How did your toddler's drop their nap?

[LGBirmingham]

Just the above question really. Did you have to wake them up from their nap and shorten it over time or did they just drop it themselves?

I have a 20 month old who would happily nap 2 hours or more sometimes but also now needs 6 hours awake time. I'm starting to wake him up from his naps but I don't enjoy doing it.

I also wonder if @fatedestiny is around with any words of wisdom? You've helped me on the past.

We’ve been in nap grimness since about 20 months! My DS (now 2.3) is the same. Won’t humour going to sleep until 1pm but also needs at least 5.5h before bed. So we have to cut the nap off. Initially it was 1.5h, cut off at 2:30pm. Now the nap length has shrank away as the nap start time has got later and later. He now naps for an hour (1:30-2:30pm ish) on maybe 4 or 5 out of 7 days a week. I love none nap days. He crashes out at 7:30pm and sleeps for 12 hours. On nap days it’s more like 8:15 - 8:30pm for 11 hours. He’s also grumpy for a good hour when woken from a nap. Can’t wait to drop it fully, but he can’t cope more than a day without a nap!

My toddler just start refusing to go to sleep at nap time. She will occasionally fall asleep on the couch or something now if very tired but 95% of the time it's no nap. We did however have to bring bedtime forward by 2 hours to accommodate this.

For us with my DC it was a very gradual process, I did used to wake her from naps frequently when she was 2.5+ so it wouldn't interfere with bedtime. But she was still having a short nap at home most days until she was over 3, we made the decision to sack it off then when DC2 was born. At that stage I could only let her nap for about 45 mins or it interfered with bed times, and she wasn't napping at nursery or if we were out (although sometimes would in the car or buggy). She's just turned 4 and still does occasionally have a nap in the car, or on the sofa falling asleep during a film, or very occasionally will take herself off to bed for a nap! I only really let her cat nap for half hour or so though (unless she's ill) to avoid bed time dramas. I find the best way to avoid post-being-woken-up grumpiness is to immediately give a snack!

Sorry for the slow reply everyone. It seems most people have to gradually reduce their naps then, rather than the LOs doing it themselves/refusing to nap at all. It's what we've started to have to do here too.

@AliceW89 I can't believe your two year old will go to bed after only 5.5 hours awake! That's so short still. I guess they are all different though. I think I'm quite unusual in that I've been looking forward to him not needing a nap since he was small. It's only since about 11months that he's consistently napped well and the whole thing used to be a big palaver. Don't get me wrong I like the break now but I just find it cuts up the day and I'd like to not have to take it into account.

@MsChatterbox that's good that she just dropped it herself. Does she do well without a nap or is she super grumpy?

@SecondhandTable that's crazy your child still napped at 3, the way we're going I imagine it will be gone by the time he turns 2. Could be wrong though of course.

@FATEDestiny do you still exist? I hope you're ok!

The first couple of days she was a bit of a grump the last 2 hours before bedtime but after that she just seems fine!

DS used to nap 11.30-1.30 in the glory days and then he started going down later in the day but I’d still wake him up before 2, and that lasted a while. 7-7.30pm bedtime. This was at about 2.5.
Then at about 3 he just started falling asleep at bedtime later, which didn’t bother us because he just chatted to himself until he fell asleep. But this was a sign for me that his daytime nap needed to go, so we cut it down to 45 mins.

Then he moved rooms at nursery and they don’t facilitate naps so he wasn’t napping at nursery at all, so we dropped it altogether. I still offered him one but he was happy without.

He isn’t keen on 5-6pm but otherwise it’s fine. He napped for a long time though so we were quite lucky.

My eldest only dropped it when school meant she had to. She’d happily keep going.
My youngest, from one day to the next, suddenly couldn’t sleep before 11:30 pm for three days in a row, aged 3.5. We just didn’t stop for naps in the afternoon after that and powered on through, and normal bedtime was restored.

All kids are different. My 2y9m old is still having 2-3 hour naps and a full night's sleep as well. He's always loved his sleep right from the beginning. He's very active though, never stops. Expecting number 2 in Jan and not sure how I'll cope with a child who doesn't sleep as well...

