Tips for Establishing "Quiet Time" in Place of Nap for 2-Yr-old

Quiet time was 2-4pm for all my kiddos. Was more for my benefit than theirs! I left their bedroom doors open and used baby gates. They had a clock on the wall and were taught how to tell the time. Rule was, it was mommy's quiet time and they had to stay in their rooms and play quietly, read or nap. They could call for me at 4:00. Most days they fell asleep!

Your son gets sleepy at this time but does not fall asleep.
How long... do you allow him to fall asleep?
Do you have a nap routine?
And, maybe if you waited a bit longer, he would fall asleep?
I just say this because, many times, Toddlers do take longer to fall asleep.
I don't fall asleep in 5 minutes even if I am tired.
But if you give them time enough, they will fall asleep.
They don't fall asleep in 5 minutes.
Both my kids still napped at that age. Needed to, and did so, without any battles. We had a daily nap routine.
If they did not nap, even if it was quiet time... they got real fussy and grumpy. So they napped.

It is hard, for a 2 year old, to be still and quiet for 1 hour.. per 'quiet time.'

In the mornings, also make sure he gets run around time, gross motor activities, etc. to expend his energy. Toddlers need this.
Then have an early lunch, then wind down, and nap time.
That is what I did with my kids as Toddlers, and they would nap. Needed to.

Mine is nearly 3.5. He still naps at pre-school, and with us at home. His daycare teacher taght them to- close their eyes, and cover their moths with their hands and lie under the blanket in a dimmed room. They wriggle for a bit, but all are asleep within 3-5 minutes, and stay asleep until the birds sing. They had a bird alarm clock. We bought one too.

Mine can go from climbing the walls to asleep in 3 minutes due to the use of this routine. He has confidence too to let go and sleep because he can/ will wake up when the birds ring.

I'm not opposed to videos though if that works for you. play dough in a high chair, rotating boxes of quiet toys (stringing beads), picture books, blocks, etc could help keep him occupied.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

My 2.5 yr old is phasing out of napping at home (as far as I know, she still naps at daycare). However, we do enforce quiet time at home, and she usually still ends up catching a quick nap. We just put her in her bed and tell her she can read books or play with her toys quietly, but she is not to get out of bed until we come get her (usually about an hour). We shut the door but leave the baby monitor on. She usually "reads" or sings to herself or plays for 15 - 20 minutes, but since we have the blinds closed and her "sleepy music" on, she'll generally drift off to sleep.

We did the same with my now 4yr old, and she has the same rules for quiet time in her room while her younger sister naps/has quiet time. We usually get about 1.5 hrs in on the weekend for quiet time.

Why not let him watch Super Why? I found that "quiet time" exhausted me because of the mess that was made, so I established video time. Works great. They get to rest, and I get "me time."

We transitioned from naps to quiet time by having that be the tv time. Put on a movie something low key that is about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Older Disney movie are perfect for this. Alice in wonderland, Cinderella, lay and the tramp etc. Put a blanket and pillow on the couch and turn the movie on. I would not encourage playing during that time it's not down time if they are up and moving.

If you give him time will he fall asleep? My sons both napped until they were in Kindergarden. If he is done napping them you may need to find another idea, I mean would you want to have to sit quietly in your room for an hour just because the other people in the house needed a break from you? (I know that is not what you mean, but that is how it may seem to him). If he is done napping them get him in an activity that allows for you to have a break, like painting or legos or a tv show or computer game.

Get him a way to play music. That helped to keep my little ones in their quiet time. But honestly, establishing it was more than making it fun. To establish quiet time, I had to make it not worth her while to come out of the room and to do that, there was a punishment involved if she did.
As for me, I went insane if I didn't get that little down time and giving into t.v. was not an option for me. To be honest, the first few weeks were not pretty. But once she realized that staying in her room was what needed to happen, she really enjoyed her quiet time. Yes a timer is a good investment. A cheesy wind up one that you can see moving closer to 0 was the easiest for her to understand.
Mine did not skip nap until 3. At two, I may even consider installing a latch to lock the door from the outside. But there are lots of variables to consider, like if they use the potty or are in pull ups etc.
I will tell you this much, doing what it took to teach my kids to take a quiet time was the best thing I have ever done. I feel very sad for mothers who gave up and gave into t.v. on this one. This is when my kids really learn to use their imagination. Its good for them and its good for me and on the weekends it can be a Godsend for husband and me. And yes at times they make a mess of their room. But again, like mosts things, it took some work to get there and I'm glad I have kids who take quiet time. Even my 6-year-old goes to a quiet time with little coaxing. She has over the years learned to enjoy her time alone.

