More Night Sleep with No Naps?

That doesn't sound like enough sleep for a 3 yr old - although some kids just do not need as much sleep and others are naturally early risers. A couple of things to try:

1. Try moving up his nap time to earlier in the day.

2. Make sure that his room is completely dark, even when the sun starts coming up. It seems like his waking is around the same time as the start of sunrise. Is there a window in his room that the sunlight is peeking through first thing in the morning? Remember, 3 yr olds cannot tell time yet so often they think that daylight = waking up.

Good luck!

I think if you stop the napping you will have a crabby kiddie and one that sleeps *worse* during the night. That has been my experiences. I have a friend that had a similar issue with her little man and she tried one of these types of clock and had success:

http://www.leapsandbounds.com/catalog/thumbnail.jsp?siteI...

You can try it, ever kid is different, but in most cases it could create a very crabby kid which in turn they sleep worse at night. If the change does not make a difference or he gets really crabby late afternoon or early afternoon then ditching the nap might not be the best. Maybe tell him you will set an alarm clock for him and it will go off when he can get up.

My daughter (almost 4 years old) still does take an hour or two nap which sometimes is just an hour of quiet time, without this she is SO crabby around 5pm that she is impossible to deal with which is due to lack of sleep so for her a nap is a MUST. She then sleeps from 8:30pm to 7am at night. She did go through a rough sleeping patch, shortly after turning 3 years old, where she would wake up at 4am and I simple said that it is still sleep time and put her back to bed. After two weeks of that she was back on her "normal" sleep schedule. With there being more light in the morning that alwats triggers my daughter to wake up earlier (like 5am) but I simple put her back down and tell her it is not time to get up yet (after 2 weeks back to her norm schedule).

This sounds a lot like my daughter who is now almost 4. We eliminated the nap and moved bedtime to 7:15. She is asleep by 7:30 and sleeps until 7:00. It worked wonders for her sleep and her behavior. She will occasionally take 1 nap a week especially after a busy weekend but since it is rare, it does not impact her sleep that night. We did the same thing with her twin sister even tough she has always been a better sleeper. It worked great for her also and she sometimes sleeps until 8:00!
It was tough for me to give up the naps but has really made our lives better and I enjoy a little down time in the evenings with them in bed earlier.

Good Luck!

B.
www.babybearsden.com

No naps doesn't mean he will sleep longer at night , sometimes if they are overtired they sleep worse at night. You could try shortening his nap , make it 12-1 instead , and also you could try making bedtime a little earlier , maybe 7.30 so he falls asleep by 8pm.

Every kid is different, but if I my kids don't get a nap they are harder to put down in the evenings. My 4 1/2 yo old son still naps for two hours in the afternoon and EVERYONE can tell when he misses it. He becomes a cranky mess. But I have friends who say their kids outgrew naps by 2 or 3, so maybe for you guys it's worth trying.

It may be a "control" issue. We went through this with my son when he was younger. I think he discovered that we can't "make" him sleep. He would fight it at night - even when we knew darn well he was exhausted, and then try to wake up for good if he got up to use the restroom, like 4 or 5 a.m. We moved his bedtime to earlier by an hour. If he decided to fight bedtime, he would still get to sleep sooner. We also put an alarm clock in his room. We set it for 6 on the week days and 7 on the weekends. The rule was he had to lay in bed until it beeped....he could look at books if he wanted. He would rest and catnap and occasionally fall asleep. Eventually his internal alarm got pushed back too. He is still and early riser, but it is at a manageable time now. GL!