Tell me about your 2 year old’s naps/ sleep?

[Eatentoomanyroses]

DD is 25 months. Sleep had always been very dodgy. She’s a fan of the split night and frankly I’m on my knees with exhaustion. She will wake about 1am and be wide awake until 4am. My other Dd has been ill a lot lately and I’ve spent a lot of nights awake all night with her. So it’s either one or both of my kids up every night at the moment. Just wondering what time other people put their two year olds to bed and what time and duration naps are?
At the moment I generally put her down between 7:30 and 8 ish. Sometimes she goes straight to sleep other times she can mess about for a good hour. She has a nap about 11:30-12pm and I wake her at 1:30pm. She would have longer if I let her but do find she’s worse if I let her.

Child is exact same age. Sleeps over night 7:45pm or 8pm to 7:30am, only wakes up in the middle of the night on very rare occasions when is sick. Naps 1-3:15pm.

I think it’s quite unusual to drop a nap at this age from all the research I’ve read — 3-4 is much more typical although obviously everyone is different. I’d try to work on the overnight sleep without cutting the nap. I might try to have her nap a little later in the day though.

I am so sorry you’re dealing with this. It sounds miserable!

Great, he can do all the split nights then!

I think it probably needs reducing down to 45 mins - 1 hour or going altogether. It's a bit of a vicious cycle when they don't sleep well at night because then they need a nap but then that makes the night worse. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and deal with a really cranky child for a few days.

DD2 dropped her nap at 2 - she'll have an hour at nursery or a bit in the car but otherwise refuses to go to sleep during the day. Eldest dropped at 2, she'll still have a car nap at 5yo.

At 24 months old they typically need anything from 11 to 14 hours in a 24 hour period. So 7pm-6am and no nap is as normal as 7-7 plus a 2 hour nap. One of mine dropped all naps at 23 months and has never slept more than 11.5 hours in a block, the other was having a 2 hour nap and 12 hours overnight until over 3. The only hard bit is figuring out where your child falls within that range! And of course not getting caught in a vicious circle of shit night sleep being made up for in the day, so the night is disrupted again as sleep needs are being tapped out, so the nap is needed to get through the day, and so on, and so on - definitely been there with the youngest because I didn’t think he was ready either (he definitely was). So yes dropping or reducing the nap would be the first thing I would try if I were you. If your DH is dead set against it without good reason e.g. wants the nap for his own convenience (don’t we all ha!) then I’d take that as volunteering for all night wakes 😀

I think it’s quite unusual to drop a nap at this age from all the research I’ve read — 3-4 is much more typical
Out of interest is a lot of that research American? I can’t imagine many 4YOs still napping in the UK (cheeky car nap aside) because they’re mostly at school all day. Even 3YOs- my DD went to a school nursery and there was no nap provision, which she struggled with but none of the other kids seemed to. By contrast when we lived in the US the daycare had to offer naps to all kids as per state law and because school starts a year later there, that included kids of 4/5! So there doesn’t seem to be a universal consensus on what’s normal/typical, in fact I remember finding it really strange when we moved here and none of the British kids seemed to nap. Obviously that’s just an anecdotal observation but I think it’s interesting.

Thanks all. I do know they’re all different. When she wakes in the middle of the night usually dh goes to her and tries to settle her. I am obviously awake because she’s extremely loud, shouting for me. She seems to accept him walking away more than if I do it. Occasionally he will be able to settle her but think this is happening less and less. When it’s a proper split night and she’s wide awake I usually bring her in with me. We have a Yoto but she would mess about with it for a few minutes and then start shouting. I can’t have her waking my other Dd up as she has school next day and struggles to get back to sleep if she’s woken. Plus as I said hasn’t been very well recently. When I bring her in bed she’s crazy and just starts thrashing round and talking really loudly. Dh goes into the spare room to sleep as he’s got work ( I work evenings) and I just stay awake with her until about 4 / 4:30 which is when she usually drops back off when I will try and get her back into her own bed
On the plus side last night she slept 7:45 until 6 this morning with one brief wake-up at 1 so wondering if today might be the day to try and either give her a short nap or just see if she can manage the whole day.

I think what puts me off is we have accidentally done shorter naps like on days out when she’s just napped for 30 mins in the car and she has actually been worse at night. Maybe I need to try it over a few days though

25 month old is currently napping from 1pm-3pm and then sleeping from 7pm-7am.

