Hi moms,
My daughter has recently been reluctant to go to bed...for naps and/or bed. She sleeps 12 hours at night, but will fight tooth and nail to go down for a nap (gotta give daddy hugs and kisses, I forgot something, I gotta clean, for just a few of her many excuses, cute as they are). On the rare days that she does take a nap, it's the same battle at night to go to sleep. I know she still needs them because she is a major cranky butt later in the afternoon without one and her dr said kids need naps until 5 yrs old (yayyy). There haven't been any changes in her routine or homelife...I think she is just being stubborn. If you had this problem, how did you resolve it? I do put her to bed earlier on no nap days, but that doesn't always mean she is napping the next day and so it goes again. Thank you in advance :)
Thank you everyone for your replies. I have decided to try the "quiet time" method for now and see how it goes. Today was the first day with it, I told my dad about it since he babysat her today, and she was surprisingly good natured all afternoon. Hopefully this keeps up, I enjoyed my "quiet time" while she napped and will still need it to be a good mommy. Since she has started to potty train, her newest excuse is "I need to pee pee"...and she has gone successfully everytime. Now onto the world of "no sippy in bed" if this is going to be her new habit. Just when you think you have it down....another new adventure begins. I love being a mommy :) Thank you again!
My only suggestion... does she get enough exercise.. take her out and run around go to the park ride a bike.. there is nothing like fresh air to tire her out.
I do not believe that kids need naps until a certain age.. but they do need sleep.. whether they get it all at night or less at night and more in teh afternoon doesnt matter.
Around 2 1/2 -3yrs I stop forcing my munchkins to nap... Instead they have quiet time. Lay down and look at a book, watch a movie, etc. It has worked well for all 3 of them...
Honestly kids do not NEED a nap until they are 5... I'm 30 and have days that I need a nap... 5 is no magic number.
Pick your battles. If you make nap/bed time the battle then you will be really discouraged really soon and stress out (probibly the reason for this post). If you have her lay down on the sofa with her pillow and blanket and start a movie (rule is she must stay on the sofa or its to the bedroom to lay down) On the days she NEEDS a nap she will fall asleep... On the days she doesn't fall asleep, plan bed time a bit earlier if she starts grumping...
W.; my first child did that, and it took me forever to get him to take a nap, then life went on and i had two more children and i began to realize that some kids just dont need naps, they outgrow them all the fuss i was doing during the day to be a good mom and make them take naps was a waste of time with some kids, some kids do better without that daily nap, dont push the nap, during day, if she is tired she wll nap if not its not worth the time and effort to force one, just enjoy her as you can, then make bedtime a routine same time every night bring in a glass of water, small one, or a bottle of water or something like a sippy cup so it dont spill, then do a routine for bedtime hugs all around and what ever she does, then put her to bed at night, with a bit of consistancy and use your energy at night to put her to sleep you find she does just fine, dont learn it the hard way that i did, and i hope you can benefit from my experience, she is old enough to cut out the afternoon naps, just have some fun times, and enjoy life D. s
I fought my 2 1/2 yr old high energy daughter for 6 months. Mostly because I needed her to take a nap (I was pregnant), when I gave up and just started giving her quiet time. My life became a lot more peaceful. I would lay down with her on the couch and watch a movie, sometimes she would fall asleep and sometimes we both would.
It takes about 2 weeks for their little bodies to adjust to the new routine, she will be extremely tired for that time period, but you will find that putting her to bed at night should become a lot easier (we also moved her evening bedtime up by a couple of hours. She is geting about 12 hours of sleep at night now. My other is still taking 2 1/2 hour naps at 25 months and he doesn't show any signs of stopping.
All kids are different.
Unlike other posts, I do think children need under 4 still need naps & it will be in my kids daily routine until then.
Anyways... your dilema... I have a 2yr old also... went through & sometimes still goes through the struggle mentioned above. Here are some tips:
1. talk about "nigh nigh time" as a regular thing that we all do. do this on a daily basis...not just when you're trying to put her/him down.
2. make it clear that he/she can choose ONE excuse (I need a drink of water). when she starts the excuses... I'll say "and what else before you go to bed?"... I get the laundry list out BEFORE I appease any of the items... I'll have her pick one and hold firm to that ONE.
3. let her have some toys/ stuffed animals in the bed/crib. if she ends up playing with them (quiet time) for 40 min and is still no sleeping...fine...pick your battles. most of the time, he/she will eventually fall asleep.
