When did your LO stop napping?

[givemecaffeine21]

DD is 22 months and has always been a fab sleeper - 6.30pm-7.00am and 2 hours in the day. For many weeks now she's still been having her 12-2 nap but at bedtime she'll be awake for up to 1.5 hours kicking the cot, yelling, singing, burbling etc. She shares a room with 11 month old DS so this has caused issues quite a few times.

If we go out of a weekend she'll not nap at all but be absolutely fine all day. We've just got back from holiday and she didn't nap all week as we were out and about; DS took what he needed in the car on the way to and from places but she didn't and the one day she did, again she was awake for 1.5 hours at bedtime. The whole week she's been absolutely fine without it. Today is our first day at home and I put her down but to no avail so have got her up as cannot risk her waking DS who really needs his 2 hour sleep still.

She's currently watching tv on the sofa as couldn't get any books without waking DS and cuddling her bunny looking very tired.....in fact those eyes are creeping shut as I type. Does it sound like I should just enforce quiet times in future and she'll sleep if she needs to? She's very good and doesn't get grumpy or awful without it.

At 22 months

Sounds about right then!

18 months altho still had naps on some days when tired

I would keep a quiet time, maybe you could set up another room (yours) for it? So a few quiet toys, curtains drawn, in bed, but quiet playing allowed. A Groclock helps, too, as they can see the stars going out and know when to get up.

Both of mine did some playing, some sleeping, depending on how they felt, for ages. At school age, dd1 still has an hour's quiet reading in her room after lunch at the weekend, if we're not doing anything else. It's good for her reading, and it gives us a break!

Well she never did sleep and has been ok; no more whiny than normal to be honest. Both in bed by 6.30pm and out like a light. It beats having an hour and a half of general noise from her often resulting in DS waking up screaming the place down and taking up to 45 minutes to settle back down.

Quiet time is definitely the answer, hubby suggested In the night garden which is banned in my house because it drives me bonkers (she doesn't know she's missing it - I used to endure it with my nieces!) because it's really boring and sleepy and I think it's a good plan. Mr Tumble was far too entertaining to fall asleep to today. She was very good though and lay quietly on the sofa with her blanket and bunny as instructed and I can't ask more than that. I guess naps have to end sometime (she says weeping quietly to herself).

I had to wean my DD off a 2-3 hour afternoon nap in the summer holidays before reception. She was happily sleeping 14 hours/day.
It got messy at school pick up in the first term!

Today at 2yrs 9months sobs uncontrollably & consoles self with vast amounts of Bacardi

DD gave up napping at 12 months and was up from 8am until about 10pm every day. DS is 2.8 and is just about giving up his nap but keeps falling asleep on the school run and it turns him into growling, angry ball of crossness who can't get to sleep at night. On days when we don't have to do the school run, he is fine with no nap and goes to bed reliably.

Bloody hell my DS is 23 months and I've had a sinking feeling that he wants to drop his nap. Oh well I suppose he can watch a bit more of CBeebies during the afternoon

Ds2 is 2.4 and only naps once or twice a week now. Ds1 stopped napping around this age too but they started again for a while when he started nursery at 3 but stopped completely around 3 1/2

Still got a 4.2 year old that has regular naps, not every day but most days.

She sounds like a dream, where did you get her

DD stopped napping at home just before her 3rd birthday but will nap around lunchtime if we're out in a car.

Dd1 was 4.5 (luckily an older bitthday so started school at 4.10)

Dd2 was about 3

Well she had a nap today - 1.5 hours - following a very busy morning. Made sure she had a busy afternoon, but alas, two hours after bedtime she is wide awake and has woken up DS who has now been screaming for 1.5 hours and will not settle back down. I've settled him that many times now only for her to yell and wake him up again. He's moving into his own room come hell or high water tomorrow, am just going to have to re-jig hubby's office to get his cot in. So pissed off right now!

Don't know whether to remove naps all together or cut them down to half an hour or so. Grrr! Either way any child free time for me in the day is officially over!

