So for two or three weeks now, DD2 has been pretty regularly refusing her naps. She was a good, steady, 2-3 hours a day napper before this. I am reluctant to move her naptime because I have to pick DD1 up from school at 3 PM daily, and prior to this little experiment of hers, I would regularly have to wake her to do preschool pickup. What I have been trying to do is put her down later in the evenings, get her up earlier in the morning, and wear her out more in our mornings before putting her down at her usual naptime of noon.
It goes in a cycle of 1-2 days of nap refusal, then one day of napping.
She tells me she is tired at naptime. Today at lunch she was rubbing her eyes and signing and saying "sleepy."
Did anyone else's kid go through this? I am seriously paranoid about naps because DD1 gave hers up entirely at 24 months--but she was always a horrible napper and rarely napped more than 45 minutes at a stretch, even as an infant. I think DD2 definitely still needs a nap (and so do I! I work from home while she naps and it's really distracting/hard to work even if she is happily babbling in her crib) but I am really struggling with trying to break this terrible pattern she is currently on.
She does STTN. She is babbling in her crib for 30-45 minutes where she used to drop off right away, and she is waking up 30-45 minutes earlier than normal, but she is not waking MOTN. Hallelujah for that at least.
Ughhhhhh sorry yours is doing the same thing @this. I just went to get her after 2 hours (most of it babbling, the last 15 minutes she was crying) and she was all HI! HI! ALL DONE NOW! Chipper as can be.
DS went through a phase around 20-21 months where we had to drive him to get him to nap. Now we're mostly back to crib naps, but he can take up to an hour to fall asleep. Last weekend he marched around the crib, played with his trucks, and took his shirt off before he fell asleep. He's definitely moved his nap to later in the afternoon too. More like 2-4.
we had to push naps to later around 2, otherwise she'd just play in her crib. She used to go down at 1 and sleep for 2 ish hours. Now she goes down easily at 2 and sleeps for 2-3 hours.
I thought DS was going to drop naps at 2.5yo. He'd skip 2 days, then nap once, rinse and repeat. I asked my mom, a nurse, for help.
She said no food between breakfast and lunch, no mid morning snack. This would make him hungry for lunch, and he'll fill up more. Offer a large milk with lunch, the triptophan (sp) and the big meal would make him sleepy. Have a VERY consistent naptime routine. In his crib, dark room, comfy PJs, a lovey.
These measures fixed the problem immediately. He went right back to napping, and is still going strong at almost 3yo.
My kid is 18 months. She hates to sleep. The only way to get a nap is to hold her and nurse her. I want to wean soon, so I think naps are numbered. I SAH and entertaining her for 10 hours alone without a nap makes me want to drink. I keep thinking trying new routines and techniques. I feel your pain. I know she and I both need it.
We are here too with dd2 and my dd1 did the exact same thing. After three weeks, she's taken naps two days in a row, which is a miracle. I actually have a harder time when she's up later because I think that she gets overtired.
DD1 did it for about a month right at 18 mos before going back to napping until 2 weeks ago, when she dropped them.
My weird solution for all nap regressions has been to put DD1 down earlier. She has refused to nap several different times for a few week period. I just move her nap time earlier and she almost always starts napping again immediately.
It's probably the 18 month sleep regression and it was a low point in my life as a mother, with both children. Godspeed.
Same here for DD and DS1. It was also when DS1 started waking up consistently before 6am and he's never really changed since then.
DS2 is 18 months now, and is sleeping okay but not great lately. However, he's a cranky crankopotomus pretty much constantly so I don't think he's getting as much rest as he needs right now.
Yeah. DD did this too (and she's otherwise a good sleeper).
It lasted about a month. Nothing helped. I screwed with the time a bit and it helped some. If I remember right, moving bedtime a bit later seemed to help the most (but I have a weird kid that way. She's ok with a late bedtime but definitely likes to sleep in and needs downtime esp. now at 3).