to have said no naps for 2 year old ds (mil related, and long)

[justbatteringon]

DS turned two in April. If he has a nap during the day is up until at least midnight, about a month and a half ago DP and I agreed to try no naps for a week to see if it helped any. It did DS's mood improved he was sleeping from 7.30 - 8pm until 6 - 7am the next morning (his usual wake up times). I admit some days he has a tired period but usually if you distract him/keep him busy he'll have no problem staying up.

At the minute DP's parents take care of the children while DP and I are working, controversial to MNers I know but it's very temporary and it's a long story but please believe me when I say I have legitimate reasons and I appreciate them doing it very much.

So DP's parents watch them at the most about 5 hours a day maybe 3 times a week. We asked them to please not let DS nap, because of above reasons DP was insistent to them that they not nap I took the approach with them that I understood that he's sometimes hard work to keep but up but if you've tried and he's knackered then let him have a wee sleep. No problem or so I thought.

They've since told DP that they will not make any attempt to keep him up and if DS wants to sleep they're going to let him and that is that. They even lied about letting him nap which made us think he would be much more tired than he was and took him to bed much earlier than we would of had we known he'd had a sleep during the day. This happened 2 days in a row and it's not even the problem.

DP sent them a whatsapp picture of DS at midnight saying "this is what i mean about letting him sleep he's still up and it's after midnight i know my boy and i know when he needs his sleep"

FIL replied that he was absolutely livid at DP for sending him that message and MIL sent DP 3 messages about how terrible he was how none of her other children were as terrible and was he proud of himself that his DF was now going to bed with high blood pressure. I told DP to ask them over for coffee the next day to sort this out. MIL responded that DP must have a guilty conscience to invite them for coffee.

I thought that the response was absolutely awful and want to have a word with them to clear the air and remind them that we are the parents and not them.

Would I be wrong to do that?

Does anyone else not allow their 2 year old to nap?

Thanks for reading.

inspace I'm not happy with Dp sending that message and I will ask him to apologise for sending it. I manage to keep him up during the day on my own with him and dd it really just takes a crayon or a trip outside he prefers to be up. He only sleeps when he's bored.

Ah ok Battering. I was thinking of the logistics of keeping a tired toddler awake during a possible school run or occupied quietly during a baby nap.

Well if they are so boring that your poor ds is falling asleep in self-defense then you definitely need to find new childcare

My DD had dropped all naps by that age - each 5 mins of nap = 1 hour later bedtime.

My Mum had her one day a week and was great about keeping her awake, although to be fair when she was napping you had to walk miles with her to get her to drop off, so it was probably preferable to not do that!

Nursery were fine about her staying awake - they had also been spending time to get her to drop off, so again it was probably easier for them just to let her carry on playing than fight her to sleep

She still doesn't sleep much now ... was up til 11-30 last night and up at 8 (she's 8)

my DD stopped napping on her 2nd birthday (she is now almost 3). she will sleep if on the odd occasion we are in the car in the afternoon. I feel for you.

you could always ask the DILaws to have him overnight... or ask if they came to your house to babysit. If they experienced the problem with him not being tired at night due to them letting him nap in the day they might change their mind!

Some of DDs friends are 3.5 and they still sleep regularly in the day, my DD goes to bed about 7.30 and wakes up about 7.30 so I consider myself lucky!

YABU. If the were actively putting him down for a nap you might have a point. But they aren't, they're just not forcing him to stay asleep.

I think the problem lies with you and your bedroom routine, not them for not stopping him sleeping. What you're trying to do is get someone else to deal with the problem rather than solving it.

The impression I get is that his sleep routine is generally chaotic. You are insisting that your PILS provide consistency but are unwilling to do that yourself. You need to be more proactive about enforcing bedtime. It's unfair for you to be inconsistent about sleep, but expect them to be consistent about no naps. You're shifting the problem on rather than dealing with it.

If it works for your child, it works for your child.

My twins napped until age 4 thank god so it's not something I would do. They are being unreasonable to totally go against what you've asked.

Can you arrange for DS to stay all day then overnight? They might change their tune after that!

I think you were really rude to sent that photo and message.

YABU

A tired child doesn't only sleep when they are bored. Maybe he isn't being stimulated to deliberately keep him awake but that doesn't mean that he is sleeping because he is bored. Bored kids get whiney and fractious they don't go to sleep to alleviate boredom.

Your husbands message was patronising, rude and passive aggressive and I'm not surprised his parents are outraged.

Maybe they are too old and get tired trying to keep a small child awake when he is tired, especially if they have him all day?

