Please tell me she's too young to be dropping her day sleep

[danniellabella]

My DD is almost 19 months and I'm a little worried. On Saturday and today she refused to have her day sleep at all. She normally sleeps after lunch for 1.5-2.5 hours every day. Goes to bed around 7:30-8pm every night and gets up at about 7am every morning. This is consistant and has been for a long time. But as I said on Saturday and today (Monday) she refused to go to sleep at nap time. She had her bottle as normal. Was in her room for about 15 mins nice and quiet and then was up knocking on the door and calling out to us. We ignored her until she started crying. It was a kind of moaning cry at first but then got more serious so we would go in to her. She would be standing by the door and as soon as it was open she would burst out an be full of energy. Now when she was put to bed, she looked clearly tired.

I should point out that on Sunday she slept for about 3 hours in the afternoon no problem at all.

Please tell me she's too young to be dropping to a day sleep every second day. I'm so not ready for her to not have day sleeps.

[CrystalBoo]

IMO if they're still growing, they still need a day sleep, with only rare exceptions.
DD goes through stages every now and then when she seems to take much longer to go to sleep and mucks around a bit. Usually, I sit/lie with her and hold her hand for a while until she's sleepy and she'll go off, and then the phase passes after a week or so.
I'm praying for day sleeps right up until school age...good luck!

[sneakysparkle]

DD#1 started to drop out her day sleep when she was 22mths old. It took a while to get a new routine happening, but we got there eventually and then she was sleeping so much better at night - asleep at 6:30pm instead of 8pm and for about 12hrs.
Hope she keeps her sleep a bit longer for you

[Lulu]

Mine dropped day sleeps about 18 months - sheesh it sucked.

[danniellabella]

Mine dropped day sleeps about 18 months - sheesh it sucked.

Oh drats

[Arimeh]

Yeah Aricyn started dropping his just before he turned 2. First it was every so often, then it turned into every 2nd or 3rd day, then every 2nd.. then nothing.

Now he will only have a nap if we are out in the car - but we prefer him not to have a day sleep cos he'll go to bed at 7ish instead of 10!!!

[hayles07]

DS dropped his day sleeps around 18 months too.

[BekZ]

My DD2 is 22 months and has missed 3 out of 7 day sleeps in the last week. I am hoping that this is just a phase because I am so not ready for her to drop her day sleep. My neice dropped her days sleeps at 15 months.

Atm my strategy is to continue to put her down for a day sleep and cross my fingers that she goes down. Good luck

[Jac]

I tend to agree with Crystalboo that they still need at least a rest (if not a sleep) until school aged. I also agree that this is probably a phase, given that it sounds as though she is usually a pretty good day sleeper. My method is to put them in their rooms for a rest/sleep every day at around the same time. If they don't want a sleep, fine, but they need to stay in their room for at least an hour for some down time (with books, cars, dolls, puzzles ect). At most creches/daycare ALL children must rest everyday after lunch under the age of 5. Both mum and child need it, whether they know it or not! So keep doing it even if she doesn't want to sleep everyday.

[Curly]

Sorry but she might be...my DS dropped his sleeps at 18 months. Once a week he would have a nap, then once a fortnight, then once a month...like a watch that needed to be reset... but for all intents and purposes, the nap was gone at 18 months.

On the bright side he did go to bed at 5.30-6.00pm so we had a lovely long evening to ourselves. But gee it's a long day to get used to at first.

DD I suspect is going the same way, she's just clicked over to 11 months and seems to have cut back to one sleep a day (of less than 2 hours). DS did this before he turned 1. Sigh...here we go again.

If this becomes a pattern you might consider giving her her main meal at lunchtime instead of dinner...I often found that DS was too tired to eat properly in the first couple of months of having no nap. So if he'd had a good meal at lunchtime I didn't mind if he only ate toast for dinner.

[*star*]

My DD (2) drops the occasional nap, but she is still very regular about needing a sleep. I agree that they still need a quiet time / rest, even if they drop a sleep and am planning to do that for quite a while!

[danniellabella]

I don't want her to go to sleep at 6pm. Both DH and I work full-time so we don't get home until 5:30-5:45. We'd never get to spend any time with her if she started wanting to go to sleep at 6pm! She needs to keep going to bed at 7-7:30pm every night so we get some time with her. I don't want her to drop her sleeps yet and want to sleep earlier in the night. (sorry, I'm having a little tantrum here).

