3 1/2 Yr Old Napping

I would try putting her to bed by 7pm. Children her age should be getting atleast 10 hrs. of sleep per night. This would probably eliminate naps, but maybe it would also help with her attitude. Even if you start the process of getting ready at 7 at first, gradually she will get used to it.

My suggestion is that you have "quiet time" for her in the afternoon. Put a movie in the DVD player and have her lay on the couch. If you want her to sleep, you might play something from food network or HGTV. LoL That'll put her to sleep :-) Hope it helps

Naps are a hard issue at this age. I think taking the privileges away is actually giving her the power to choose "I have decided I'm not going to nap today". Even if she does not nap "quiet time" should be mandatory. Give her books to look at and quiet toys to play with in bed, but don't give her the choice of not doing it at all. If taking a privilege away helps, use one that does not involve her bed time routine, i.e. watching tv, going to the park. Good Luck.

I have a son this age and he is in preschool four days a wk, half days, but I pick him up at 11:45 am, go home to eat lunch, read a book, maybe do a learning activity, and then he takes a nap. He doesn't always want to take the nap bue he really doesn't have an option. Sometimes I let him stay up if we are doing something else or out and about. I am a full time student also who is at school in the mornings so I use that nap time to do my studies which in return allows me to be attentive to my children and husband later. He goes to bed between 8-9 and has no problem. We also wake up between 6-7 in the morning. It works for us! Another thing, he does not take as long of naps as he use to but if he doesn't take a nap, he is rubbing his eyes about 7pm and has fallen asleep at 7pm and slept through the night so I think their little bodies need at least an hour nap time. Enough time for us to shower! lol....

Oh I am sure she is just growing out of her naps. I have gone through this with my 21/2 year old. She just stoped taking naps. I tried to get her down but she fought me. So to make it easy for me and her. She would stay up until 10 if she took a nap. I stopped putting her down for a nap. I do make she she is in bed by 7 now. It was 6:30 before, but she does fine with 7. We still do all the same routine I just start earlier. Dinner, bath, book, tucking in with some one one one mommy time. She gets up between 6:30 am to 7:30 am and she does fine during the day. If she goes to bed early this gives you more time for yourself which is not a bad thing. You may have to get up earlier, but hey thats the way it goes. I think quite time is great. I have tried to set that up with my kids, but preschool gets in the way of that routine so I don't stick to it. I hear most kids will fall asleep if you put them in their room for quite time with some books. Try that and see if she falls asleep. Once you start quite time she will get use to it.

It sounds to me like your daughter is telling you she likes the earlier bed time. My daughter quit taking naps at 18mos. I just put her to bed earlier. She still slept 12 hours and I was fine with that. I don't think taking away privileges such as book reading time is good. Just change her bed time. If you want her to have quiet time tell her she has to spend an hour in her room, on her bed, no talking. She doesn't have to go to sleep, but she does need the quiet time every day. Keep putting her to bed at the earlier time. If she is exhausted by 6:00 then that becomes her bedtime. As she grows her level of energy will change and so will her bed times.

My 3 1/2 year old quit his naps a few months ago. I started giving him the choice of either playing quietly in his room or laying down. When he really needed a nap, he would lay down and sleep, but otherwise he'd at least have some quiet time. I started noticing on the days he actually took a nap that he had a really hard time going to sleep at night, so now we don't do naps at all...just quiet play in his room. I think a 6:00 bedtime is the right way to go. If it works for your schedule you could even go earlier, if she's acting tired. I've found that when I try to wake my kids up before they're ready or keep them up later I just end up with an overtired child who has an even harder time going to sleep. She'll probably need the earlier bedtime while she adjusts, and the quiet play time not only gives her a little rest, but it also gives you a little break. She seems to be acting very normal, and it sounds to me like you're doing just the right thing by putting her to bed early.