Aermingers I don't think it's about being consistent at bedtime. Since about 2.5 any sleep my dd has during the day delays the time she goes to sleep. Regardless I put her to bed at 7pm but on the days she's had a nap she will look at her books/lie on her bed (ie not muck around or bother us) but she won't be able to sleep til a bit later.

Agree with Aermingers wholeheartedly too. Sort out his routine.

Just read some more of the thread. YABSFU it's untrue. You are getting childcare for free. Yet you expect to be allowed to treat them worse than paid employees would be. You're demanding about what activities they do with him and criticise them for being 'boring'.

Believe me, if you sent a message like that to a nursery like that you would be told your business was no longer welcome. But that's half the point really isn't it? If you sent DS to a nursery they wouldn't put up with you bullying them and blaming all your parenting failures on them.

Take DS to the doctors. Rule out any underlying problem. If there isn't one and you still can't enforce bedtime then the fault lies squarely at your door.

Also, I'm her the OP doesn't mean that the GP should prod him awake - just don't put him down for a nap. Maybe let him watch some TV for a bit after lunch instead. They've said they've tried it themselves and it worked fine so it's not like they're asking them to do anything difficult.

But as I said before they're doing you a favour and you've tried asking nicely and they've said no so you have to suck it up.

aermingers

DS goes up for a bath at 7
Then jammies and a story in bed with a bottle
dp then sits in his room with him until he goes to sleep

On nights where he hasn't had a nap ds is asleep by 8

Nights where he has dp is up there until midnight with a lot of shouting running around crying
What can we do to fix this please tell me the secret.

its only recently we started taking him up later for our own sanity.

Laughing we tried them having him overnight they were happy to stay up with him until midnight.
But they have 3 adult children in their home who get up with him in the morning while PIL have a nice lie in because they were up so late.

They are trying to sort out his routine - the routine that works is no nap.

Tarka, your child isn't napping because she has enough sleep during the night. She can manage without a nap and isn't falling asleep in the day. This is not the case with OPs DS

i think how your oh treated his parents by sending that picture is just awful and unneccessary. Ok annoying yes your son napped with them but dear god it's not the worst thing in the world they can do and they do provide free childcare.

My mum watches my son and I just let her get on with it. Some things she does I would not do but she is his nan, loves him, raised me and two others so can't do that bad of a job!

I honestly would get your oh to firstly apologise for the pic and then sit down and explain it was just because he was tired. If you explain the right way then you may have better luck with naps round their house.

If you put your 2 year old to bed at 8 and they get up at 6 then he's only sleeping for 10 hours a day. I very much doubt that is enough for a 2 year old. My 9 year old sleeps for longer than that!!

The being up 'till midnight problem is probably a response to his nap being too late in the day, rather than too much sleep. He should really be encouraged to nap before he gets to the fractious stage as part of a regular routine, rather than waiting 'till he falls asleep exhausted and grumpy.

I did mention his sleep issues with his pediatrician when I took him about his speech problems. He said we could look into it at our next appointment.

I agree that a short nap at midday may solve everyone's problems.

I think for the first few weeks I did have to distract dd after lunch to get her out of the habit of a lunchtime nap but once she was out of the habit and into her new routine she was happy to stay awake all day and went to bed at a normal hour (in fact you might want to try an even earlier bedtime on non-nap days for a bit).
It worked really well for us and it obviously worked well for you the week you tried it so it's frustrating that they aren't on board with it.

It might also help to get ds going to bed on his own. We found telling dd that we were just going to do x then we would come back to check on her helped transition her to being happy alone in her room after bedtime. Just steadily increase the length of time you are out of the room.

Now if she has a sleep in the car it's not so annoying because although she is not actually asleep she is not requiring any attention either.

But I was off for 2 weeks when we first decided to keep him up all day it took about 3 days but after that it was great he slept all night in his own bed and didn't really want a nap during the day even though I still tried by making it nice and quiet before midday. His behaviour came up leaps and bounds.
I only work 3 days a week and sometimes because of when dp's shifts are they maybe have him between 2 and 5 hours. Am I really really being so very unreasonable to ask them to keep him busy during this time I'm not asking for a miracle but could they not at least make an attempt. Am I really so ungrateful to ask the 20 year old aunt and uncles that are in the house to do a bit of coluring with him.

If you really think I'm being so terrible to ask this of them or any childminder taking care of them I'm really considering leaving work and just staying home with him because I honestly think this is in my son's best interests.

It does sound like other sleep issues are at play of you have to sit with him until he sleeps at 2. And he is having a bottle in bed.

Ds wouldn't understand me telling him I was just leaving the room for a minute. He barely understands me leaving to go to the loo. Sorry I know I'm getting a bit ranty.