4yo giving up naps and EXHAUSTED

[fiddledebi]

Hi all,

Oh, my poor 4yo DD1!!!

She is clearly ready to give up her nap...and it's messing up everything else for her. She used to take a 1-2.5 hour afternoon nap every day and sleep from about 8pm to about 6am overnight. Over the course of a month or so, she started skipping naps here and there, then more often, now almost always. Maybe twice a week, she'll sleep for an hour during the day.

We used to have the rule that if she didn't take a nap, she went to bed half an hour early, but at this point, if we start bedtime early enough to do that, she uses that half an hour to throw a huge tantrum. This is a kid who NEVER threw tantrums at all before! She's clearly just exhausted and overtired and weepy, and the gentlest, "Sweetie, let's get your pjs on" can prompt a real meltdown. She's had a cold for about 2 weeks now, and I know it isn't going away because her body isn't getting enough rest.

So, I don't know how to get enough rest for her. I can't make her sleep, and sometimes, we hear her in her bed at night after we kiss her goodnight (and do all her "good night things") singing and talking with her stuffed animals. Sometimes I think she doesn't get more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period -- that can't be good for a four year old! And she's crabby and unhappy because of it. I'm sure plenty have BTDT -- what to do?

TIA!,
Debi

[Twocoolboys]

There is usually a transition period when a child gives up naps when they are extra tired and cranky in the evening. You are lucky that your dd napped until 4! My oldest gave up his nap at 3 and my youngest, who is not yet 2.5, gave up his nap soon after he turned 2.

What we have done to make bedtime easier is take some of the bedtime tasks out of the bedtime routine. This meant, for us, getting jammies on right after dinner, so that it wasn't connected with bedtime at all. For some reason, getting the jammies on at bedtime resulted in tantrums, like you mentioned. Disassociating it with bedtime made things easier. Then we could focus on the more relaxing, fun bedtime stuff, like story time and snuggles.

[birthjunkie27]

My older kids also gave up their naps at 2 years old. Ds was a nightmare to deal with when he first gave up his naps. It took him a few months to adjust to less sleep. I don't have any really good advice, other than just wait it out..it will get better.

[Dakota's Mom]

My Ds is 4 also. By 5:30 or 6:00 he is so tired he can hardly keep his eyes open. But then at 10:00 he's going strong. He won't settle down for anything. Then in the morning he doesn't want to get up. He would easily sleep until 10 or 11 am. If we let him go to sleep at 6:00, he's up at 1 or 2 in the morning, usually hungry and wanting to play. I have to get up for work by 7:30 and DH is up at 7:00. We need more sleep than this. It's best to keep him up but it makes for a very trying evening. He just moved into the big boys class at day care so they don't take naps now at all. Last night we made a rule that he doesn't have to go to sleep but he has to stay in his bed after 9:00. He was only up about 6 times after that instead of his normal 20 times.

Kathi

[OakBerry]

My ds gave up naps at about 31/2. He is 4 now, it's been a tough 6 months. He has meltdowns quite often in the evenings, and is impossible when I'm trying to cook dinner. By bedtime he is hysterical and completely unreasonable.

What I have done is I pushed dinner time up one hour. Then I pushed bedtime up an hour. It was tough in the summer when it was light, but now it's working nicely. He was always a 9-10pm bedtimer, but now he's in and usually out by 8pm. I start dinnner at 5:30pm, by 7pm we are done (he's a slow eater) and then it's time for jammies, or bath and jammies.
No matter what time I put him to bed, and with no nap, he is still up at the exact same time each morning --7:30am. So I figured he needs to go in earlier. I told him flat out, if he wasn't going to nap, he needed to go to bed early, it's not good for your body when you don't sleep enough. And when you don't sleep, you are miserable and making every one else miserable too. I said it alot, because it was so difficult dealing with him every evening.