Today, however, he is being taken to the farm park by his childminder so won't nap and I will have a grumpy boy this evening 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄

And yet that’s not what this thread would suggest.
The average age is between 3-5? When 4 and 5 year olds are at school?? Nor would I put a 5 year old in the toddler bracket!
3 year olds don’t even go down for a nap at the nurseries I know.

This is true, you can’t base it off one single day. If she’s used to napping for 2 hrs or even longer then it’s going to be a shock to her system to suddenly do 30 minutes. It’s going to take 2 weeks or so of consistency to really know.
The night waking she is currently doing suggest the amount of day time sleep she is getting is too much for her. I would drop it to about an hour and see how that works after a few weeks. You can replace the second how with quiet reading time.

Agree you can’t base it off one day/night especially if the short nap has followed a really bad split night. I’d be definitely try capping the nap for a week and see if there’s any improvement.

My 3 year old still naps an hour. My other ds also napped til age 4. School doesn't start til age 5 in Australia though.

Also you can drop naps slowly- nap every couple of days- and if she doesn’t nap ensure a quiet afternoon at first.

Of course that’s “not what this thread would suggest”. Because they’re nothing more than anecdotal stories from a very small handful of people.

Research and fact based evidence tells you the average age to drop naps is 3-5.

She's just dropped off in the pram at 11:50. I’m going to bite the bullet and wake her at 12:50. So hard waking them! Dh wont be impressed either because she’ll be exhausted and crabby when he takes over at 5pm for me going to work

My LO is 2 in April (I can't stand saying the months!!) and he still naps for 1.5-2 hours a day. Usually goes down around midday. Also bed time is 18:30 until 06:30-0730. No wakes during the night.

What research and facts though because you haven’t actually provided it.
I struggle to believe most 4 and 5 year olds in the uk are napping when they are in school.
And falling asleep in the car after a busy Saturday out isn’t the same as a regular day time nap.
I don’t even know why you are trying to argue with me, OPs child is having disrupted sleep at night. Altering her nap, which is currently quite long, is standard advice.

Research and fact based evidence tells you the average age to drop naps is 3-5

From the NHS:

2-year-old sleep needs

Most 2 year olds will sleep for 11 to 12 hours at night, with 1 or 2 naps in the daytime.

Sleep requirements for 3 to 4 year olds

Most children aged 3 or 4 will need about 12 hours sleep, but this can range from 8 hours up to 14. Some young children will still need a nap during the day.

So most, but not all, 2YOs are still napping. Over 3s need on average 12 hours total sleep, some are still napping but it’s not most so I think it’s fair to assume 3-4YO nappers are in the minority versus non nappers. No mention of 5YOs but they’re almost all at school so I’d say it’s a safe bet to assume that they aren’t napping.

Link here if you’re interested:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/caring-for-a-newborn/helping-your-baby-to-sleep/

My 2.5 year old had dropped his nap by 2. Before that though, for a good while we had to reduce it to no longer than an hour and not past 12 or he'd be up until gone 9pm and still up at 7.

He sleeps 7-7 now. Some days I'd he's up before 7 for whatever reason, he falls asleep in the car when we pick his older brother up from school but he sleeps max 15 mins and he's good until bed time then.

There’s definitely no point arguing about it. They’re all different. For whatever reason my child doesn’t want to sleep 12 hours or even ten straight hours at night and have a 1.5 -2 hour nap in the day. Her sweet spot must be somewhere within those timings that I haven’t figured out I guess. Some kids might do 12 hours at night and 2 hours in the day but that’s just the way they are. One of my family’s kids supposedly did those stretches except he wasn’t actually sleeping he was just left in his cot wide awake. He was non verbal and too placid to make a fuss about it or climb out.
I have got her up now after 1 hour. Poor thing is all sleepy on my knee.

@Eatentoomanyroses Well done, waking them up is the worst. Mine tells me to go away, she isn't ready yet. Needs must!

Well this is going well. So she’s currently bouncing around in her cot refusing to sleep at ten past 9!! How? She’s been up since 6:20 and had one single hour nap before 1pm. She’s had an active day playing as well.

Oh no! How did the rest of the night play out?

She finally settled at 9:30 but then was shouting me at 3 am. Went in a couple of times to lay her back down and she settled again until 6. Not great really but i think I
need to persevere

One DC didn’t drop their naps till they were 3 and the other DC dropped them before they were 2.

With the DC who dropped naps before 2, if they napped during the day they were nightmares at nigthtime.

Just come on to be that arsehole and say,
My 24 month old
My 25 month old
My 26 month old

1. Your child is 2.