URGENT -please sign in here with stories of how it seemed like your toddler was about to give up their daytime nap, but then it turned out it was just a phase. PLEASE.

[swottybetty]

this time last week dd was a strictly two hr daily nap girl.

mon: put her down usual time it took her an hour to go to sleep

tues: no nap

weds: nap (but then she was chatting in bed for two hours in the evening)

thurs: i put her down at 2 rather than 1 today and she been chatting and puling bed clothes off for an hour now.

i thought i would have at least some warning. like going down to an hour or 90min first. i also thought i had more time left. was hoping pre-school would be in sight by time she stopped napping - but it's the best part of two bloody years away. 6mo ds has been a real handful from the very start and only just started to get better. i was really looking forward to the way the next couple of years were looking SAHM'ing. now i want to leave home.

please say this happened to you but then they started napping again.

Oh the same has been happening in our house all this week - It can't be true I won't let it. I too thought we'd get to the pre school stage before this. I will NOT spend the next year like this!!!!!

Funnily enough DS1 has fallen asleep on the sofa and he is 3.1 years old, and I thought he'd given up his nap a few months ago. DS2 is also asleep, and I would be too if the phone hadn't woken me up.

from two hours to none? this is madness.

SHE IS NOT EVEN TWO.

i may put her in nursery two mornings a week. but thing is i dont want to, i am having so much fun with them at the moment. i just really love having a little break.

Me! A few weeks ago, DS refused to have a nap. He screamed when I tried to leave the room. Did a similar thing the next day but DP managed to calm him down enough to sleep and since then, he's been back on the 2 hour naps as usual. In hindsight, I think it was just a badly timed strop about my refusal to read him one more story...

If she's happy in bed, can you just treat it as quiet time? Don't expect her to sleep, just let her have a chill out in bed for as long as you think she needs (or as long as you need...)

Yes it happened to me and then they start napping again.

How old is she? DS stopped napping every day when he was about 2.4 years - some days he'd sleep, sometimes he'd just sit playing in bed, some days wouldn't even stay in his room and didn't even have a rest. But a couple of months later he gradually started napping more and now he's 3.4 years and has at least 2 hours nap a day (and sometimes we have to wake him for tea!). We have an 11 month old DD too and now life is managable again!

Little Ff (21 months) has days when she doesn't sleep, but I think 9 days out of ten she has between 90mins and two hours.

Keep putting her down, stay in the routine, fingers crossed for you!

Yes - can't remember when - she was 2, maybe? Then she started back on the ubernaps - she turned 3 in Oct and is sleeping as I type. She does stay awake "reading" some nights for a couple of hours, but with 10 week old ds, I'll take that plus nap...

I wish I could offer reassurance. Our dd 2 and 2 months, decided she was not going to have an afternoon nap any more about a month ago. she just won't settle in her cot and screams for 30mins and tries to climb out if we try and put her down. She went from sleeping for 2+ hours one week to nothing at all the next, even though I can tell she is tired. I've given up trying to get her to nap now, and usually she will have 20mins or so quiet time on the sofa. I miss her afternoon naps so much! . Wierdly she goes to nursery 2 days per week and usually has an hour nap straight after lunch there no problem, but I think they have lunch ridiculously early at about 11:30am and the toddlers have a nap straight after. She goes to bed no problem in the evenings. Oh I forgot her dropping the afternoon nap coincided with operation dummy removal but its not affected her sleep at night at all.

thank you everyone whose toddlers got back into napping

she's reading and has been for a while now. i reckon i could get 90min of reading out of her most days.

Here is a little tip:

Take dd out in the car or pushchair a little later than her usual nap time two or three days a week.

My just 2 year old ds would regularly fall asleep on those little excursions and if I really wanted an hour child free in the house I would go home and lift him out of the puschair or carseat and settle him under a blanket on the sofa.

Be prepared for it to be fewer than 2 hours and less frequently than 7 days a week and I am sure you will still get some naps out of your dd.

Oh, yes, just remembered. I used to plan to exhaust her physically in the morning - long walks, playpark, swimming, etc, and the nap became very necessary in the afternoon.