Advice please - 2.5 yr old and nap

[loulourw]

Hi

My 2 yr 10 mth old I believe still needs her nap. However she is up and down as to whether she takes it or not. I know the end of day naps will come soon but she struggles come 5pm if she has not slept, dark circles under her eyes, falling asleep in the car if we go out. I've tried giving her a choice; quiet time or sleep time where she can read a book on her bed or sleep but whilst there are no protests to staying in her room or on her bed, she is incapable of being quiet. She spends the ENTIRE time non stop hollering (she is high energy at the best of times but at this point it's notched up about 10 more gears). I can't stand it, the shouting, hollering wailing (all very happily) complete nonsense; it's like her brain cannot stop.
So...what do I do? I know the easy answer is tv for downtime but u don't want this. Yes it sends her in to a trance but I don't really want to fill the time like this plus there are times she does choose to sleep and if I say no to naps for good (which I know she couldn't cope with for an entire week) and sit her in front of the telly or something, she definitely won't sleep. At the moment, I need the down time too even for 30/40 mins. I don't really want to be entertaining her all the way through her 'rest' time.

Can anyone out there relate or offer some realistic advice?

Can you give her something different but quiet to do in her room?
I know my 2.5 wouldn't look at books without me, but he would sit infront of a jigsaw for ages.
We went for naps every other day when starting to drop. A carfuly timed trip in the car / pushchair can also work wonders on a non nap day - 10 mins is a fab pick up.

walk in the buggy every single afternoon for us when Ds1 was that age. mostly it got him to sleep when he would not at home, and if it didn't, at least he'd have some quiet time.

I have a 6 month old and my eldest doesn't have a pram anymore (just a buggy boad) to nap in. We just returned from holiday where she napped everyday - she was exhausted from the sun/swimming etc and would ask for a nap (she borrowed her brothers buggy) so that would work if I had the option though of course it doesn't always pan out well for my youngest who may be due a feed/sleep himself. I am happy to let her choose to nap or not but I'm not sure she will stick to any decision she makes. Perhaps I'll try to give her some puzzles but she can be quite demanding of me & will probably still just yell???! It's difficult as she is too young to understand when she looks tired & needs sleep until later (when I remind her she didn't nap) when she feels exhausted. I'm going to order a sand timer for her quiet time. How long is reasonable do you think? What do other mums do? 30?45?60? I may get a 60 min one and soebd the first part of quiet time together doing stories/puzzle & then when I leave she can choose to sleep or not. Perhaps every other day too. It also seems like on the days she should be most tired (early start, busy morning) she is least likely to sleep!?

Dd is 2.3 and currently sat on my lap when she should be napping.

If you want to schedule quiet time we have a glo clock which has a nap setting to allow you to schedule a short sleep which dd does respond to most days.

I need her to nap 3/7 days as I work nights and use her nap time to sleep myself but on days when she doesn't want to she plays in her room listening to story's on the stereo.

Also if you are prepared to sit through kids tv with her we have some wicked conversations about what's on and what we think of it, not too much brain power involved and not too exciting.

I also warn dp before he gets home if she hasn't napped so that he can take a calmer approach than the usual throwing around he does normally :)