Hi M.,

I also have a daughter who will be 4 in May and we went through the samething about the naps and behavior and then her being a crab by 6 pm and I could barely stand her.
So we get up and get our day started at 7 am every morning and have breakfast at 7:30. SHe knows everyday at 12:30 after lunch it is nap time and she has to lay down and take one also. Her bedtime is 9:00 pm though. She has learned that there is no getting out of taking a nap at naptime, she needs it and I do to. 90% of the time it takes her all of 5 minutes to fall asleep at nap time. And even for bedtime she still lays right down. We nap from 12:30 - 2:30 (sometimes 2:00 pm).

I have a 2 1/2 year old who is starting to out grow his naps as well. I also taught preschool and know that just having a quiet rest time can be very beneficial to a child who won't actually fall asleep. I have my son lay down in his bed with books and his bear for about an hour. I often stay with him and we whisper, make the room dark, and relax with soothing music. This has really helped him get over his early evening crankiness and make it through the rest of his night. Good luck!

I had the same issue with my son now over 4yrs not wanting to nap any more at the same time it started to really decrease when he was 21/2.Children outgrow nap times around 3 and 4,however they still need down time too calm them down and to play on their own.I personally don't take privelages away just because he won't take a nap he didn't do anything wrong that need's a punishment.I would explain to your daughter that during the day there will be down time to go to your room and listen to music lay on bed look at book's but no TV for at least 20-30 min.This work's well with me.You can have these down times more than once a day if you'd like.Since my son doesn't take nap's he is in bed at 8 he every now and then will be crabby or not listening but that is due to the baby who is now 1.Kid's will be kid's but we have to set guidelines for them,we as parent's want these nap's so bad for our kid's cause we need that down time too.It'll get easier you may need to move bed time up,ya it'll be hard now with spring coming up.

I would not punish her for something beyond her control. All children go through statges of development. And she may be outgrowing her naps and maybe suggest to her a small nap a day will help her get strong bones and grow. But when she does want to go to bed early what is the issue. As adults we have our moods and sleep problems. So just bear with it she is growing and someday youll see this battle was not such a big deal, work around it I am sure you can compromise with her gradually. Good luck.

I have the same problem with my son. On ly he is pretty much on permanent stike now. I would try not to put her to bed early and get her up at the same time in the morning as long as you can stand it for a few days. Then maybe the next day she will be tired enough to take a nap. That way her schedule will stay as much the same as possible. Also, since she doesn't get a book sometimes at night, do you read to her during the day? I don't think it is a priveledge, but a right of every child to be read to on an everyday basis. It's part of the Every Child Ready to Read program and an important bonding tool for parents and their children. You probably already do that, but if not you can find out more about that program at your local library. Hope this helps!

Forget the nap and put her to bed at 7:00 pm. We have rest time when my 3 and 5 year old sit in their rooms and read or play with toys - Quietly. This has worked for me. My kids sleep don't wake up until 7:30. Kids your daughters age need to have 12 or 13 hours of sleep at night. Going to bed at 8:30 means she's only getting about 10 hours. That's not enough. She needs to ge to bed earlier. Try it for a whole week and see what happens....

I make my 3 yr. old son take a nap. He still needs one, even though he says he doesn't. LOL If he hasn't had a nap, by 7pm he gets really tired. He's been so tired from not taking nap he's fallen asleep at the supper table. Now my 4 year old(he'll be 5 in july) doesn't take a nap. I still think a child needs the sleep at age 3.

Giving up naptime is different for each child. Perhaps an idea would be to have her take naps every other day. Naptime for my children changed as they grew older (I have 6 children who are now older.) Naptime can change to "quiet time" and not so much a nap every day. As long as they are "resting" and you set a timer or something that gives them some down town. A good questions for you is "Would I want to nap every day or is every few days enough?" Some days you might want to and other days not. She is exerting her independence. You can't make her sleep but you can encourage rest.

