Toddler dropping nap

[sadmad]

DD is 2y4m. She has been fighting naps for the last 2 months maybe. If I can get her down she'll sleep for 2hrs+ and sometimes needs woken. But increasingly she'll just completely refuse to go to bed. For a while she could be conned by being told she had to go to her cot but could just read her books and 9/10 she's fall asleep but now she won't even do that. On the days she refuses she's an absolute nightmare by tea time. Crying about everything, refusing a bath and sometimes dinner too.

I get that they need to drop the nap at some point but it's like she's not ready for a nap after lunch (say 6 hrs after she wakes) but can't handle a full 12 hr day awake and needs something at tea time to tide her over. The last few days she's been unwell and has fallen asleep in the double buggy around 3pm while taking her baby brother for a walk to get him to sleep, which sort of solves the problem for now but it doesn't feel like a proper solution.

Do I just ride it out and soon she'll learn to get to the end of the day with our self combusting? Or persevere with short pram nap?

In case it matters her night sleep is amazing. She's been doing 7-7 since before her first birthday and has always been a great baller til now.

When my DD was transitioning towards dropping the nap (during the first lockdown); she would refuse to actually go down. However like your DD; couldn't manage the full 12 hours. So for a few weeks I made sure her mornings were very active; nice weather in lockdown helped, but then would only let her sleep for an hour, reducing it gradually over those weeks to half an hour. I'd have to wake her every time and she'd be groggy but she soon got used to it. Then when she dropped it, bedtime went from 7:30-7:45ish to 6:30-6:45ish, just until she got used it. When she dropped the nap, she was tired after 5pm, very tired, but during that nap we made sure we gave her a bath before dinner, as this was becoming problematic after dinner and there were a lot of tears, and also of course moved dinner earlier.

I realise all of the changes we made may not be possible if you're working and your DD is at nursery, but getting her to bed earlier will help massively. It's not forever.

During that time* (not during that nap!)

Mines the same. She’s dropped her naps and I used to like the 3 hour ‘break’ and nap myself or do homework etc. She’s dropped them just as I’ve had dd2 so now I get no naps.

Dd1 just naps in the car home from nursery but she’s a nightmare does need to sleep but if I put her down earlier she gets up at 4/5am!

Could she have she quiet home with a programme on a tablet in her cot at nap time? Not ideal but if she’s tired she’ll likely fall asleep watching.

If she still needs the nap to stop her becoming grouchy id persevere with the buggy walk. Least you can pop your earphones in and have an hour to yourself x

Following this with interest. My DD is exactly the same - can currently hear her hurling herself around her cot and laughing. I'm going to persevere with putting her down for the time being as she doesn't seem to mind it. But 5pm onwards is a shitshow.

Thanks everyone. Thinking I'll persevere with the pram naps for a while. She'll only nap for an hour max there and will wake up herself which is preferable to having to wake the beast after a 2+ hour one!

Yesterday she spent the full hour from 1pm insisting she didn't need a sleep, even when I wasn't suggesting anything of the sort. In the pram for all of 2 mins and she was fast asleep so clearly needed it.

We don't have a tablet and she doesn't get an awful lot of screen time so I think being handed a screen for "quiet time" would be far too exciting for her to fall asleep by herself. Planning to move her from cot into a single bed this weekend, hoping it might be slightly more appealing to be left in her room to play/read when she is able to access everything.