Naps

[RooMama]

When did your children give up their afternoon nap? My son is only 2 1/2 years old and getting him to take a nap is a nightmare. The past 4 days he has just sat in his room and fussed and whined for an hour and 1/2 until I gave up. I think he is much to young to go without a nap, but I'm at a loss as to what to do. Also, without his nap he is very crabby in the evenings.

 

[Linnis]

How much is he sleeping at night? My nephew gave up naps when he started kindergarten. He also was sleeping from around 8:30pm to 7 the next morning so he was getting more than enough sleep.

I didn't stop having naps until I was in senior kindergarten(age 5).

If you think he needs a nap and he's crabby in the evenings which means he probably does then I think this may be a battle of wills. He wants to show his independance. I think you have to stay firm with putting him in there during his nap time, eventaully he'll get bored or work himsself to sleep. Maybe you could go in every 5 minutes he's whining or fussing and tell him he needs to quiet down and have a nap, the sleeps good for him and you love him then leave.

Maybe he thinks you are up doing fun things while he's asleep. I know now that when my mom said she was going to sleep too that she wasn't but I didn't know that then! If you are pregnant maybe the time to lay down andread a book might be very worth it.

 

[Katydid]

We have a quiet time at 1 p.m. You could instill that and have him do puzzles, coloring etc. If he starts making noise let him know that you will put him down for a nap.

 

[shainamsu]

when i worked in child care, we also had quiet time. they may not have had to lie down and take a nap, but the lights were low, some soft music was playing, and they had to do a quiet activity for a certain amount of time, so as not to disrupt the ones who WERE sleeping. most of the time, they ended up preferring a nap to having to be awake and be still for so long. and, to reinforce this particular method, there were time-out punishments for making noise. we didn't make them lie down and take a nap if they made noise - although that may very well work with some children -- b/c we didn't want them to get any negative associations with nap-taking. punishing them by taking them away from the nap-area (making it seem like the nap area was where they actually wanted to be and giving them a choice -- nap or play quietly) usually made them want to take a nap even more.

even if they were being still and reading books for an hour, that time still served as recooperative rest and seemed to serve the purpose. just a suggestion, though. hope it helps.

 

[Leanna]

I'm glad you asked... I am curious about when naptime disappears too...

We plan on having quiet time after he grows out of naptime, it will be quiet time in his room with books and quiet activities like that... I think some restful time is good for the whole family. Naptime is already mommy's quiet time.

 

[RooMama]

Today, I tried "quiet time". He stayed in bed for 1 1/2 hours before he started crying. He was mostly quiet for that time, I heard him fuss every 10 minutes or so. I guess I'm just frustrated because I really need that quiet time.

 

[dews]

My first daughter, Rachel, finished regular naps the week she turned 3. Occasionally I'll be cuddling with her and she would fall asleep. My second daughter, Arielle, is 3.5 and naps 2 hours a day, usually. She is also an early bird. My son, Nathan is 21 months and will still be napping for awhile yet. It all depends on the child and when they get up. I let Arielle stay in her room and play if she doesn't want to nap. She goes for naptime the same time as Nathan because she has all her dolls "talking" in that squeaky voice when she plays with them and it wakes him up. Nathan naps for almost 3 hours .

 

[sara elizabeth]

Mine have all had regular naps until they turned 5. I felt like the quiet was very neccessary for all of us. Sometimes they went through stages where they wouldn't sleep, but it seemed like if I still made them lay down for the normal amount of time, it wan't long before they were back in the napping routine.
Now, I have the ones over 5 stay quietly reading in their rooms for an hour while I take a short rest and the little ones fall asleep. It works great for us.

 

[Neenie1]

Wow! Naps until 5!

My son gave up his nap just before he turned 2. It was quiet time and still is, unless we are out all day.

Both of us benefit from a quiet time in the afternoon.

 

[Entertaining_Angels]

We kept a nap/rest time until my son entered kindergarten. Some days he'd play quietly in his room the entire time, other days I'd find him curled up asleep on his bed. Even on the days where he didn't nap, the quiet time was good for him and he was happier later in the day. However, he didn't get the choice until he was probably 3 1/2.

We'll be doing the same with our daughter who is now two years old.

 

[GutterRat]

My daughter is 3 and we still have nap times. It used to be everyday at 1:30 but lately been moving it back to 3:00. If we put her down at 1:30 - she just sits there and plays - never naps. When that happens the evening is filled w/ a lot of crying.

I love naps. I wish they had naptime at work.

 

[Princessperky]

DS gave up regular naps around 2.5, but I still had the quiet time (still do actually) He would nap like 3 times a week or something (and of course those naps NEVER matched when I really needed him to be on his best behavior!)

Now he can do schoolwork, read a book, or take a nap. so long as he is quiet and doesn't wake DD (or me sometimes .) And barring major upsets (like driving to pgh) he doen't need one.

IMO you need a nap if you are consistantly cranky by bedtime, or you need bedtime moved earlier, or wake up later. Which bedtime I can control, wake up, not so much.

you can search for average sleep needs, while you get lots of different ranges they all are around the same: [font=&quot]Sleep Needs, and the best thing to do is go by behavior (and yes that prolly means you need more sleep too .)[/font]

 

[lucypevensie]

I stopped putting my son down for a nap at about 2.5 years. I t was getting to the point where he would just sit and play around in the crib for an hour or so, then he'd want to get out or if he did fall asleep he'd wake up extremely crabby. So I decided to cut out the nap and intead put him to bed an hour earlier at night. The transition was a little tricky for us both for about 3 weeks, but we got the hang of it. I learned to appreciate the quiet time in the evenings. He had to learn to let me have a few minutes to myself during the day when I needed it.

 

[Leanna]

Amen to the quiet time until kindergarten.... mommy still needs quiet time and shes 25....