Low sleep needs toddler- when to drop nap?

[Ayla1991]

My 21 month old DD has always been a horrendous sleeper. When she was a baby I’d spend hours of my life trying to get her to nap before eventually I realised she doesn’t need much sleep. She dropped to 1 nap pretty early and she sleeps on average 10/10.5 hours a day if not less.

She is very prone to split nights so if she has long naps during the day or goes to bed too early she will almost definitely be up for 2-3 hours during the night. I’ve been trying to get her to drop her nap and had a couple of successful days doing this where she would sleep through the night but I’m really not sure if I’m doing the right thing.

if she has a long nap where I don’t wake her she will sleep for 1.5-2 hours and wake very happy. But then she won’t go to bed until 11pm or will have a split night. If I wake her from her nap she will wake up extremely upset and will be inconsolable wanting me to hold her for around an hour. If I don’t let her nap at all by around 3pm she starts to get very tired and I sometimes can’t stop her from sleeping.

please help?! I can’t figure this out! I tried a few days of letting her sleep whenever she was tired and she was having such late bedtimes

There is no right answer.

You might be best having naps some days and not others for a bit. Or enforcing quiet time in place of a nap to recharge her a bit.

Split nights are horrendous tho, so anything you can do to reduces those would be my suggestion.

FWIW, my low sleep needs baby is part way through A levels. Never been a need to wake him for school!!

No solid advice just sympathy I too had a baby the same who’s now a 19yr old and still really active. I just used to try and nap when they did and do lots of physical activities with them when they were awake. They didn’t really sleep through the night in one 9hr block until at school around age 5. I had another baby then who actually would just sleep 11hrs through the night and it was a revelation to me a baby did this as we parented no differently they were just wired differently. So do whatever works for you to survive the sleep deprivation and good luck.

What about if the nap is whilst you’re out? Mine is 20 months and also low sleep needs. If she has her nap in the car she wakes when we stop / in pram she wakes after around 45 mins on her own, and be fine. If naps at home we always wake her after an hour and she is generally grumpy, so we usually do her nap on the go. Haven’t tried a no nap day yet but she can manage on any length nap, sometimes only 20 min car nap is fine for her

I also have to cap my toddler's nap (just turned 2) to avoid multiple night wakes or getting up at 5am. As @Peonies12 says, car or pram naps are better for wakes, you get whatever your child's natural sleep cycle is (25-45 mins), they rouse at the end of one cycle and you cuddle them and they are much less grumpy. Sometimes I put an episode of Puffin Rock on the ease the transition from sleepy to awake!

You can drop it now. None of mine had a nap after two.

If you're capping the nap have a distraction ready to help with her mood. A snack, a drink and maybe tv. My son was very grumpy after a nap whether I capped it or not and that did help. He was going to bed at half 10 just before he dropped his nap. It changed to have 7 once the nap had gone but I did have to have some downtime in the afternoon to help him manage to bedtime in the beginning.

I think you can keep the nap and accept the late night or cap the nap and accept the grumpiness :)

Thank you all that makes me feel better! And yes true that I won’t have to wake her as she loves an early wake 🙄
@Peonies12 so with naps on the go do I just leave her in the pram and wait for her to wake and hope it’s shorter? Because I find she will nap for ages even if we’re on the go but maybe I need to try it again.
distractions are a good idea and I always need to have TV on or she’s absolutely hysterical but I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. So maybe I should just let her have short naps sometimes and then other days try to skip it completely. What do I do in down time @DandelionClockSeeds ?
@ThatMintMember you think dropping the nap is a bad idea?

Anything that will result in them sitting down for half an hour!!!
Read a book, colouring (never worked for mine), screens if needed... basically, just not tearing round like a loon, which was default for mine!!!

I’d try it - you might find it’s naturally shorter as there’s more noise / light to wake her. Or if do wake her; say after 1 hour; do it somewhere she likes such as the playground so she’s instantly distracted. I’d stick with either short nap or no nap, she will adjust as she will hopefully sleep more overnight to compensate.

My two were like this, we dropped naps somewhere around your DDs age (can’t remember exactly), maybe closer to age 2 for my youngest.
They just went to sleep and slept much better if they didn’t nap during the day.
The 3pm slump is a thing though, we started winding things down about that time instead of napping, so a little snack and drink and snuggly time reading books or watching a bit of tv, then dinner about 5pm.
A short nap in the car/pushchair after lunch also worked for my DD from about 18m old, so a 30-40 minute nap rather than full nap in the cot to get her through until bedtime.
Don’t be scared of waking her up either if you think she’s been napping too long

No i don't think dropping the nap is a bad idea but personally I'd experiment with capping the nap first, then perhaps only every second day. My son didn't drop his nap fully until he was almost 3 so 21 months does seem early for no nap at all.

If she sometimes falls asleep around 3pm on no nap days it sounds like she still needs them at least on some days and I'd rather a regular capped nap than a danger nap that ruins bedtime. I capped by sleep cycles which were around 40 mins for DS so I first capped his nap to 2 hours, then to 1 hour 20, then to 40 mins.

Ok thank you, this may be a stupid question but how do you know their sleep cycles?

What time is she waking up in the morning?

It might be specific to the child but for my son he used to always stir or wake after 40 minutes so I figured that was one sleep cycle. He did the same at nap time, like clockwork his eyes would just ping open at the 40 minute mark!

I only noticed because I used an app for tracking his sleep! Just figured that would be the kindest time to wake him from a nap as he was in a lighter sleep then anyway.

Usually 6:30/7