at what age roughly, do toddlers drop the afternoon nap?

[FlyAwayToMalibu]

I know some drop before 1 and others nsp psst school age, but on average when do they drop the lunchtime nap?

Dd is 2.2 uses to sleep 7.30pm-7am with a nap 1pm-3pm/3.30pm.

Lately she's been waking at 5.30am-6am for the day and waking from her nap around 2pm.

she still seems cranky after her nap but refuses to go back to sleep.

Does it sound like she's ready to drop her nap?

Bump

Don't know what's usual but both mine dropped them at 18 months. One carried on sleeping through, the other carried on not sleeping They decided, not me. After a few days of me putting them down for a nap and spending 30-45 mins of them screaming/jumping up and down in the cot/me rushing up and down stairs to resettle, I sort of got the hint.

Thank you seeline

Somewhere between 2 and 3 is common.

DS was 3, but that was only because he started nursery. He still has a couple of naps a week.

Agree that for most children it's somewhere between 2 and 3.

DS dropped his at 2.6 as soon as we put him in a bed. He just refused to stay there and nap so it went. He would still kip in the car for a short while and even now at 3.5, after nursery, he is tired in the afternoon and has been known to nod off on the sofa.

My dd is 2.8 and still has an hour in the afternoon, but she doesn't go to bed till late, it's a habit I'm trying to break but when she's tired she just crashes out!

Mine dropped hers 2 weeks before she turned three (so all in, about a month ago). She still gets cranky in the evening but takes an age to settle down to sleep. At the moment, she's waking in the early hours (around 5am) for about 15 mins and disturbing everyone, then waking properly around 7.30, bright as a button!

DD's 2.5 and still has one for a couple of hours-usually 12.30/1-3pm. That said, she's started waking earlier and earlier and I'm wondering whether encouraging her not to nap would mean she went back to waking at 7.30 instead of 6. I'm scared to push it in case I'm wrong and we end up with no nap and still an early rise!

Does it sound like my dd is ready to drop her nap or just reducing it? Is an hr to hr and a half still okay at 2.2? Is a 7.30pm bedtime too early?

Ds - 2 and a half, dd - struggled to get her to nap from 10 months, 1 year old dropped them totally unfortunately.

I think your dd is probably reaching the point where if she went a day without a nap now and then because you were busy it probably wouldn't matter too much. I don't think 7.30pm is too early, you would probably find it made no difference at all to the early wake-ups if you kept her up later.

I think at this stage its all about going with the flow, if she's naturally waking early from the nap so be it, and if she's awake at 5.30 then she is. It'll change continuously for the next few months anyway until she naturally drops the nap completely.

Mine was just turning 2, i cut the nap down and down til she just powered through one day. I think she needs less sleep than I do There's a tricky stage when they skip the nap and you then have to be careful not to put them in the pushchair or anything so they don't have a cheeky 4 or 5 PM snooze and them happily stay up til 10pm. Or was that just my little monkey?!

FlyAway I would experiment with reducing the nap by half an hour or so and see what happens.

We have been having similar issues. Until a fortnight ago DS 20mo was having a 2 hour nap in the afternoon but waking between 5.30 and 6am, too early for me. I have cut his nap down to 1hr 30mins and after a week we saw results however it has worsened again, maybe because he has a cold or maybe because 1hr 30mins is still too long or maybe because it just won't work?

Dd has been asleep since 12.55, we'll see how lobg she naps for. I'm hoping for at least an hour, an hr and a half would be ideal. Fingers crossed.

I've been doing a straw poll on this among my acquaintance, and the answer seems to be 'anywhere between about 15 months and starting school'!

Mine is 22 months and still has a two-hour nap most days, but for the past few weeks, there have been occasional weekend days where he hasn't napped, and has managed through to bedtime. I also know of children who are 2.5 or 3 who regularly nap some days and not others, depending on activities - one girl only naps on Fridays after swimming...

My ds is 22 months. He had been sleeping 12.30- 2.30 but has never been a brilliant sleeper at night for various reasons.

He usually wakes around 6-6.30 of a morning.

He only really needs an hour after his lunch to see him through then he has been sleeping 7-7. If he wakes up before 7am he might have 1.5 hours at lunch time.

His daytime nap has gradually been pushed back to 1.30. He has also started refusing his nap at home but will sleep if in car or buggy. I'm finding that I need to really tire him out of a morning to get him to have a nap at home.

I always wake him at 2.30 as we need to pick my older son up from school.

My older ds slept a solid 12+ hours at night and always needed 2 hours lunch time nap. He dropped his lunch time nap around age 2 rather suddenly. He just decided one day he didn't want a nap and never had one again

I spoke to a sleep consultant about DD1's sleep when she was 2.1 and she reckoned a nap of up to 1.5 hours, starting any time up to 2pm, was still desirable at that age and should still make a 7pm bedtime feasible. I can't quite remember when she dropped it but certainly by the time DD2 arrived (2.8) she wasn't having one at home and I was grudgingly allowing her an hour's nap at nursery as anything longer was buggering up bedtime again.

Dd and ds1 both decided at about 18 months that they didn't need a daytime nap anymore, despite waking at about 6.30 and not going to bed until 7pm! Agh.

Saying that, although she didn't want an official nap, dd would just fall asleep on the floor like a cat, or take herself up to bed some afternoons when she was a bit tired!

DS2 oth, still napped until he was about 3 and sleeps a lot better than the other 2 even now, aged 9. He'll be first asleep, while dd who is 2 years younger will faff about for another hour or two before coming downstairs, being sent back up and nodding off and ds1 aged 14 stays up until 10-11 most nights, waking about 6.30.

I think some people are just sleepier than others. Can't wait til they're all teenagers and stop waking me up at the crack of dawn!

I don't remember with DS1 as he's 20 now. DS2 was still napping when he started school - he did half days until october half term and was still sleeping all afternoon those days.

DS3 dropped his nap at around 2.9 - he started being really hard to get to bed and messing around until around 10pm every night. One day we were out all day and he missed his nap - 6.30pm he went to bed and went straight to sleep. He napped about once a week for a few weeks and then dropped it completely. From then on he slept 6.30pm to around 7.30am

Think I'm going to start putting an end to the naps now (2.8) dd has only just gone to sleep! It means we have hardly any evening for just me and dp. Wish me luck

My two sleep 7-7 and share a room at night. I should point out that I had lots of help from mumsnetters getting to that point
In the day, ds2, 17months, naps in our bedroom 1-4pm and ds1, 3yrs, naps in their bedroom 2.30-4pm.

She slept for 1.5hrs in the end and has gone to bed at 7.30pm. I think maybe she's starting to find 2-2.5 hr naps too long. liberal good luck - let us know tomorrow if the lack of nap has helped with an earlier bedtime.

Mine is 2.5 months and still has a 2-3 hour nap every day, plus 11 hours at night. I should add that he still happily sleeps in a crib, so maybe that's part of it.