Hi M. - My daughter is now 7, but I know exactly what you are going through. It sounds like your daughter is alot like mine. We still had her be in her room for quiet time, and we allowed her to lay and look at a book. She had to stay in her room and be quiet until we felt she had enough wind down time. There were some days when she would fall asleep and others she would stay awake the whole time. I would try to wait until she started rubbing her eyes or became winey before I would put her in her room. If she gets up at 7am, what time are you trying to lay her down for nap? My daughter would go down at about 1pm and usually would fall asleep. Another thing we did was we stopped calling it "nap time". We just told her that it was time for all of us to have some quite time to ourselves. After about a week she realized that we were all being quite and she quit fighting us about it.
I hope this works nad it will get better.
C.

My son is 2 and he dont nap everyday and he sometimes gets crabby at about 4pm. Really nothing you can do if they dont nap, cant force them if they arent tired. I just gave up and dont force the issue of my son napping, I do tell him he needs to do quiet time and watch some TV, if he happens to fall asleep its great. Hes pretty good at going to sleep around 9pm or so. If he dont nap hes asleep by 8ish.

Hi M.,
I have a 4 1/2 year old boy that we have the same issue. If he doesn't nap he is a nightmare. But he doesn't need a nap every day, so we have switched to every other day. One day he rests in his room (most of the time he falls asleep) and the other day he rest on the couch (he has to sit on the couch for 1 hour with TV or books). This has worked great for us. He now naps about 2-3 times a week and it seems like the perfect amount for him. hope this helps

Try shortening her nap to an hour. And if she still isn't sleeping then just have her lay in bed and "read" a book and rest for an hour or so. That way she is rested even if she's not napping. It's harder on us when they don't nap, cuz we lose that alone time, but you are the mom and you can have her "rest" for a while so you can recharge yourself or get some "work" done. Good Luck and God Bless.

I have a 3 yr old girl, turned 3 feb 1st. I know how you feel. Its so nice to have them take the nap but then she doesn't want to go to sleep at noc very well. I have now told my girls 5 and 3 that this naptime is mommy time and I need them to read books or fall asleep. My house normally shuts down at 1:30 pm till 3:00. this is when I can get some stuff done. Occasionally I do play webkins with my older daughter if I know the 3 yr old is sleeping. It will be rough if I can't have some mommy time during the day. My husband works late and I can't go nonstop. Good luck

I'm not above a little bribery for this. I agree, they need some quiet time (and so does mom) so what I do is tell mine if she takes a nap, she'll get a piece of candy or popsicle or something she'll be excited about to get. From my experience it's worked better to give her something for doing something rather than taking something away. Just a thought. good luck
T.

I too have a 31/2 year old little girl who has the same exact issues with napping. I too worked in childcare and I did come across a few other kids with this dilema and they just simply were not nappers. I gave up on my daughter because taking away her priveleges did not right the problem. I also realized that I can't make her be in trouble when she just isn't ready to take a nap. I just make sure she stays active until bathtime and then she usually goes straight to bed. If she calms down around six or so, she will fall asleep so I have to make sure I keep her doing something so she won't. We also have behavior issues when she gets too tired, but it's just something we have to address differently knowing she is tired. The bottom line is that she just doesn't nap, so we needed to adjust to her schedule.

I don't have the exact same situation, but my nearly 3 year old son started resisting naps around 2. It seemed early to me for him to give up his nap, but we found that if he got a nap he wasn't falling asleep at night until almost 9pm and still waking up at 6am. What worked for us eventually was to let him go without a nap most days to help bedtime go smoother. (as a side note, he was grumpy at bed time nap or not.)
Anyway, on to something that might actually help you! I would highly recommend "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" book. It has lots of information and good ideas for making naps and bedtime go smoother for infants, toddlers, and children. It also includes information about how much sleep children need for naps and nighttime at certain ages.

My son needs quiet time each afternoon also. The agreement is to lie in bed with his books, he may not fall asleep but he does rest. I have four children and he is the youngest, I've never punished my children for not sleeping, it isn't their fault. They do get punished for getting out of bed(other than potty) but not punished for not sleeping. A child this age only needs 10 hours of sleep at night, so what time is she going to bed? is she getting restful sleep?

