into just playing quietly in their rooms alone. When they protest you just say, "we have quiet time every day," or "our family has quiet time." Keep the power struggle out of it completely.

[newbie_mary]

For us, the answer was "Frog and Toad".  Someone gave us a tape of the author reading the stories, and DS was happy to listen to it every day for about a year!  He was also allowed to play with toys on his bed.  Quiet time lasted about an hour, although sometimes he would fall asleep.

[chattyprincess]

so im sure the following is not a stamped endorsded mdc approved "rest time" but it really worked really well for our family and thats what counts.

starting the summer dd turned 3 she really needed to start resting or napping again (she hadn't since 2!!! So we began after lunch putting her sleeping bag on the couch (dd views being made to nap in her room as punishment and fights it tooth and nail and won't nap or rest in there...on the couch anything goes lol) having her lovely stuffy animal and laying watching a disney type movie until it was over. so roughly 1-1.5 hours. The rules were, no talking, no moving off the couch, no goofing off. You had to stay on the couch and only get off if you had to use the potty. Some days (I was pregnant) I would rest with her and somedays I would just do something queitly in the room or another room. But she knew if she goofed off the movie got turnedoff and she had to lay there until the timer went off....that happened one time....Yes we had to gently remind sometimes that she needed to be queit or still but generally she was really good about. Somedays she would nap somedays she wouldn't but both of us were way better off for the rest then not....

[JulianneW]

My mom and I were just talking about this yesterday. All four of us kids stopped taking naps at around 2. So we had quiet time for 30-45 minutes, we were sent to our room(s) and could play quietly (no electronic toys). Sometimes we played lincoln logs or legos quietly in the living room. Our bed time was 7:30 pm and we woke up at around 8 am. 

When my kids stop wanting to take naps I plan on using the same approach. I have been around quite a few moms who have a daily battle with their toddlers over nap time, I don't see the point. I think it also creates a negative attitude towards sleep and the child's bedroom.

[Boot]

We have limited success with quiet time but I persist. Currently, he has to stay in his room for up to an hour and he gets a star at the end if he is quiet. 10 stars - ice cream. Books on cd worked for a while but he's bored with that now. I also had a timer but he would 'doctor' it. He went through a phase of saying he was scared to be on his own but that seems better now. I find that on days where we can make quiet time work we are both in a much better mood.  He hasn't actually slept for about 5 months. 

[hergrace]

I am always amazed that anyone has success with "quiet time" because it has never worked at my house.  My kids all gave up naps between 24 and 28 months, and I just gave them super early bedtime to make up for the lack of nap because anything else was a disaster. I wish you luck.

[Katielady]

 I started this with DS only because I needed to be able to put my younger DD down for a nap. I put a book on CD on for him and ask him to stay for the duration of the book- usually it's 30 mins. It worked like a charm. He'd sometimes end up falling asleep, but usually he'd just chill in there listening to the story while lying in bed. And he is normally a VERY active kid, always has to be moving.

Magic Treehouse is our favorite series. You can try some from the library then copy them or buy them depending on your personal ethics in that area. :lol:

[cappuccinosmom]

My 3.5 yo has quiet time every day with at least one brother, sometimes both (older one only gets rest time on the weekend, and he looks forward to it!).

It is at exactly the same time every day, part of the routine, something that he has come to expect.

I put a favored story on CD on, and rest time is for the duration of the cd, so 40-60 min.  (Since we have been doing this for several years, they have some of their favorite stories memorized.  I was shocked once, when I read them Pinnochio, and if I stopped anywhere in the story, they would fill in--the end of the sentance, or the next sentence or even the next paragraph!  This was the 60 minute version of it, and they had the whole freaking thing memorized.)

Every once in a while, I will allow toys (like duplos in his bed), but most of the time it's just books.  I let them pick a good-sized pile of books to keep them interested for their quiet hour.

[3xMama]

We do quiet time here. DD has pretty much always needed a little downtime in the afternoons, so it's been something we slowly transitioned into and didn't try to bring in later, kwim? I think that helped a lot.

Currently (she's 4.5), it depends on her mood what kind of rest day it is. Some days there is no rest because we're running errands, visiting family, having friends over etc. Some days she needs to lay in bed quietly for a good two hours. When she does that, sometimes she'll fall asleep, though that's getting rarer as she gets older. Other days we'll do a short rest, where's she's only in bed for 45 min to an hour. That usually happens after she's had a full rest for two or three days previously and doesn't really need a full rest and/or we've been home and not doing anything beyond being at home for several days.

I started doing rest time with her when I started staying home and she was about 3. Previously, she was in daycare and had a rest during the afternoon and I just kind of followed through with that. At that time, she would lay down to rest almost every day for about 2-2.5 hrs (yes, she needed that whole time). She'd fall asleep every two or three days.

Whenever she lays down for rest, she gets to play with her stuffed animals and read books. We did puzzles for awhile, but that ended up being a huge mess in her bed and I got sick of cleaning up puzzle pieces at bedtime. She can get up to use the bathroom and get a drink. She may get out of bed once to get more stuffed animals. She cannot yell or be loud, partically because DS is usually napping in the room next to hers and I don't want him getting woken up. She's always had the same rules about it.

Good luck!

[SparklingGemini]

My DD is 3.5 and still naps about 80% of the time.  Thank goodness!

She goes in waves where she'll skip napping for a few days at a time and I always encourage(and try to enforce)quiet time.  We keep it at the same time as her regular nap and I follow the same routine I do for nap time; water, potty, 3-5 books, nursing and tuck her in.  If she's still up 15 minutes later, I can pretty much bet that she isn't going to sleep, at which point I allow her to grab a stack of books and some soft, quiet toys for her to have in bed. 

I like her quiet time to be for about an hour but it's really hard for little ones to grasp the concept of time.  What helped was getting a clock and putting stickers where the big hand and little hand need to point to, so that she doesn't get up too early. When the clock hands reach those stickers, DD knows it has been long enough and she can get up if she wants too. 

[Areia]

My 3 year old hasn't napped for quite a while, but she does have quiet time in the afternoon which in our family is basically quiet, independent play in her room for about 20-30 minutes.  Certain toys are primarily "upstairs" toys because the dog will eat them if she gets hold of them so she tends to play with these during quiet time -- her stuffed animals and doll house are usually favorites. 

[KLM99]

My 3yo will still nap occassionally, so it's not such a big deal, but quiet time has never worked for us either.  She has a big clock on her wall and I tell her when the little hand reaches the whatever, then quiet time is over (she's allowed to do anything she wants as long as it's in her bed).  She spends the whole time announcing to the house whenever the little hand is on or near the next number and/or announcing what she's doing.  "Mooooommmyyyyy the little hand is on the threeeeeee!!!!" "Mommmmmyyyy now I'm coloring a bear in my coloring book!!!"  I think the point of quiet time is to sort of recharge?  It seems like our quiet time just revs her up even more.