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Sleep

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'Toddlers grow up grumpy without an afternoon nap' - someone reassure me with non-scientific anecdotal evidence to the contrary!

2 replies

Ktay · 05/01/2012 11:11

Can't find another thread on this but some American researchers have found that toddlers aged 2-3 who skip their afternoon nap are 'at greater risk of lifelong mental health problems'.

DD has been tricky with various aspects of her sleep since she was tiny (now 2.7) and is usually a bugger to put down for a daytime nap at home. So I let her have 45 mins at nursery (where she'll sleep no problem) but haven't tried to get her to nap at home for several months now. It is now generally easier to get her off to sleep in the evenings and she tends to sleep longer too (early waking was a problem before) although I'm not entirely sure this is linked.

In trying to solve the various sleep problems I have always gone in for the more gentle training methods so am a bit perturbed to read that my latest trick could be storing up problems for the future. Does anyone set much store by these findings? I have to say DD doesn't appear to be suffering in the afternoons as a consequence although given half a chance she would probably fall asleep in front of the telly late-afternoon.

OP posts:
AlmaMartyr · 05/01/2012 12:00

Mine are only 1 and 3 so no idea about lifelong problems. My 3 yo never liked napping, not even as a baby. She finally dropped her nap completely at about 20 months. There's no way I could have forced her into it, I tried for a few days but would rock her for 2 hours to no effect Hmm. If I put her down she'd just run off giggling. She was always very interested in everything around her and very alert. DS is 20 months now and gave up a proper nap a few weeks ago. He sometimes crawls into my arms and has a 20 minute nap in the afternoon but generally won't nap otherwise.

My guess is that a child who needs a nap might struggle if they don't have one (i.e. if you keep them awake deliberately) but if they're not sleepy and don't want a nap they'll probably be OK. Not sure how you can force a non-sleepy to child to nap anyway!

Seona1973 · 05/01/2012 12:00

ds gave his nap up at 2. I prolonged dd's nap till just under the age of 3 by taking her out in the car to get her to sleep. Gave up when ds was born and never tried the same trick with him.

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