Still going at 4.5!

I think that at around 2, lots of toddlers resist naps because of developmental leaps but they can come back to them if the routine is kept up.

Ds is 3yr3 months and still sleeps for 2/3 hours in afternoon. He goes to bed between 7-8 and sometimes chats away or plays happily with teddies for 20 mins before nodding off. He's still in a cot bed with sides as well as has made no attempt to climb out ever. He just loves his bed i think!

Agree with hotcross we found that ds really resisted naps at that age & was also messing around at bedtime for ages too. Lasted for a couple of months, but reckon it was just a developmental thing as he suddenly went back to napping again.

We did find however, that as he got towards age 2.5 the nap had to move a bit later to start at 1/1.30pm & bedtime also had to go a bit later to 7.30/8pm & it remained that way until he started to drop his nap at age 3. Although we had to sacrifice a bit of our evening time for a while, we found it was better for all of us as ds couldn't handle cutting the nap out completely, & waking him after a short nap just made him mega grumpy (tried & it was a disaster!).

I guess the main thing I'm trying to say is that as they get older you can't expect them to need as much sleep so you have 2 options: cut the nap or if she can't cope with that (may take a couple of weeks to really tell) then accept bedtime needs to be later for a while.

I'm going to juggle the sleeping arrangements today and see how it goes. I don't mind her being awake for a while as she isn't crying or upset, it's just the fact she's waking DS. We're in the process of some building work so he was going into his own room in a couple of months anyway, it's just I wanted to decorate it before he went in and obviously move all the office stuff out....But I'll be doing it afterwards now as it's still hubby's office for the time being! At least if they nap in separate rooms I can sneak in and get her up after half an hour, DS is a VERY light sleeper so this has been impossible previously (unlike DD who sleeps very heavily).

A lot of my friends (and myself) found nap dropping was a journey and we'd fall into a pattern of no naps for two days then a short nap on the third type thing worked for a while and then getting longer and longer between napping days.

I went through the same thing with DS1 age 2.6 - he would go down for a nap with no problem, but then his bedtime would become later by the time as the length of the nap. I valued my evenings with DH more than nap times (although it was a sad day to have to make the choice!) so I stopped putting him down for a nap.

My other two were older when they dropped their nap - DD was 4.3 and DS2 around 3.

Well the separate room thing is a big success and DS didn't wake last night whereas we've been having a 'wake 40 minutes after bedtime' going on for weeks which I think is because he falls into light sleep only to be woken by his still-awake-and-yabbering sister then gets very angry as he finds it hard to re-settle but is shattered. The only time it didn't happen was on holiday when she didn't nap at all so fell fast asleep every night. Not a coincidence methinks!

I let her watch ITNG yesterday lunchtime and she ended up dosing off for half an hour on the sofa. I had to wake her as we were going out and she was VERY cranky and tearful for a while as had not wanted to be woken but she went down easily at bedtime and like tumbletumble I value my evenings which were being ruined. It worked well so will continue with it as even though now in separate rooms, if she decides to get out of bed and set all the toys going, we'll be back to square one.

Thanks all for the advice - I've taken it all on board and reported to hubby!

Just to update in case it helps anyone in a similar position, I gave her 30 minutes again yesterday and a busy afternoon playing with her cousins, but it was still too much as she was wide awake and noisy until 8pm. She woke up DS who couldn't re-settle despite numerous attempts - he'd drop off only to re-awaken screaming blue murder 10 minutes later. He was still awake at 10.30pm and fell asleep shortly thereafter Not a good evening! I felt like putting him in her cot for her to deal with! So that's it - no more naps. I cannot do that again. I was pulling my hair out! I've swapped calm programmes for Peppa / Mr Tumble to keep her awake. Napping has always been such a big part of her routine which is why I think she has it despite not needing it.

Maybe Ds was 23 months! I moved bed time forward by an hour to compensate but that might not work with another baby.