Nap questions for the preschool moms

[mollybrown]

DS just turned 4 a little over a week ago, and I'm wondering if he's ready to drop the afternoon nap. He always naps at home, but sometimes that requires me leaving him in his bed for 2 hours or more until he falls asleep. He spends a couple of afternoon at his sitter's house, and he never naps there (she lets him out of bed if he isn't asleep in an hour). He is pretty hyper by the time I pick him up, and always falls asleep in the car on the way home sometime between 6 and 7, which is too late for a nap since he goes to bed at 8.

It seems pretty mean to leave him in bed awake all afternoon, but he does seem to still benefit from the nap. What say GBCN?

[Deleted]

He's done with them, pretty much. I still suggest them, but if he fights it, I don't try. It isn't worth the hassle and trauma.

[hocus]

I'd do 1 hour of quiet time per day. If he falls asleep great. Other wise he's not napping for that day. Move up bedtime by 1/2 hour as well and he'll probably be ok.

[drloretta]

I'd just do quiet time and earlier bed as the pps suggested. He sounds done with formal naps

[ijack]

we do an hour of quiet time, and sometimes she does fall asleep, and then she's ready for bed by 7:30ish (we were approaching 9-10 before we cut out naps).

[DarcyLongfellow]

My daughter is in the exact same situation, although she's younger (almost 3 and a half).

She's been like this for months. For maybe the past year, it has taken her almost 2 hours to fall asleep, then she'd sleep for two hours. I felt awful that she "wasted" so much of her day in bed, but she needed the sleep.

Around the time she started preschool (late August), she almost completely gave up her nap. I'd say she naps maybe once or twice a week at this point. I still make her have quiet time for 2 hours every afternoon (well, almost always -- if we have a lot going on on a weekend or something, we'll skip it). She needs it -- without quiet time, she's a nightmare in the evenings.

I'd let her just have an hour of quiet time, but I never know if she's actually going to sleep or not until the 2 hour mark (since that's how long she takes to fall asleep).

[h]

I would do quiet time and no nap, then move up bedtime if necessary. Spending two hours trying to fall asleep seems like too much time to me.

If my 2.5 year old naps, he cannot fall asleep until 9:30 at night at the earliest. He always naps at daycare, so we just deal with the later bedtime during the week. On the weekends, we don't make him nap, and he does fine without one, but goes to bed at 8.

[mollybrown]

Thanks ladies. DS doesn't fight nap time at all, and seems to have a great time singing and talking to himself (which is maybe why it takes 2 hours for him to go to sleep). Once he goes to sleep, he sleeps for 2-3 hours. I usually have to wake him up. But it does seem like he would benefit more from a more productive activity in the afternoon. Maybe we'll try skipping the nap and see what happens...

[jena]

Quiet time is essential in my house. Dd never fell asleep for pre k nap time but would lay there and rest for 2 hours. And when she started kinder and had no nap time, it was very obvious that she had been getting a lot of rest in that 2 hours even though she wasn't sleeping, because without it she was an exhausted cranky mess. It took at least 2 mo for her to adjust, and she still goes to bed earlier than she used to.

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[6fsn]

The oldest moved to quiet time instead of nap when he was 3. At 4 he only naps when he's sick, but we do quiet activities in the afternoon. Color, read, fold laundry. My 20 month old is starting to drop her nap and it's making me really sad.

[Deleted]

I hardly have a preschooler but my almost 2.5 year old has pretty much given up her naps entirely. We enforce about 1.5-2 hours of quiet time in her room daily, though usually there is a 15 minute "intermission" where I'll go to settle her down again about halfway through. We put her down earlier on her non nap days which is just about every day. She does sleep 12-13 hours a night.

In your case I'd skip the nap and do an earlier bedtime.