27 month old not napping - resulting in arguments

[AcademicMumWithTooManyPets]

I feel very confused as to what to do.

My daughter (27, nearly 28 months) has suddenly started to really resist nap time. She will go down fine, but as soon as you leave the room, she is up and out of the room and runs around the house, slamming doors, laughing, playing with the cats, jumping on and off beds… and she just doesn’t want to go to bed. She is very tired and still needs to nap (her normal evening bedtime is 8.30) so she will be incredibly exhausted without it; but it’s got to the point where we are basically having a full on argument with her for 2 hours before she agrees to stay in bed and goes to sleep. This can’t be the “right thing” to do. I say “right” because I’ve read kids this age need their naps and I think she probably does, but this is just awful for all of us - it’s so upsetting and stressful, and I just don’t know if I should give up on the nap, or persevere with meltdowns on both our parts. Any ideas?

Skip the day time nap, put her to bed at 7 and get your evenings back.
If you like to eat together as a family in the evening it's a bigger problem but it's normal for the nap to be finished/very short with at this age for most children. Or an every other day need.

Is there a reason for such a late bedtime? Sorry if this stating the obvious and there’s an obvious reason why it’s not possible, but my first thought would be to ditch the nap and then to bring bedtime forward to like 6.30-7pm.

Sorry you're having such a hard time. You could either persevere with the nap or bring bed time forward (a lot). If you want to persevere with the nap could you put her back in a cot (if she can't get out) or get a stair gate for her door? Then have a look at sleep resources like staying with her for a bit, or staying at the door so she has no choice but to stay and in time she should get the message. I definitely think you need to try to keep her in her room to contain things and keep it calm if possible. Good luck!

Drop the nap and put her to bed at 7, or even 6:30 to start with if she’s exhausted! What a palaver chasing her around for two hours. All children are different and a lot drop the nap early.

She's ready to drop the nap, bring bedtime earlier and have some quiet time in the afternoon. My little girl has about 1-2 naps per week now.
She gets tired in the afternoon and we have some quiet time, whether reading a story or having a cuddle watching some TV

Also she's in bed asleep between 7/half 7

Mine is the same age. He still needs a nap ideally but only naps maybe 4 days a week now. He also only naps in pram. So after lunch around 1pm I go for a walk with him laid down, 50% of the time he’s asleep in 5/10 mins. If not it’s a no nap day.

whether he naps or not, his bedtime is still 8.30pm ( and he still faffs even with no nap). I sit with him in chair in his room until asleep, otherwise he’s up and down like a yo-yo

Mine is the same age and naps are hit and miss now. If he needs a nap he'll tell us or if we put him down he'll fall asleep easily. If not, then I'll put him down but he'll be chatting away to himself so there is no point in fighting it. Bedtime with no nap is 7pm, bedtime with nap is 8-8:30.

Dd is now 17 but dropped her nap at 22 months - was always not great at it and even now cannot nap during the daytime!
Let he not nap some days then sleep others (by driving/ buggying if necessary)

Skip the nap, bring her bedtime forward. She's 2, not a baby. Ideally they should need one but some drop them earlier than others

Mine stopped napping way before that. Just put her to bed earlier.

2 hours of trying to get her to just isn’t working so why put yourselves through it?
8.30 seems a bit late for her bedtime, 7.00pm and no mid afternoon naps might suit her better