Naps for 3 and half year old

[Pam0077]

Hi DS is three and a half and has been having a 1.5-2hr nap every day which he doesn’t seem to be able to do without. The thing is, he isn’t settling to sleep at night until 9pm and he is quite restless to settle to sleep. Nursery have asked if I want to cut his naps as he’s one of the only pre-schoolers still napping. But the days he doesn’t nap he’s a nightmare and ends up falling asleep at tea time! It’s like he needs a nap but then it means he isn’t sleeping until later at night. We have tried giving him just an hour but he’s rolling back over to get back to sleep at lunchtime so clearly needs it. Does anyone else have a child this age still napping??x

He won’t adjust to not having naps until you consistently stop his naps over a few days then he’ll gradually fall asleep earlier at night. If you stop it just one day, it won’t work.
Maybe start waking him after 30 min. He won’t like it and will be very grumpy but if you keep doing it he will adjust to the shorter naps and there’ll be an impact on his night time sleep.
We had to do this with my son whose naps were causing him to wake very early. But we had to shorten his naps over the course of quite a few days before it had an impact on his night time sleep.
Jet lag is quite a good way to look at it - when someone changes time zones it can take time to adjust to the new zone and they can be drowsy, wanting to sleep at the wrong times etc., but after a week or so people adjust. So if you change a child’s sleep routine it can mean short term discomfort in that they’re not used to it, but in the long term it’s good for you and them...

So do you think it’s excessive he’s still napping at that age? I never thought of that thanks, that over the course of a few days/week I just thought if he’s grumpy one day he still needs his long nap.