When did your toddler drop their nap??

[ItsTheSmallThings]

DD was 2 in August. She has never slept well but is getting worse as she is getting older.
Bed time is a battle, but when she eventually does go to bed at 7.30 she tends to be asleep for 8. She awakens at 6.30AM and often wakes through the night.

People in RL have said to drop her nap, but she has always been a solid napper and if left to it can often nap for 3 hours. I tend to find the better she naps (and longer) the better she sleeps at night, up until recently.

I've now limited nap to 1.5 - 2 hours only, she still fights going to bed but falls asleep easily. Some nights she will now sleep through, some nights she will awaken. Yesterday she had a 45 min nap and was awful overnight.

Has anyone been in this situation? Do toddlers this age still need to nap or should it be dropped? Has anyone else's 2 year old slept better with a longer nap??

DD dropped a nap at about two and a half, but she did this naturally. Her naps got later and later, and when she did nap late she would wake up in a horrible mood.

If I put her up for nap and she doesn't go to sleep then she will not nap for the day, but then her behaviour is really bad and bedtimes are then worse.
Did you move bed time forward when she dropped her nap and was she willing to go to bed??

Did you move bed time forward when she dropped her nap and was she willing to go to bed??

I can't remember. DD didn't need as much sleep as most children at that age. I was lucky if she was in bed by 8.30. She just wasn't tired.

I'm on another thread where posters have miraculous babies who go to bed early and sleep for 12 hours. I must admit to being a little sceptical.

Mine dropped it at 2y 4m but it was his choice not mine! Doesn’t sound like your little one is ready to drop them yet. I personally would limit them to 45m-1.5h and don’t let any go past say 4pm.

And don’t base anything off a single night’s sleep, look at longer run trends.

Good luck! Are you still giving milk at night by the way? Night weaning is what led to both of mine sleeping through.

She hasn't had milk for a long time now, wasn't interested from about 18 months.

I've noticed the trend is the better nap she has the better she sleeps at night, but I no this won't always be the case as she gets older.

I think the reistsnace to go to bed is just FOMO tbh, she so active amd always wanting to play. If her eyes are open she's on the go and moving around.

I can count on one hand the times she has slept 12 hours 🤣

I had to force my youngest to drop her nap in the 6 weeks before she started school.

Did your DD sleep better at night when she had naps??

DD was precisely 2y3m. I'd read that was the average age, mused about it with DH, and that was the day she said "no nap!" for the first time. We put her in her cot for a week but she just lay there singing, so we gave up and that was that. Never napped since and she's now 8.

DS was 1y8m. On the first day of lockdown. He napped sparingly throughout that summer (some days he really needed it, but then he wouldn't go to bed!), then on the day DD went back to school he said "no nap!" and that was it (he would've been 2y2m). Great timing from him!

Dropping the nap is the pits at first, but it doesn't take long to get used to it. And they usually go to sleep straight away, too!

I could've written this!
DS was also 2 in august. Always been a solid napper, would happily have 2-3 hours a day. Few weeks ago DH accidentally woke him after about 35 mins and that night, bedtime was so quick and easy with only 1 wake up, when we had been having 2-3 consistently. Since then I've tried to cap naps at 60 mins max and I do think it's helped the nights. Lately he's been refusing all together but that's just lead to really cranky afternoons so I'm still keen to get him to have one. Normally around 1-2ish he will have an hour then I wake him. Though he definitely would still have longer - I was having a rubbish day the other day and was enjoying moping around on my own while he slept 2 hours... bedtime then took longer, he was up and down for about an hour before giving in them up a few times in the night so a definite correlation for us anyway!

Dropped the nap at about 2.

If I let her now, at 3, she would still have a nap, but she would be up til all hours.

With no nap, she sleeps from about 8pm to 7 am.

If I let her nap at all, even 10 mins, she will be up until 10 pm.

Started to drop it around 2 years old then it had pretty much gone by the time he was 2.5.

DS must have been about 2.5. He napped at nursery more often than at home. He goes to bed around 8pm and at the moment is waking around 7am. This is purely because it's still dark, as the days get longer this will not stick.

DS is 2 years, 4 months and dropped his nap about 2 weeks after he turned 2. It has been brilliant for us. His sleep was all over the place before with naps and since dropping his nap, he now sleeps 11 and a half - 12 hours solidly every night (7pm till 6:30/7)

I don’t remember there being a difference.