[Jac]

Don't worry - she will keep having her nap (rest) if you keep putting her there!! Utilize quiet toys if she gets upset about taking a nap, and tell her "mummy needs to do xyz and you need a rest". I think you are doing your child a disservice if you allow them to decide to drop a rest before the age of 3. What 2 year old (or younger) knows what's best for them? Little tackers need a rest to make it through the day and your job is to enforce it. Just my opinion, of course .
My DS has never been a good day napper and I let it slide for a while and then thought, hang on, I'm the parent here - you (and I) need a rest! I can hear him playing quietly with his bus in his bed at this very moment, and, if he were up in the living room he would be too stimulated to really have that down time (alone time). If you set the pattern that they need to rest pretty much every day then it should be fine (after some initial resistance). I usually get him up after an hour or so if I can hear that he's still awake.

[*EJ*]

My DS#1 has always been a really good sleeper, never complained about going down at night or during the day and still now, at 2 1/2 quiet happily (most days) goes down for his day sleep. His body obviously needs it and his mind allows it. Another little guy (same age as my son) in my mothers group has not been having a day sleep for most of this year i think because he'd flatly refuse.

If we are out during his sleep time he may miss it all together but i try to not let it happen all that often and he manages fairly well (temprement wise) on those days.

If you can gentley continue to try and encourage the sleep hopefully she will be happy to have a rest. I'm just thinking though if you force the issue and it becomes a bit of a battle between the two of you she may become more determined not to do it.

DS#2 sleeps well (only 7 months old) but can protest a little more than i remember DS#1 doing. I can hope and pray that he may be similar to DS#1 sleeping still at this age but i'll just have to wait and find out

Hope she continues to have such a great day sleep for you because i understand that time for us is precious also.

[Curly]

I think you are doing your child a disservice if you allow them to decide to drop a rest before the age of 3. What 2 year old (or younger) knows what's best for them? Little tackers need a rest to make it through the day and your job is to enforce it. Just my opinion, of course .

It's great that you have a system that works for you but I resent the implication that I am doing my children any disservice because I have chosen differently. Allowing DS to drop his day sleeps was something I agonised over but simple maths revealed that he was getting 2 hours more sleep per day without the nap...if he had a nap he was so rejuvenated he wasn't going to sleep till 10.30-11.00pm. At 18 months! Allowing this pattern to continue would have been the greater "disservice".

No nap does not mean he is running around all day long...we have quiet play time (eg books) as well as park time etc. Sitting in the car, walking in the pram, painting, play doh, watching some PlaySchool or Thomas....

Children are all different and sometimes, regardless of what we think they "should" be doing, we are forced to adapt our ideas to their personalities to a certain extent. This is why we post our different stories, to give people ideas, especially when they have a "non textbook" child. Just because someone else does something differently it doesn't mean they are wrong.

[Emma1979]

i agree with curly, i have just decided to cut my little one's nap (although she is a bit older at 2.5).... if she even sleeps for half an hour in the car it means HELL for me at night, sure she goes down to bed relatively okay, but wakes in the night unable to get back to sleep.... its a nightmare situation.... so now she wakes around 7am, and i try to have her in bed by 7.30pm... it is a long day, and she can often be overtired and wound up by the end of it, but to have her sleeping at night is way more important than have her having a nap, going to bed at 10pm then waking for hours at night.

the important thing to do when parenting is work out what works FOR YOU.... a friend of mine has her child the same age as mine having a nap, and he goes to bed around 9.30pm, but that works for them, so you just got to work out what works for you and your family...

one thing i can suggest which in our house guarantees exhaustion is outside time and lots of exercise... dd rides a proper bike now with training wheels and if we take her for a ride all that peddling definitely has some affect... as well as park time, general fresh air.... good luck!!

[sneakysparkle]

I agree with Curly - actually Jac your comments really offended me!

I think blanket statements can be really dangerous, so maybe just be careful how you word things next time

[Arimeh]

What 2 year old (or younger) knows what's best for them? Little tackers need a rest to make it through the day and your job is to enforce it. Just my opinion, of course .

Um well isn't it our job as parents to go with what our children require and not try to enforce anything upon them? Isn't that why this is a gentle parenting site and it encourages going with what is best for your child instead of doing what works for everyone else???

I have to say I'm a little offended as well - my son doesn't take naps because he was waking up after 2 hours sleep during the day and would SCREAM his head off for at least half an hour, and nothing I did could pacify him. Plus he would go to bed at around 10pm and wake at 5am. So is that still in his best interests? I believe not.

Please don't insinuate that we are doing our children a disservice because they don't fit into the mould that your child does.