when do they drop the nap completely?

[DavidTennantsMistress]

any thoughts? it's just DS is being a gremlin again come bed time (6.45) and I was wondering if he's ready to drop it completely.

he's 19 months the oldies are talking about him dropping it completely but i'm all for him keeping it?

DS dropped his over the summer around the time he was 3 so I was lucky that he napped for that long!

my boys are 34 months and still have a nap occasionally - yes they can be horrors at bedtime, but without a nap i can have hours of grumping, whinging and not eating dinner cos they tired - so i just let them nap every other day instead!

dd was 2 1/2 i was dreading it but it was so worth thepain during the day to get her in bed and sleeping through. having said that your ds goes to bed quite early you could push it back to 7.30 and keep the nap for another 6 months.

I think dd1 stopped at about 18 months.

Bed times were a becoming a nightmare for us .

Dropping the nap sorted it straight away. But every child is different - some seem to need that nap.

I think this thread won't help you all that much because really every child is different. DD dropped her naps at 18 months where as ds who will be 3 in 2 months still naps at least 2 hours every afternoon and still goes to bed at 7.30pm no problem.

I now realise I am very lucky! Ds 26 months is still asleep now having gone to sleep at 1.30 (I'll wake him by 3.30 if he hasn't done by himself.) Bedtime is 7.30 (we go up for bath at 7pm). I love the fact he still has a nap, but we try and do some running around in the afternoon to make sure he's tired by bedtime. He sleeps til about 7am too . That said, he was a HORROR in the early months and when I went back to work he was still waking at 1 and a half hour intervals throughout the night and this went on til he was abotu 12 months, so I suppose I'm getting the payback frpm all that pain!

Oooh, ComeOVeneer I hope my ds is still like yours at 3!

DS is 23 months and still has 2hrs(1-3) and is still ready for bed at 6.45pm. As someone else says he gets plenty of fresh air & running around though. He can manage without a nap for a couple of days if we are out but by the 3rd day is getting fractious. Am v keen for it to continue. Have just got loads done inc a quick mnet whilst he's asleep!

thanks for your imput girls - didn't think he was ready to drop it yet - i'm all for the going wiht him thing, if he doens't nap we have a nightmare time of it with a ratty toddler you can't do a thing with! today he went down 1-3 and has gone to bed for 7.15.

I brought his time from 7 to 6.45 as he seemed to prefer the slightly earlier time - maybe he wants it back to 7.15 again?

I wouldn't drop it, just reduce it. ds was still having an hour's nap at 2.5 and we gradually whittled that down to half an hour when he was 3 and now he's 3.5 he doesn't have it at all.

He goes to bed at 7.30pm. But if he happens to fall asleep during the day, even if just for 10mins, it's harder getting him to sleep in the evenings.

At 19months I would say to reduce his nap by half an hour and see how that helps.

DD is 3.4 and some days doesn't nap at all and other days will nap for two hours. I'm sure we would notice it at bedtime if she had a 2 hour nap every day but a couple of times a week seems to work OK. She doesn't nap at nursery (3 days) and sometimes we have other things on, or like today, she will just have half hour in the car. Her bedtime is 7.30 and she gets up at 7.

19 months
dd1 still has a two hour nap in the afternoon some days (probably about 50% of the time), and still goes to bed 7.30pm-8pm.
she sleeps longer than dd1 (23 months)
they're all different

I think it was about 2.9 with my DD1. For about 6 months leading up to that, she would have a 2 hour nap (1-3), go to bed at 7pm ish, but chat and sing in her cot contentedly for 30 mins or so before dropping off. Which I liked - she was winding down naturally, rather than going to bed completely exhausted. So you could try keeping the nap and moving bedtime back a bit.