Not sure mine'll ever stop napping 🤣🤣🤣 3 year old. Half hour to 45 mins (occasionally more) at around 1/half past. We usually go upstairs at 7.30, bath, teeth, pj's, books and snuggles he's usually asleep between 8.30 and 8.45.

Today he had 2 and a half hours. I just couldn't wake him up. He went to bed at half 8 and was asleep by 9. He's like me and dh though and loves his sleep, so a bit of later isnt too bad for him.

My daughter dropped the nap not long after she turned 2. She was taking such a long time to go sleep at night - sometimes not until 10pm.

We substituted the nap for 'quiet time' after lunch where she lies in the sofa with a blanket and watches some calm TV, but she doesn't sleep. She's usually well ready for bed at around 6.30 - 7pm, falls asleep quickly and sleeps twelve hours.

Mine is 2 years 2 months now. If we get a nap these days, it's normally between 10 and 11 and only until 12. For a while, he refused his nap, or would take quite a while to fall asleep, and then the same at bed time, started taking ages to go to sleep.

If he takes too long to fall asleep, he sometimes ends up only having less than an hour but that then means he is still tired enough by normal bed time. So its win win.

We did initially try to just drop the nap completely, but he would get so so grumpy and would be falling asleep in his dinner. He'd then wake up at about 6am the next day, then need a nap that day, and then take forever at bed time again. It was just one big frustrating cycle.

Now we just play it by ear really, I don't try and force the nap, some days he needs it, some days he doesn't. If he naps, then we just put him to bed an hour or so later than usual and he normally goes down fine without a fuss.

If I put him down because I think he needs a nap and it's getting on 40 mins+ and he's still awake, I just get him back up and forget it.

If we're out for the day, he will nap in the car (usually on the way home from wherever we are) and again, he's still tired enough for normal bed time because it's only usually a 20-30 min nap.

Some days he wakes up later than usual, doesn't need a nap, doesn't even get grumpy or anything, and goes to bed at normal time. It's great.

It's all just trial and error tbh.

that's crazy your child still napped at 3

Something like 65% of children still regularly nap at 3. Mumsnet seems to be a bit of an outlier with the volume of non-napping one year olds.

My son dropped his nap at around 2 1/2.

My daughter, she's 2 next month, didn't nap yesterday and went straight to sleep after a quick feed. Tonight, she napped for 20 mins in the car and has only just gone to sleep now. She's an absolute nightmare for naps and I usually take her for a walk in the morning to get her to doze off. She does tend to sleep through once she does go to sleep though.

My first gave up her nap at 2yrs 3mo precisely. I'd read somewhere that was the average age, and joked to DH she'd probably give it up around then... and then she did. To the day. She went from having a 2hr nap one day to absolutely nothing the next day, and never again after that.

My second gave up his nap at 20 months. On the first day of lockdown, which was just great. He did have a few short naps here and there over that summer (and horrendous bedtimes as a result), but he gave it up completely in the September, the day DD went back to school. He's thoughtful like that!

A week before DC1's second birthday, DH and I went away for a few days leaving DC1 with grandparents. She never napped at home again! However, on the three days she was at nursery, she'd have 60-90 minutes and did so until she was about 3.5. I think that that combination over the week worked for her.

Even though she gave up naps, she'd still have 45 mins in her cot each day after lunch for the next 6 months or so. I was always hopeful she'd have a nap as I needed one but she'd just "read" her books and chat away to herself/her cuddly toys.

That's funny as I keep reading the majority of children stop napping between 2 and 3, a huge age range in itself, so a napping 3 year old would be an outlier.

That said one of my nieces napped in to her third year but my sister also talks about not being able get her to sleep until 2am. My family are all very much on the not waking a sleeping baby page. She still doesn't seem to put 2 and 2 together on the situation 😂

Can I ask where you've read that please @LGBirmingham when DS moved to the pre school room at nursery (end July) we discussed his napping and I did a bit of research too. Statistically up to 60% of children nap until the age of 5.

"many preschoolers nap during the day, with naps ranging between one and two hours per day. Children often stop napping after five years of age"

Source

That's crazy! I've worked in preschools and most of them don't nap! Maybe 1 or 2 or the new movers up go through to the toddler room and take a nap but majority stay up!

