My 4-year-old son is getting more and more reluctant to take a nap. I'm okay with him giving them up, but when he doesn't take one he falls asleep around dinnertime and is very very difficult to wake up. So he'll sleep until 7pm and then be up until 11pm or nidnight. This has been very hard on me and my husband. I've tried doing things to keep him awake, but it's very difficult because he is sooo sleepy. He might make it until 6pm, but I can't imagine putting him to bed at that hour... he would be up at 5am! We also have a 5-year-old daughter who would have a lot of trouble going to bed that early and we really want to have the same bedtime for both. Any advice is much appreciated! My preference is for him to give up the naps... but how can I get him to do that???
What time is he getting up in the morning--10 or 11? What if you start his bath routine at 6? Drag it out til 7 and then plop him in bed at 7. He should sleep til at least 6. Then you can tweak it, little by little, more toward 8 or so?
my son is in the middle of dropping naps as well because it was so hard to get him to bed at night--in stead of nap we do a quiet rest period in his bedroom--read books,color,lay down and sing together, watch a short video--things like that. that way his body still relaxes for 30min-1hr but he isnt falling asleep! hope it helps!
It will take a while for him to adjust to not having a nap. He isn't going to be wide awake until 7 or 8 the first week you take his afternoon nap away. He has to work into it. I put my son to bed around 6 or 6:30 when he went through this and he was up early, but it didn't last forever. Just a few weeks until we could push his bedtime back later and later until we reached 7:30 or 8.
From what little I know, every child has a different sleep pattern, getting two to be on the same schedule can be tricky. I have an active 3.5 year old and an almost 2 year old. Although I was not a firm believer in setting a schedule when they were babies and let them choose when they needed to eat and sleep etc. at that age, since they have gotten older, I find for my own sanity that having a mandated "quiet time" at the same time each day is a very worthwhile endeavor , even if they don't actually end up sleeping each day. What I have heard from research is that they do have significantly more sleep requirements than us at this young age. Sometimes if they don't get enough sleep in the form of a nap during the day, it throws off their nighttime sleep schedule as well.
2 examples. 2 different children. 2 different ages.
1 - my boy 3.5 wakes up every day around 7:45am, can and will play for as long as possible. I usually mandate quiet time starting around 1:30 and going until 4pm. Usually he will fall asleep around 2 or sometimes 3pm and sleep for a couple hours. If I disturb him once he's been asleep 45 min. very difficult to get him back to sleep, and he is more prone to crankiness later in the day. We move toward bed around 8pm or 8:30 to be asleep by 8:30 or 9 = somewhere between 13 and 14.5 hours
2 - a friend's boy 4 yrs old, no nap. wakes up every day around 430am in bed by 430 or 530 pm = 12 or 11 hours of sleep.
In part it would be hard for me to do 4 year old's schedule because he would never see his father who gets home around 6pm!!! So I give him the naps in part for that reason, so that he is coherent and fairly cheerful when his father comes home from work. For me, I think I am going to stick to the quiet time routine for as long as possible. If a child doesn't nap but learns to quietly read a book or entertain himself for that amount of time, I don't htink that is a bad thing.