This was a phase- lasted about two weeks- with my kid. However, for some reason she wants to have just about every stuffed animal sleeping with her...and she puts them under her covers after hugs/ kisses to all. It's a quirky thing but she goes to bed happily which means we do to!
I know some kids nap until they are five, but I seriously don't believe most kids NEED to. I have three kids, my first quit napping at 2, my second around 2 1/2, my third is 1 1/2 and of course still naps. With my first, we just quit naps cold turkey when she was staying up extremely late at night after taking a nap during the day. She was a little cranky at first, but adjusted rather quickly. My second needs her sleep more and we tried every other day naps for a while which worked alright, then we just stopped them altogether later.
My oldest was high energy, too, and just didn't require as much sleep as other kids. Every kid is different. Don't torture yourself twice a day with bedtime and naptime just because the doctor says kids nap until 5. It may not be that your daughter is being stubborn, she may not be that tired and doesn't want to lie down for a nap so she stalls.
Once mine quit the naps, they went to bed earlier at night and would often sleep more than 12 hours. They really only got around an hour or so less sleep than they were already getting when taking naps.
Good luck, and I hope some of this helps!
J.
Hi W.,
My son stopped taking naps at about 2 and a half. He has a quiet time now. Since it's been nice out and we have been able to play outside there have been a couple of times he has fallen asleep during quiet time. For us quiet time is in his room "reading" his books or playing quietly with toys. Every child is different and I have a nephew that took a nap until he was 5 but both of my kids stopped taking naps at 2 and a half. I moved their betimes up to about 7. That way they still got at least 12 hours of sleep, sometimes more. Good luck.
Chris
I raised 4 kids...and by the time they were 3 years old...naps were a thing of the past. Whatever Dr. told you kids NEED naps til they are 5 never had kids! While mine were still not school age but no longer napping, we at least spent a half hour to an hour with a quiet time...reading a story or even just cuddling & looking at pictures in books or doing simple puzzles after lunch. Bedtime at night was earlier...about 8pm and they slept all night til 6-7am. and again at night things were quiet...stories or an appropriate tv show with lowered lights, then it was off to bed and lights out. ALL kids try the "1 more drink please" or similar things to stay up. just be firm about them going back to bed. Children need to LEARN to wind down for a night's sleep and once it is...keep as regular a schedule for bedtime & getting up in the morning as possible. Don't make it a battle...no one will "win" as it only stirs them up more then & they'll learn to fight getting sleepy even harder. Like adults different children need different amounts of sleep. Some show even that early whether they will be a "morning person" or a "night owl" the rest of their lives lol...some of my 4 wound up just those, my boys are for the most part morning people, 1 especially so...my daughter is a night owl.
My twins gave up naps at about 18-24 months old... I'm not convinced that they "NEED" to nap until they're 5 yrs old. We just phased in an earlier bedtime by about 15 minutes over three or 4 days at a time until bedtime was 7:00'ish. My son is the early bird- up when the rooster sings, and my daughter would of course sleep until noon if she has it her way.
With it being so daylight at 7:00'ish, we had to cover their bedroom windows with a couple layers of newspapers to get their room dark. A consistent routine is your best helper. Dinner, playtime, cleanup time, bath time, story time then brush teeth and into bed. Once the routine is in place, she'll know exactly what comes next and won't want to control the situation with unwanted behavior. It helps to also have a morning routine so once it's officially "in to bed" time, she knows she has to go to sleep in order to do whtever you do in the morning.
Best of luck!
she may be reluctant to take a nap because of her length of sleep during night. It may help if she only sleeps maybe even 10 hours a night. It has helped me with my son. If he sleeps too much during the night, he doesn't want his nap during the day or would only take about 20 min. naps, which isn't enough for him. Once i cut his night sleeping down some, he took his naps almost always without reluctance and napped a little longer and was much less cranky during the day.
We lucked out, we were going through the same issues with my daughter, she is sort of scared of the smoke alarm (she calls it Mr. Whistle). She talks to it like it is a person, and before she would go to bed she always makes sur eto tell it to be quiet. Well on day in my frustration I said, "Mr. Whisle is going to be mad if you do not go to sleep." She pulled her blankie up over her ear and was asleep with in 30 seconds. I now use it when she is getting out of hand at bed and nap times (I do NOT set it off), but she calms down instantly and goes to sleep. I honestly do not know what I would do with out that.