He's 2 not 8. He's not wired to do this. Either you need to sit with him and have some quiet time along side him or let him play and stop trying. If you go lay down with him and lay there quietly he may get back in the habit of napping again. Kids his age still do need their naps. They need that rest during the day, like you said. If given the proper environment a nap can be part of his day again if it's quiet and still throughout the whole house for that time.

I think this is great idea, but you've got to start small. Remember that for a two year old, their attention span is one minute per year. So, be clear about where he is supposed to be. You might consider using a tension/baby gate in his door if he needs a physical boundary to remind him that it's 'quiet time'.

I always suggest starting with a shorter amount of time the first few times. He needs to have faith (through experience, mind you) that the timer WILL ding eventually and that you will come and get him. When my son was about 3 or so, he was up to about a half-hour on his own-- it does take time. Our kids look upon us as the BEST playthings in the world, and you are asking him to not be entertained and to use his imagination and keep himself active. This is a huge task for a two year old.

You might ask him to have 'quiet play' time in his room for a short time and then tell him that he might sit on the bed with you and look at books quietly-- but only if he's being quiet. This isn't a storytime. Another angle is to say "Mommy needs a quiet time" and go into your own room. Make it about YOU taking YOUR time, and ensure that if he's unsupervised, he's limited to a very safe place. (again, a room with a gate is perfect).

I don't know ANYONE who has their kids take a 1 hour quiet time alone in their room at two. Nobody. And this is from 20 years of working with kids. That's a Holy Grail sort of thing-- a unicorn- a completely mythical idea. It's not about the amount of times you keep reinforcing it, either.

You could use the TV show as the 'reward' for quiet time. "You may play in your room until the timer goes ding, and then you may have a show after the timer goes ding." Just use a plain kitchen timer (it doesn't need to be kid-friendly, he's two, he's not going to understand it anyway, just play with it) and put it up high where he can't reach it.

For longer stretches of time, I have found that setting up a sensory play activity in the kitchen helps immensely. I used a big old quilt on the floor and a washtub (any decent sized bin will do) and gave the kids scoops and rice, or beans and funnels, tubes (toilet paper and paper towel tubes are great), sometimes it was rice and a few trucks, a couple shovels, etc. If you Google "Sensory Play" you will find a wealth of ideas that cost hardly anything at all. I actually invested in a big zinc washtub and we still pull it out-- my son is 6. Sensory play is a lifesaver, and with a quilt, the mess can be folded up into the quilt, then dumped in, it keeps the wet or messy floor safer too, so they don't slide on the materials they are using.

Good luck and I really appreciate you not using media time-- I find it tends to make kids MORE cranky when we have to turn it off, and it doesn't always allow kids brains times to rest-- the brain is constantly chemically responding to new images and gets a nice shot of dopamine while they are watching-- but the withdrawl of that chemical can make the after-movie transitions a bummer. Play can be restful, a lot of research shows that open-ended play is actually very therapeutic and educational for kids-- all without our doing much as adults. This is what we consider 'down time' for kids and I have seen that the more time kids have for open-ended play, the happier they often are. (And I know some kids do give up their naps at this age, so it just depends on the child.)

When my DD stopped napping around that age, I still had her stay in bed for the hour. The difference was, that she could have her curtains open for light, and she got to take a stack of books and coloring/drawing materials with her. She often played with her stuffed animals too. She was allowed to play, but she HAD to stay in bed. (She still slept about 1/2 of the days.) You could just buy a cheap kitchen timer, and tell him that when it rings he can come out. (I never did the timer, just watched the clock myself and went to get her when it was time to get up.)

i'm not sure how to answer this other than to get better boundaries in place.
even at 2 my boys weren't following me around or begging after they were told 'this is your quiet time.' and yes, between 2 and 3 the naps switched over to quiet time for an hour or two.
you put him in his room at the same time every day, read him a brief story, say firmly 'now it's quiet time. mommy will be back when it's over.'
leave. close door.
if he comes out, you lead him back in.
khairete
S.

Put him on his bed or in his crib. Give him books, puzzles, put so e music on. That's where he stays for an hour.

My boys both stopped napping around the age of two. In my house quiet time was tv/movie time. It was the only tv time they got at that age, and sometimes if they were truly tired they would fall asleep watching the show. I would set the kids up on the sofa with the tv in the late afternoon and I had uninterrupted time to cook supper.