DD1 was about 18 months when she started saying ‘no sleep, no tired’ and just climbing out at nap time. She then had intermittent days where naps were ok, then refused for the final time at 20 months and that was that.

At the other end of the scale, a friend of mine is trying to cut her 4yo’s nap down in prep for school and it’s not going well.

Good luck OP.

I can't think of any websites in particular but I read quite a lot on the subject when ds was dropping to one nap. Between 2-3 just seemed to be the consensus. I get most of my sleep advice from Lyndsey Hookway's books or Sarah Ockwell-Smith's books as it aligns with my parenting style and is referenced to scientific studies. (See photo below from the gentle sleep book. Sorry for poor quality, ds broke my camera)

Of course there's the sleep consultants who want to convince you they can make you're 2 year-old nap for 3 hours a day and sleep 12 hours at night. It just makes me laugh as my ds is good on 12 hrs total sleep a day, and that isn't unusual amongst children I know of his age in real life.

Of course I imagine most 5 year-olds will sometimes nap. I mean I'm 34 and I might occasionally sleep in the day if I didn't sleep well, had an early start or nod off on the train. I usually wake up feeling awful though. I guess also there are a lot of cultures where day time sleep is the norm for adults so I imagine they would sleep in the day there too. I don't fancy entertaining my toddler at 10pm though personally.

Many naps, one nap, none: A systematic review and meta-analysis of napping patterns in children 0–12 years

Napping cessation

Eleven studies were used to estimate cessation of napping by age [1,36,37,42,44,46,55,64,68,69,73]. These 11 studies provided a total of 73 data-points for meta-analyses (Fig. 4). Results indicate that prior to two years of age, cessation of napping is rare (<2.5%). By the time children are aged three, 33% of children have ceased napping. The largest rates of cessation occur for children across the preschool period, with 57% ceasing to nap by age 36–48 mo and 80% by 48–60 mo. The preschool period also had the largest variation in cessation prevalence rates across studies, with rates ranging from 4.8% to 65% at 36 mo (three years), 26.5%–78.2% at 48 mo (four years) and 36.9%–96% at 60 mo (five years). Beyond 60 mo of age, 94% of children had ceased napping.

So, again, a napping 3 year old isn't unusual. You obviously have quite strong views on napping which is fine, do whatever's best for you and your baby. I think people are just making the broader point that napping through toddlerhood is quite normal and, whilst it can have some impact on their bedtime and night sleep, this impact for lots of children is very mild and has a strong pay off against spending the last three hours of the day with an emotional wreck.

But again, noone is coming to your house to make your baby sleep.

With my dc it wasn't a case of reducing the naps in length until we stopped. Ds napped until he was 4 and a half but for the last 6 months of that he didn't nap everyday, only maybe 4/5 days a week (they both did 2 9-3 days at preschool then and didn't nap on those days). It was gradual, going from 1.5-2 hours a day to nothing.

Oh that's a shame I would love it if someone could come to my house and make my toddler sleep!

It sounds like I've offended you, that wasn't my intention if that is the case. I'm genuinely incredulous at napping 3-5 year olds as I don't know any who still have a set nap at that age and didn't know it was a thing. It is big news to me, I just came here to find out how children dropped the last nap, I'm not concerned if ds is older or younger than average.

I have nothing against naps but personally I don't think our culture in the UK is geared to children staying up late and would prefer ds asleep by 8:30pm at the latest. We've already got to the point of bedtime at 8:30 unless I cap the nap. I've spent a lot of time in Spain and can see it is totally different there, all generations socialise together into the night. I could see I'd have ds napping at a much later age if I lived there.

Your study sounds interesting. It seems you have to pay to read it so I can't see the bit you've quoted. The abstract says 'The aim of the current study is to examine global evidence regarding napping patterns in childhood' I wonder which countries the data is from and what time the children studied go to bed and how long they sleep at night? And also how long they nap for and how regularly they nap.

The nap just got later and later in the day until it sort of "joined up" with the night, leaving him with an earlier bedtime.

So gradually moving from a midday nap and a night sleep from 10pm...to no nap and an 8pm bedtime.