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.

sleep breeds sleep

Artandco, I can't agree with you more. It was on the tip of my tongue to quote those exact words too!

DixieNormas

Not in ours either...

Welltbh you allow your son to run about till midnight your husband sent a nasty text to his dad blaming them for you both allowing your son to run about till midnight they probably lied because they knew their son would react badly to a nap. Babysitting a toddler who is grumpy and tired isnt fun you should have said if he gets tired and needs a nap can you maybe let him sleep for 20 minutes or there abouts.

The unpaid 'help' doesn't follow your rules - pay for child care

sleep certainly doesn't breed sleep here. DD just doesn't nap and if she does it screws up bedtime. the same would happen with DS. even now he's not a big sleeper and he is 6. he goes to bed at 8 and is always up before 6, sometimes as early as 4. but he's old enough to read a book, or play quietly on his own for a bit.

Aaaaaaaaaand MrsJayy gets awarded the prize for "most helpful post of the night" [trophy]

pay for child care

Paid childcare doesn't always follow the rules either. I'm a childminder and my sleeping child policy states that I will not take steps to make a tired child stay awake and that if a child is obviously tired, getting grumpy, and so on then I will settle them for a nap.

We had this with both ours: nursery said they wouldn't put them down but as everyone else in the room was napping, the lights were turned down lie and they played lullabies of course a slightly tired toddler would drop off. Then no sleep for hours with us In the end they agreed that DC would go into one if the older rooms where they were still playing not napping

My parents didn't understand the impact of no sleep until they saw it for themselves - but there's no way I would have sent that horrid WhatsApp message. I know you are both tired, but couldn't it have waited until the morning?

Tonberry fair point

I think some posters have forgotten how horrendous it is when you are knackered yourself but have a rampaging toddler racing around the place and banshee wailing when you try to put them to bed. Or maybe they had angelic children, I don't know! OP has a 10 mo to deal with too - I bet she's absolutely exhausted by 8pm and needs that evening downtime. I know I am and do.

I have a 3.3 yo who is exactly the same - napped from 12.30 to 2 today after an exciting morning, went to bed at 8, sang to herself for a bit and then got out of bed and started rattling the door and screaming. Pest. She now doesn't nap at nursery but does sometimes at weekends. It does bugger up her sleep.

I also have an 11mo and he only started sleeping through the night 2 months ago. Before that I was ratty as fuck and serially exhausted - if it looked like someone was deliberately making things worse for me I would have hated them also in a passive aggressive wishy washy way .

Mrsjayy why have you assumed we've let him ruin rampant till midnight.
He was taken up for his nighttime routine much earlier after spending hours sitting in ds's room putting him back into bed everytime he got up dp got up to get some air before he lost his temper.

OP is your DS hollering at the same time, or wanting to play?

I was looking after my GS, we had breakfast and then played for a while. I popped him in his jumperoo while I went into the kitchen. Can't remember why, I was either making a cuppa or doing the breakfast dishes, would only have been a couple of minutes. Went back into the living room to find him fast asleep standing up in the jumperoo. It isn't always a big conspiracy to make children sleep. I would have been really upset if I had got snotty message about it, not likely as I sent mum a picture of him and she wasn't bothered, not surprising as he was staying with me that night.

I had one who was a terrible sleeper so I know what it can be like but even if you have a child in nursery or cm you can't expect people to be standing guard to keep him awake. I went in the kitchen but I could have gone to the loo and come back to him sleeping. Even if you have a nanny they will need to go to the loo. Perhaps mum can read the signs better, my DIL might not have left him when I did as she might have realised he was likely to drop off. To me he was full of beans and happy playing so I wasn't expecthing him to go to sleep so suddenly.

I agree with the above. At 2 years both of mine occasionally fell asleep in random places like on the toilet or on the floor in the middle of playing. There's no way you could be shaking them awake in these situations

My ds is like that (he's 18m) but by 2 my dd would only nap if between 1pm and 3pm she was in bed, in the car, lying down on the sofa for a prolonged period or in a (moving) pushchair. Obviously there were days when this happened and I had to deal with crappy bedtime but mostly it was very easy to avoid - music tape in car, chat to her in pushchair, avoid lying down with her. Sounds like OP's ds is the same since she manages to keep him awake easily enough by just playing with him. She's not propping his eyes open with sticks.

Ds on the other hand will fall asleep in his highchair if I'm a bit slow getting lunch.

My husband was well known in his family for falling asleep in his dinner. Apparently his mother would be busy with kids round the table and she would suddenly see his head drop, face first in his dinner. He would have been older than 2.

It's feasible that you've got a child who doesn't need a lot of sleep. The trouble is that while these children do exist, there are far more children who are wired and over stimulated at sleep times because they are not getting enough sleep overall and haven't learnt a good sleep routine and us people on the internet can't tell, without spending time with your son which he is. I think it would be very useful if a good Health Visitor could come and talk it through with you.

If it helps at all, what I would try in your situation is:

• Story, no drink involved (just don't give it to him, if he indicates he wants it say we aren't doing that anymore).
• Put to bed alone at 8 pm. If someone is there he is going to want to play, especially if it is someone he hasn't seen all day.
• Nap for 20 mins taken before 1pm.
• A decent, structured activity before and after lunch, ideally at least one of them outside and involving lots of running and one involving one to one attention, sitting and doing.
• No more than 1-2 hours of TV on.

I'd give that a couple of weeks and then reassess. I think when you are knackered it can be hard to see the wood for the trees.

Is it AT ALL relevant as to what other babies/children do or do not do?

No. it is not.

All children are different, and just because your child/GC drops off here, there and everywhere and still sleeps at night means NOTHING, and there is no point in telling the OP that they are doing things wrong, because they are not. They are trying to allow their child to sleep as much as possible overnight because that is what is best for the child.

The child in question WILL NOT SLEEP UNTIL MIDNIGHT if they nap during the day.

Parents know their own kids...

As I said perhaps the text was a little PA, but if I'd said and said until I was blue in the face and was ignored AND had to deal with the consequences of someone choosing to ignore my request, I'd certainly WANT to say something along the lines of "SEE? this is why we say no to naps.."

My son goes into turbo mode when he is tired. I know the signs. No-one else does. When I tell him he needs to go to bed because he's tired, even HE says he's fine.

But he has a birthmark that only comes out when he's tired. All I have to do is point to it and my argument is won.

I really can't outlay every situation that I would be ok with a nap happening.

I would be perfectly ok if ds fell asleep in the car/ pram, if you left the room and came back to find him sleeping if you're distracted by another child and physically can't keep him up and many more situations.
But if I have requested that you keep ds up and you tell me you're not even going to try to distract him and then lie and tell me he hasn't had a sleep when he obviously has I'm going to have a problem with that.

I agree Hissy the OP has found a solution to her child's sleep issue. She has done it for a week herself and shown that it works and that her child is better off because of it.

It might be that she could also do some sleep training or whatever as well. But I had the same issue with dd and she was sleep trained/self settled.

OP is your ds very grumpy after he does nap? Another driver for me to encourage dd to drop hers was that she woke up so bloody miserable everyday. It pretty much ruined the afternoon for us. I think she would have been apoplectic with rage if I had woken her after 20mins.

Hissy really a birthmark that must be while handy haha