My son has always been a pretty good sleeper he has always needed lots of cuddling and rocking but recently for about 2 months has not consistently been taking his naps... So nap time we have lunch then go to his room where it is very dark we read two to three books then I rock him to sleep.. Usually he is asleep within 10 min if he is going to sleep.. When he doesn't take a nap that day he is climbing all over me sliding up and down me and I just can't control it and makes me angry so then I will put him in his bed... at night this will work to lay him down and tell him I will be right back and usually he is sleeping but when I do this during the day he is up out of the bed opening the door screaming down the hall.. I don't know how else to tell him that if he does not want to nap then you can play with your toys in your room by yourself... All he does is cry in there.. I'm just not sure if we should even continue to have nap time cause all it does is stress me out.. I don't know what to do.. Anyone with any suggestions please let me know..
I am so sorry. Nap time is a precious window of opportunity that people without young children don't understand.I agree with putting him in his room for 30 mins to watch a movie or play alone. At that age you still need some alone time.
I think he is phasing out of his need for a full nap each day. You can't really force him to sleep but you could probably do a 30 min calm time or quiet time. We do that with my 3 year old and she has learned to play quietly while her baby brother naps. We tell he she can read, color or do a puzzle....all calm quiet activities. You can probably suggest a couple things for a 2 1/2 yr old, but not much yet he can do quietly without supervision :-) I think that the more you battle, the worse the situation becomes and more stressful for everyone. It sounds like he is already associating his room with being alone and is starting to stress about being there in the daytime. Maybe it's better to stop making a fuss about the entire thing and try another approach... start with letting him lay down on the couch or in his room with the door open to watch a short movie or pbs show? It would keep him calm for 30 min while you get a chance to get something done...
My daughter never falls asleep with TV, it keeps her awake watching the entire thing. I can't force her to sleep so I just don't get much done until after bedtime. I just adjusted my thinking and move my schedule. In the BIG picture it's no big deal to not get the bathroom cleaned at that moment....they will only be little for so long. If he doesn't need the nap you could always use that time to read or cuddle together rather than leaving him being alone and having him be upset....he might be more receptive to that :-) and more mommy bonding time!
He's old enough not to need naps. Not all kids require naps at that age. Some children take naps up until five years of age while others stop napping by the time they are one. Each child is different.
We have a gate on my 3-year-olds door. We usually have 30 minutes of a movie as "quiet time" then turning the movie off means it's time to go to sleep. For naps, he sometimes sleeps and he sometimes plays quietly. Either way, he has to be in his room for some time in the middle of the day.
L.:
All kids are different and have different needs. My son, first born, napped until he was 6. Praise the Lord! My daughter, however, stopped napping at 2! LOL!
I needed my own time and their nap time was it! I, too, thought I'd go crazy until I came to the conclusion that even if she didn't 'sleep' she still had to 'rest.' What I did is sit her down and tell her that it was understandable that she didn't feel tired enough to nap but that we all need rest. I told her that during nap time, she had a choice of watching a 1/2 hour video and then resting for the rest of nap time in quiet, or she could 'read' and play in her room for a 1/2 hour and then rest, either way, she had to lie down in quiet.
Some days she'd still be awake at the end of quiet time, others, she'd fall asleep after that first 1/2 hour video or during her play time part of quiet time. Both ways allowed me to get my time and let her feel in control of what she was going to do - go to sleep or not, play or watch a movie.
The main thing is that she understood that she had to have quiet time for the whole of nap time regardless of what she did. Remarkably, I realized that both the naptime and just the quiet time were effective. When we skipped it altogether, she would be really cranky in the afternoon but if we had quiet time - whether she slept or not - she seemed to hang in there until bedtime without too much incident. That was just my experience. Hope it helps. :-)
I agree with the previous post. That's how old my daughter was when she stopped napping. Now she only needs a nap about once a week and it's usually in the car for 15 minutes. (she's 3) We also do movie or quiet time in its place. It isn't worth the battle, believe me. We moved her bedtime up to 7pm when she stopped naps.
Hi L.,
I have had a problem with my son napping as well. It may help to cut out all sugar from his diet. This means to go all natural. I now by all my food from a health food market for him. There is a tiny bit of sugar in the fiber cereal he eats in the morning but this is it. For lunch I make sure he eats vegetarian like chicken nuggets, and some little pitas with humus. A lot of products have sugar content.
I had to start wearing my son out (having him ride his bike outside, running a lot etc) and then lunch-after that I would tell him that he could watch TV> TO TRICK HIM I would make believe I was turning off the show in the middle of it. He would protest and say no I want to watch that-and then I would say "Ok well after this you have to nap ok?" then he would say ok and go.
Good luck.
It sounds like your little guy is ready to phase out nap-time. My daughter (just turned 3) is doing the same thing. I do insist that she lay down and watch a movie. I need some down time during the day so we have replaced naptime with movie time. That way I still get my hour or hour and a half of time to clean bathrooms or work on a sewing project or just veg. Somedays she still falls asleep, but it's pretty rare.
mine did the same around that age. He only naps maybe once a week or in the car on the way back from an outing. You can take the opportunity to get him to bed really early instead. I love having my son and daugther asleep by 7:30 because then we have the night to ourselves. Give it a try. If he is miserable and crying due to being tired by 5, then you need to try to get him to do whatever quit time you can. Have fun!