Good luck,
D.

My daughter is the same age and going through a similar thing. But, try resting time instead of nap time, at least it gives her time to sit and read the book(s) to her then sometimes they are so buzy being buzy they dont give their bodies a chance to settle down. Or if all else fails I hate to say but a car ride does it for my daughter everytime!! God bless the car rides!! LOLS

Hello M.,

I have an almost 3 year old daughter and she's the same way. She hasn't wanted to take naps for along time now. Some days she does take a nap and some days she doesn't. But she also gets cranky and acts up when she doesn't have a nap. So I've started putting her in bed with a bunch of books after lunch. I tell her she doesn't have to go to sleep but she has to have quite time. 99% of the time she does end up falling asleep. But of course there are those few times she doesn't.

But that really seems to work for me. I usually will let her lay in there for about 45 minutes. Then if she's still not asleep I'll usually let her get back up. But if she starts getting cranky she goes right back in there.

Hope this helps,
L.

Hi M.,

I am going through the exact situation with ny 3 and 1/2 year old. She is trying to skip naps, but then is too crabby to make it through the day. Meltdown starts around 6pm and regular bedtime is 8:00 or 8:30. We are also incorporating early bedtime if no nap (and no book or snack)and this heightens the emotions that start to peak with sleep deprivation. I was also enforcing "quiet time" at the time she normally naps, but she would just lay in bed or quietly play in her room until we allowed her to come out.

Regardless, she is up at 7am every morning. After about 2-3 days of missing her nap, she takes a LONG nap 2-3 hours to catch up on the sleep she is obviously needing. I have been making nap time part of the preclude to whatever it is that we have planned for our day. For example, "We have to rest for a bit so we an build up enought strength and energy to go to the party today, or after we have quiet time, we can have loud time where we can make all kinds of noise." I also tell her that mommy and daddy are taking naps too so we can all be rested for our big day. (Mommy and Daddy napping too has been the most successful). But nothing has been a true solution. I am currently reading the Sleep Easy Solution for my 6 month old, and the book does address some key elements to happy sleep, such as: consistency, routine, etc etc etc. But I'm sure you are alread aware of these concepts. The Happiest Toddler on the Block does have some good information as well. Good Luck and please let me know if you get any other responses with ideas that may be worth trying!

Niki P.

Hi M. I think that quiet time even if she doesn't fall asleep everytime is what you should try. My children are older now my youngest being 8. They were in preschool by this time but they had nap time snd some of them fell asleep and some just laid there. Don't punish your child by withholding reading her a book at bedtime this is a special time for you all to bond and it will make her enjoy reading as she gets older and needs to read in school. At nap time try to let her unwind with a book on her own and maybe that will help her calm down some and she will begin to fall asleep also

My 3.5 yr old also sometimes needs a nap and sometimes doesn't. If I attempt to give him a nap and he doesn't need it he just lies there in bed and gets restless. He is always tired around 5PM if he doesn't get the nap but he didn't need it and couldn't sleep at 2. My answer is the days he can nap, take it. The days he really didn't do enough to be tired yet, he can go to sleep earlier. We just read stories and everything earlier. I have found that going with the flow is easier than trying to force stuff.

I went through this with all of my children. I would encourage "rest time", but don't stress on it. I know that we CRAVE naptime to recoup from our mornings as mommies but sometimes WE need the nap more then them so it gets frustrating.

I'm not sure I would take away the reading time before bed. What I would do is exactly what you are doing except the no book before bedtime. I would up the bedtime like you do if mine didn't nap but I'd still read a bedtime story. Reading is so critical at this stage in a childs development. I wouldn't take books away as punishment, I'd take the TV, movies, video games or favorite toys and leave the books.]

If it's just mandatory that she take a nap, then I'd agree with your DH and wake her up earlier. (This wouldn't work for me, I'm NOT a morning person!)

Just some thoughts. Good luck, I was a stay at home mom of 4 before my divorce. I know what you're going through. Hang in there.

S.