Dropping naps

[KittyandTeal]

My dd is almost 3 and looks like she's going to be dropping her naps soon. Boo!

She's not napped for a couple of days now but instead plays in her bed with all her cuddlies. She is pretty grumpy by the time bedtime rolls around (if this carries on I think we might bring bedtime forward a little bit).

A few mums I know with older kids have told me that they started quiet time when their kids dropped their nap. As in they stayed in their rooms for an hour or so and played, read books, listened to audio books etc on their own.

Does anyone do this? I feel a bit mean not interacting with her for an hour but equally I think she'd benefit from some down time if she's not going to sleep.

My ds is 3.2 and still naps.

He occasionally goes through a phase of not napping and we think it's all over (sob) but he still goes to bed and "reads". Sometimes he falls asleep and when he doesn't he has an earlier night.

I think he needs his quiet time so I don't worry if he naps or not. Don't worry about not interacting with your dd, if she's not upset, quiet/alone time is good for her (and you!)

Thanks caramel. I think she'd be perfectly happy 'reading' or chatting and singing songs to her toys. That's what she's done for the past 2 days.

I really rather she didn't drop her naps. I know she can cope without one so it's fine if we want to go out ford the day but day to day I love the hour and a half I get in the afternoon.

We do quiet time. DD dropped her naps at a similar time, which I think helped the transition as her language skills were good enough to sort of understand what we were offering her to do.

What helped for us was giving her the choice between having a nap or playing in her room, and as she was fighting the naps she opted for playing instead. I make sure the room is dim, and set the Gro Clock, which she already uses in the morning. I've found giving her a snack to take in really helps for some reason. At first we started very short, with 10-15 minutes in the room with her door closed, and built up to the 45 minutes she has now. Lots of praise when she stayed in the room and played by herself.

Kids do need down time at this age, and while I know what you mean about feeling mean for not interacting with her, the other option is often to put the telly on, and you're not interacting then either.

DD likes it now, and plays quite happily. It's not 100% without us as she often needs to pee or needs help reaching something, but she knows it's time to play quietly by herself.

I'm selfish and I like it as it still gives us downtime too

Nothing wrong with trying. If you Google there are a few good guides to slowly building up the time and making it something your DC will actually want to do.

Thurlow the gro clock is a great idea. We use it fir morning wakes but not for naps. I'm sure it would work though.

My dh and I both love time on our own (not together, I mean totally in our own) so I have a feeling dd will fe a little like that anyway.

I do think it's important that they learn to play on their own. I may well carry on popping her upstairs. She already knows she can call for me over the baby monitor (we are 3 stories).

I definitely need down time in the day just to re-coop a bit of mental energy.

She already has TV time before bath as a wind down so I'd be reluctant to introduce any more tbh.

My dh and I also like time on our own and I think ds is the same too. Often after a busy day he will disappear into another room with his toys to chill out for a while.

And I quite agree with the need to recoup mental energy. I definitely need a break from the constant chatter!

Ours napped on the pram but now we just give him the choice and just ask do you want to sleep on the sofa, sit in the pram -,sometimes he does sometimes not although generally its only 20min once a week.
He is good at finding his own space though so goes off to do jobs when he wants peace from the rest of us.