Was your child a nightmare when dropping their nap? and how long for?

[PerkinWarbeck]

20mo DD is dropping her nap. She will sometimes nap at about 4ish if she is out in the car or buggy, but to be honest I try to avoid this, as she's then up 'til midnight.

But if we stay at home, she is very challenging, as she is is so tired. How long will it be before she gets used to not napping?

took my ds good 6 mths to get over the not napping but he gave this up ata yr by himself but same time every day would become a nightmare until bedtime he did learn to get over this

i found i had step back my routine by an hour so dinner hour early story bath and bed earlier and this made great difference to the day for us both

gradually as he got older he was able to last longer so moved routine forward again he is 3 half and still ahve to watch him some days if by 2 his eyes are red and his getting grumpy i do dinner aimed for 4 o clock as he wont eat if too tired then i wind him down aiming for bed for 6

IIRC my two went to down gradually and would have a nap every 2 or 3 days.

On the days when I really needed them to have a nap I would drive around until they wer asleep and then park up and read the paper until they woke up

Thank-you both! I think we might move bedtime by 30mins or so. I don't want to change it to much as we previously has early rising ishooos .

3-6m, I found. Generally I think it's better to drop the nap gradually, say once or twice a week, or to shorten the nap, rather than drop it all at once.

Personally, 20m seems awfully young to be dropping naps. But then my ds1 was still napping when hestarted school, and only stopped napping on weekends when he bgan Y1. Dd stopped napping the summer before she began Receptiom. Ds2, at 25m, is still having 1.5-2h every afternoon. And of course not all children are the same.

PrettyCandles, I had hoped DD would hang onto her nap much longer! But no amount of soothing in a darkened room will bring it back .

Ugh.

What about trying a different strategy?

My All-England Champion Sleeper rebelled against his nap at yuour dd's age, even though he clearly stilll needed it. So I told him he didn't have to sleep, but he had to lie down in his cot, with his cuddly, and listen to some music. And that when the music ended I would come and get him out of the cot.

I would put on something quiet and gentle, like Chopin, say.

Worked every time. He would be out like a light within minutes.