Toddler stopping naps - but still needing them!

[AlicethroughtheSpookingGlass]

Our two and a half year old DS has always been a pretty good sleeper, and he's very very active - he just never stops moving - so he's generally needed a lot of sleep. He's at nursery full time and previously would sleeps for at least an hour and half there and would often nap for two hours, or more, when off with us.

But for the past two weeks he's suddenly started refusing to nap at all when he's at home. If we try and put him to bed for a nap he just protests before shouting and crying for us. We try and calm him down but he just gets more and more upset and more awake. I know some toddlers do drop naps at this stage - but he definitely needs the sleep! He looks exhausted most of the time now and he's so emotional, poor thing, and is having a lot of tantrums having not really tantrumed much before.

On Saturday he did fall asleep at about half five in the buggy for about 20 mins but we tried a long walk on Sunday in the buggy and no luck. I really don't want him to stop napping, a short one would be totally fine, and he is sleeping at nursery still but I think he definitely needs more rest than he's now getting. Has anyone else had something similar and did they go back to sleeping at all?

@zeddybrek I think that sounds like what we need to try. He always likes to ask loads of questions but maybe he'll gradually slow that down if he's a bit tired. I keep reading things about them playing things quietly in their room but if he has his toys he wants you to be playing with him and then it does not stay quiet for long!

Earlier bedtime has been no trouble because he’s really ready for it by then. He sleeps through 80% of the time. As long as he gets his usual night time bottle in bed which he LOVES... That combined with his favourite cuddly toy, and his night time music box which also projects stars on the ceiling so it’s not completely dark. He usually drops off by the end of the bottle. Without this set of sleep associations it’s harder, so we just try and be consistent so it’s all sleep cues. X

sorry the above was intended as a reply to your q @AlicethroughtheSpookingGlass

My DC is the opposite and dropped his nap at nursery a couple of months ago, though will still nap in his buggy at the weekends. At first he was epically tired and screamy all evening, but it's gradually getting better as he gets more used to it. He also goes down faster at bedtime (we can't start the bedtime routine earlier because of when we all get home, but he's taking 5 mins to fall asleep in his cot instead of 40 mins). Anyway, this is just for @AlicethroughtheSpookingGlass to offer some hope that the tiredness gets better after a while! Most of the other children in his nursery room (up to age 3) do still nap.

We had this at a similar age and found we had to be quite ruthless with it - we would go in to him, but we would leave it 10 minutes first with Ewan the sheep playing music on the cry sensor to see if he went back to sleep. Then if he was really definitely awake we would go in and soothe, but eventually he did just learn to self settle and a few months later we rarely got anything other than a quick 'wah' and then resettle.

Don't forget the clocks are changing soon so perhaps wait until after then and/or just change bedtime gradually by 15 or 20 mins at a time