At what age did your kid(s) drop their naps altogether? When she’s in school, my daughter still naps and still needs a nap (is obviously overtired when she doesn’t nap). With being home with us, she is taking forever to fall asleep for naps and even long at night. Today, she was awake for close to 2.5 hours at bedtime. I don’t know if she’s ready to cut naps or if it’s just that school is so stimulating and now she’s home with us and it’s not as tiring.
My son will be four soon. He was in preschool 3 days a week (9-1, sometimes 9-3). When he was in school, he would nap a couple of times a week and they would be 2-3hr naps (usually on his non school days/weekend days). The first week we were home all the time, I tried getting him to nap daily and it was the same as you described- took a while to get to sleep and then bedtime was awful. Last week I stopped mentioning naps and instead we would rest, listen to an audio story, or watch a show instead and bedtime was so much better. He did mention taking a nap once this week and fell asleep relatively quickly then and at bedtime. I’m just letting him take the lead now, as I think he is learning to listen to his body.
Post by sillygoosegirl on Mar 31, 2020 2:09:37 GMT -5
March 11th, the last day daycare was open and she wasn't sick. She is 5. Given that I really don't see daycare reopening, I'm pretty sure she is now officially done with naps.
DS is 3.5 and is probably ready to drop them, but I still make him sit in his bed for 2 hours with some books. At daycare they nap until kindergarten so I plan to continue this until he goes to Kindergarten at almost 6 years old.
ETA: at this point he falls asleep maybe 25% of the time
DD is 3.5 and still naps at school but dropped naps on the weekends a while ago. Now that she's home she's rarely napping. Yesterday she fell asleep on the couch at around 4pm and was up a little later than normal.
She was so stubborn about it I stopped trying to make it happen. If she seems tired I remind her she can go lay down but I've pretty much given up the battle.
Post by starburst604 on Mar 31, 2020 6:29:11 GMT -5
DD is almost 5 and she was still taking a short nap at daycare every day up until they closed, but hasn’t at home since she was maybe 3.5? I think at school she’d rather just lay down than play quietly so she goes with it there.
DD started to skip naps frequently at 2.5 and was completely done by 3. She would still take them but if she did would take forever to fall asleep at night and then wake up way too early. Cutting the nap fixed it.
Around 3. I wish we had laid the groundwork to enforce quiet time once naps were over, but we didn't live in a space that was conducive to that at the time, and now it's too late. I won't make the same mistake with #2. I would KILL for even 30 minutes of alone time during the day now!
Just after 3. Unfortunately daycare wasn't very helpful on the no-nap thing, so she did end up sleeping a bit there, which royally messed up her bedtime routine.
DS is 3.5 and is probably ready to drop them, but I still make him sit in his bed for 2 hours with some books. At daycare they nap until kindergarten so I plan to continue this until he goes to Kindergarten at almost 6 years old.
ETA: at this point he falls asleep maybe 25% of the time
This, pretty much word for word. I don't GAF if he sleeps, but he will sit in his crib for 2 hours quietly every afternoon so help me god.
My kids are 2 and 4. Both still nap (at school and home). School naps are about 1.5 hours and home naps are about 2.5 hours. My 4 year old starts kinder prep in the fall and will only have quiet time as an option, so our nap days may be almost over with him...cry!
My older one napped right up to K and then napped on weekends. My younger one stopped napping at 3. It is very child dependent. If you cut naps you need an early bedtime.
We still do nap time for my 4yo. With our current everyone-at-home situation, H and I really need the downtime in the afternoon to get some work done! She probably actually sleeps 30% of the time at home. Her pre-k still does lights off quiet time on cots so we keep that rhythm at home. She'll go to full day public school kinder in Sept at 4y10m and I guess we'll likely drop them then.
My DS (4 in April) stopped napping right before he turned 2. We did quiet time until he turned 3. After dropping quiet time in his bed I put a tv show/movie on for 30-60 minutes after lunch.
DS is 3.5 and is probably ready to drop them, but I still make him sit in his bed for 2 hours with some books. At daycare they nap until kindergarten so I plan to continue this until he goes to Kindergarten at almost 6 years old.
ETA: at this point he falls asleep maybe 25% of the time
This, pretty much word for word. I don't GAF if he sleeps, but he will sit in his crib for 2 hours quietly every afternoon so help me god.
Mine just screamed mooooommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy. And ripped his books. Even board books. Not very restful for me. Hence stopping doing quiet time at 3 yrs old... a year after he dropped naps.
This, pretty much word for word. I don't GAF if he sleeps, but he will sit in his crib for 2 hours quietly every afternoon so help me god.
Mine just screamed mooooommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy. And ripped his books. Even board books. Not very restful for me. Hence stopping doing quiet time at 3 yrs old... a year after he dropped naps.
Brutal. Mine is content for a couple hours as long as he has some books and his ukelele, ha. He's def an introvert though and I think needs the quiet time (almost) as much as we do.
Mine just screamed mooooommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy. And ripped his books. Even board books. Not very restful for me. Hence stopping doing quiet time at 3 yrs old... a year after he dropped naps.
Brutal. Mine is content for a couple hours as long as he has some books and his ukelele, ha. He's def an introvert though and I think needs the quiet time (almost) as much as we do.
DS1 is obsessed with his ukelele too. LOL
We only have books in his room for nap, but I have considered bringing a few other quiet toys in there. We'll see. He seems pretty happy with the books. Oh and he has a bunch of stuffed animals. He "reads" to them.
My DS is 3.5 and he's hit or miss. Sometimes he would nap while at daycare, because they make them nap until age forever, and then he'd be up til 9 or later, but at least he plays quietly in his room with the lights low. If he doesn't nap, he usually falls asleep around normal time (8-8:30). When he's home with us, he usually just plays in his room for 2 hours. He maybe falls asleep 25% of the time like icedcoffee said. I'm going to keep nap/quiet time as long as humanly possible, we need that break!
Post by penguingrrl on Mar 31, 2020 9:51:00 GMT -5
Oh, and we couldn’t do quiet time. Then they would fall asleep, be up all night, and wake up early. Instead we had to work hard to keep them awake if we had a quiet afternoon or were in the car. The payoff was worth it, though. With as little as a 10 minute nap my middle would stay up until midnight and wake up at 6. Without that she slept from 7:30 on until 7:30-8 am.
Post by steamboat185 on Mar 31, 2020 10:54:59 GMT -5
My big one napped fairly consistently until 5. My younger stopped at 3. She will occasionally fall asleep in the car after a lot of running, but that’s about it.
It varies so much by kid, even within the same family.
My DD turned 5 right before she went to kindergarten and even then would still nap on weekends.
When my DS1 was 4, we were really annoyed that preschool still made him lay down everyday, because then he had the hardest time falling asleep at night - he's now 6 and still has a hard time going to sleep at night, but has gotten pretty good about playing in his room until he falls asleep.
My DS2 will be 3 in June and is still a multi-hour napper and doesn't have a problem falling asleep at night (fingers crossed that it stays that way at least as long as everything is closed, since we need that time to work)!
Both my kids (5 & 2) still nap. The older one asks to skip sometimes but if we do, he's usually pretty grumpy in the evening. I'd like to keep him napping until K for my own benefit, TBH. We'll see.
Sometimes he does take awhile to fall asleep but once he's out, he sleeps for 1.5 hrs.