2 year old refusing to nap

[Infp1987]

My 2 year old son (about to turn 2 next week) has very suddenly stopped napping.

He has a naptime routine that he has always had and he has always gone to sleep at around 12.30pm.

His night time sleep is normal right now. He was waking up early in the morning for a few weeks (between 4.45am-5.30am) but has started waking up at the normal time again (around 7am) and goes to sleep at 7pm every evening. But has stopped napping and gets very upset when I tell him it's nap time o try to put him back to bed.

Does this sound like a sleep regression or sound like he might have dropped his nap?

He's usually fine going down for his nap but then he plays in bed for a while and sometimes he starts to cry and sometimes he does a poo at this time but won't sleep always wants to end his nap. I don't know whether to keep offering a nap or not. Nothing I do seems to encourage him to sleep. But I also don't know if I should keep his routine going so he can start napping again when he's ready? So confused!

Any ideas greatly appreciated x

Hmm if he’s sleeping 7-7 and happy in the day I’d just go with it and switch to quiet time rather than forcing a nap. My first dropped his nap bang on 2, it was rather upsetting for me 😄 it took him about 6 months to get over the grouchy energy dip at nap times but I kept him up as it was a battle getting him to nap, so we could either be grumpy trying to nap or grouchy during quiet time (books, tv etc). I chose the latter. Sympathies!

If he is sleeping ok at night and is not tired why make him nap?

My 2 year old has been exactly the same for the past few days. I think christmas interfered with his routine and now we're paying the price. I don't think he's ready to drop his nap yet so I'm sticking with it and hopefully he will go back to normal routine soon!

Mine dropped them too at a similar age. Lucky me I have a new born too so I was counting on her naps as downtime 😕

My DS did the same a few weeks before he turned 2. I used bring him out for a drive every day to get him to nap as he needed it (he wouldn’t sleep in the buggy).

Then lockdown ended and he went back to childcare 3 days a week, he napped there for those days no problem! So I only had to bring him for a drive twice a week then, as he was able to go 2 days without a nap. I stopped doing the drives when he was about 2 years and 9 months. Sadly, however, he never went back to regular, easy naptimes like he had before. He still needs the nap at childcare 3 days a week, and he’s 3 in a couple of weeks. Maybe one evening a week, he’ll fall asleep on the sofa when he’s watching tv (and that always pushes his bedtime back a good bit).

However, he has slept through the night, a solid 11 hours, since the first day he started resisting naps. He had always woken a few times a night before that so I can’t complain too much.