How much sleep does your 3 yo get?

[SilverLinings2014]

Just wondering really. DD will be 3 next week. Feels like we have been transitioning from 1 nap to none forever.

Past three months or so she’s napped maybe 2 or 3 days a week, unless she’s not well. But lately any daytime sleeep seems to have such a detrimental impact on her ability to go to sleep at night...she’ll literally lie in bed for 2 hours singing to herself if she’s had a nap, even a short one. So we decided it was time to stop. However she hasn’t increased her overall nighttime sleep at all; is getting around 11 hours in each 24 hour period which doesn’t feel quite enough.

She’s so exhausted most nights she’s asleep 6:30-6:45 and then wakes anytime from 5:30. She stays in bed until her grow clock comes on at 6:30, but I would love her to have another hour.

Tried pushing bedtime later but her 5:30/6am waking seems set so it just results on her losing another hour sleep then needing a nap even more.

Do we just persist with the current routine and wait for her to outgrow the early waking or try to change things?

She’s so exhausted most nights..

She shouldn't be. At any age being exhausted should be an occasional thing that happens odd days here and there. It's not healthy to be exhausted most nights, it suggests she needs more sleep.

My initial thought would be earlier bedtime, but goes to look like you can do that because bedtime is already early.

For mornings, I assume you've got blackout blinds, ensured child has socks on (cold feet are a bugger) and that the heating homes know early?

So if you can't make mornings later or bedtimes earlier, I'd say you need to keep the nap if she us mostly exhausted without it.

How much sleep does your 3 yo get?

My DD was 3 at the end of September. She sleeps 11-12h overnight (7.30/8pm - 7/7.30am) and 3 hours at lunchtime 12-3pm. I've been trialing shorter lunchtime naps but she needs the 3 hours still. I can see her nap continuing until she starts school.

Mine is still in a cot. Have you moved to a bed? Experience from my older children says that bedtimes and nap times are harder work once no longer in a cot

My DS is also 3. He does 10 hours overnight, according to books it isn't enough but he has always done it. He naps for up to an hour a day so we are very different to Fate (and I am more than a little envious!)

Interested as I sometimes wonder if nearly 4yo gets enough sleep as she is often tired. We had to drop the nap for the same reasons as you. So no solutions, but you're not alone.

PS to answer your question, about 11.5hrs roughly

11-12 hours. No naps

Our 3 year old stopped napping about 2 months before she turned 3. She occasionally falls asleep in the car but any sleep after 3 means she will be difficult to put to bed. She has about 11 the 12 hours a night. She dropped her nap before we moved her to a bed.

Yours sounds normal to me.

Thanks everyone. As with everything involving small children there seems to be such a wide range of normal!

fate I would love DD to have 15 hours in 24, that sounds amazing!
We’ve always prioritised her sleep needs and given her plenty of opportunity but she has always been on the lower end of the ‘hours needed per age’ charts.

She’s been in a bed for a few months, at her request, but that hasn’t impacted her sleep beyond a few days getting used to it. She’s always woken up early, always happy. Would sing in her cot until we got her. The only difference now is she gets up when her grow clock comes on and comes into our room.

We did wonder if temperature is impacting things because she often kicks off the duvet and we often cover her of one of us wakes in the night. But she’s the same summer and winter with the early start so I’m not sure.

I don’t think reintroducing the nap will get her any more sleep overall. The last day she napped was last Sunday. She had an hour then lay happily singing in bed from 7:30pm until she finally fell asleep at 9:15. She was still awake at 5:30 the next day so overall less sleep than without a nap.

I don’t think it’s usual for a 3 year old to be sleeping 15 hours a day is it?! That seems like an awful lot of sleep.
I made my now 3 year old give up most of his naps in March when he was 2.5 to try and fix the 5am starts. He is now 3.3 and sleeps around 730-630 ish with no naps. He does occasionally drop off in the car I try and avoid that as much as possible!

When my DS had just turned 3, he got 11 hours at night plus a 2-3 hour nap in the day. He's now three and a half and has dropped the nap.

My daughter usually sleeps from 8-7.30ish. She turned 3 in August and dropped her nap at 2 and a half. She sleeps much better at night since dropping her nap. When we were dropping the nap on days she napped she wasn’t settling until 9.30-10pm.

Lots of children are fine dropping the nap at 3 years old. I would say a large percentage do around this age. But... the point I was making is that she is exhausted most nights. Children shouldn't be exhausted most of the time. When my children dropped naps they did do when they no longer needed the sleep, so weren't exhausted.

Being very tired and ready for bed at bedtime is not known itself a bad thing. It depends when this very tired stage starts. I would estimate that a child is tired enough to go to sleep (if presented with the right conditions) about 1h before the first outward tired signs. Then depending on how over tired "exhausted" is, this could be indicating a bedtime 2h too late.

Looking again your routine, bedtime is 6.30pm. It might be that child is actually ready for sleep at 5pm, but that's very early for a bedtime. If the same routine was shifted by 2h to an 8.30pm bedtime and 7.30am wake up, then changing to a 7pm bedtime (90m earlier) is not that unreasonable. It's just that the timings of your day are out.

Yes. DS used to be a 5am boy for us but was going to sleep by 7. We haven't intentionally changed routine but somehow he is asleep by 8ish these days and mostly sleeps until 6-6.30am which is lovely! If it's the morning sleep you want it may be timings as Fate suggests.

I think that sounds normal. Mine is three next month and still naps for 1.5 hours a day, but then tends to sleep for 10.5-11 hours at night. She had four long days at nursery and needs the nap to cope.

The early starts are awful. I don’t have much luck in ever trying to push mine back they just seem to do it over time

My DD is 3 in march she rarely naps.. hasn't done for a year. She's sleeps from 7pm