Nap time to quiet time

[BellaCB]

Has anyone successfully done this and if so, how long has it worked for?

It looks like DD(3) is about to drop her naps. The past few days she has gone to bed but then not slept and finally called out for attention. She's happily accepted me putting the bedside lamp on and leaving her with books for another half an hour or so, with the bedroom door closed, and has amused herself very well until I've got her a bit later.

I think it would be nice (obviously ) if we could do this for a while, as I think we'll all benefit from continuing with the peace and quiet - she certainly will as I don't think she's ready suddenly go full on for 12 hours a day. I know we could put a film on for an hour but she does love TV so much and we already fight a few battles over it that I'm loathe to suddenly just give her another hour of telly a day.

What do people think? Has anyone else managed this for a while?

We're doing this currently with dd (2.7) who's dropped her nap completely. She either has storytime on my lap or a bit of tv with dp (something not too exciting) or goes into her cot on her own with books and teddies. Anything as long as she's not running around.
At nursery she sits with the staff and they read books with her (while every other child naps...they must just love dd).

Seems fine so far, we've shifted bedtime a bit earlier on nursery days and we're enjoying dd sleeping in an hour later at weekends. I did find her falling asleep on the floor of her room at 6.30pm yesterday...it had been a v busy weekend though...

If we're desperate for her to sleep (eg if we're out and know bedtime will be later than normal) we'll arrange to be driving in the car around 2pm and she'll drop off for 30 mins.

Thanks - I had a look for some previous threads on this and most seemed to suggest it was a horrible thing to do! She gets very excited by a lot of TV and interacts with it, so it's not always the calming thing we wish it would be.

Selfishly as well if we move bedtime much earlier then I wouldn't see her at all on the days I work. I know this will only be for a while, but I was hoping some quiet time would help her relax and keep bedtime roughly the same on some days.

Not sure why its horrible
If we didn't encourage any quiet time dd would be a hysterical mess by 5pm. The nursery does something similar.

Dd is quite into books and teddies, sometimes she'll voluntarily ask to go to her cot for a bit with both. I usually potter about upstairs, popping in to check if she needs anything. Sometimes she'll just sit on my lap doing sticker books for a bit. Its quite a nice time of the day, dd gets all cuddly when she's tired :)

Know what you mean about work days, we've only moved bedtime forward by around 15-20 mins max. Won't be forever.

I think they saw it as locking the child in the room because you couldn't be bothered to spend the whole day with them

Which is obviously the first thing that comes to mind when you hear 'quiet time'