Should I give up regarding toddler nap?

[partyring87]

My 2 year old had struggled to nap from birth , spent a lot of time awake. Has always protested at going down for a nap, flat out refuses to nap in the cot. Will only nap on the bed next to me or car journey. For a good few months he has been having a nice2 hour nap however the last few weeks it's getting harder for him to go down for this nap. Sometimes it can take 1 hour .

He has just had a nap totally 15 minutes !

Shall I just give them up now ? I'm 15 weeks pregnant nauseous and shattered really gutted if he has gave them up already!

My saving grace is he does sleep well at night but up 630-7 so is a long day with no nap until bed time at 7. He does get cranky around 4 ish and sometimes won't eat his tea . But every day is a battle to get him to nap.

Let him have the naptime as television time instead?

I would do two things:

1. cancel nap time but DO have quiet time ie am hour in front of the tv or sitting with books etc. Ideally, without you so that you also get a break.

1. Bring bed time forward for a while. I know that sounds crazy but when DD dropped her nap I had her in bed by 6:30 or even a bit earlier and she'd then sleep for 12+ hours. So I'd try the earlier bed time on the basis that he still needs 13-14 hours a day, but now needs to get it in one chunk rather than in 2. A friend used to put her DD down at 5:30pm when she dropped her nap and she'd sleep straight through until 7 or 7:30.

Very like my daughter was, she gave up naps at 16 months, I finally gave up trying at 20mths and it took me months to get over it.

Have quiet relaxing or tv time, it won’t hurt.
You have my sympathy tho

As above, change nap time to quiet time and if he is tired then bring bedtime forward if needed. You can bring it forward 5 minutes at a time to make it easier so 6.55 for a few nights then 6.50 and so on.

My DD started to drop her daytime sleeps/naps from 18months. To start with I'd put her in the pushchair and go for a walk, as she'd generally drop off. It got to the stage though that she wasn't going to sleep even if I'd been walking for a hour, so I gave up. It's nice if they have a nap and you have a break, but I found it much easier in the end as we were free to go to whatever in the day.

I gave up nap time with one of my DC and moved bedtime forward about 45 minutes. He was very cranky for the last bit of the day for a few weeks. With another DC when I stopped nap time he still needed one every two or three days.

Especially given you're pregnant I wouldn't give up exactly, I'd lay down with him and have a rest, if not a nap. Then when baby comes you'll still have a snoozy hour to aim for.