How did you know it was time to drop the day sleep completely?

Hey everybody,

Just wondering what your kids/toddlers did that let you know it was time to drop the day sleep? Obviously some kids just start refusing point blank to go to bed/sleep after lunch etc but for others how do you know when it's time?

TIA.

When it took me longer to get him to sleep than he actually slept.
When we had to miss a couple of day sleeps due to activities and he was OK, if a little ratty by 5pm. He'll happily go to bed and take 2 minutes to go to sleep now at 6pm. Sometimes, I kid you not it is before 5pm if it's been a big day.

Oh and nice avi by the way ;)

We're going through this right now. DD has been trying to drop one of her day sleeps for a few weeks but silly Mummy has only recently figured it out. The first thing I noticed was that her afternoon sleep started getting shorter and she started playing for longer in her cot when we put her down before having a sleep. Then the morning sleep was pushed back half an hour too. Meanwhile I just kept to the same old routine and because she didn't fight it, I didn't realise. Then she suddenly stopped sleeping in the arvies and would just play in her cot for 45mins - 1 hour and then crack it to be gotten up. And the main trigger - she was totally fine despite the lack of sleep.

Mj has been trying to drop her sleep for a while now...
We take it as it comes each day, honestly i was thinking about leaving it about a year ago, so we decided that she would have 'quiet time' on her bed, curtains drawn etc, we would have a story and i would put on a CD and told her she could come out when it was finished (it ran for about a hour) and that she didnt have to sleep.
this went on for a week and then she started sleeping again... its has been on and off since. If we have things on, she always misses the sleep, but generally i try and get her to sleep every second day. She didnt sleep Friday, Saturday or Sunday and SOOOOOOOOO needed it today, she was at CC today and i spoke to her careers as she normally doesnt sleep there and they offered to sit with her to help her sleep, which she did.
She is almost 3 and 1/2, Im not sure how long she will still need them several times a week, but she doesnt need them each day now if that makes sense.

hope this helps :)

Similar to the others.

I encourage my DS2 to 'have a little rest' (if I say it's time for a sleep he will just fight me saying NO!) just on the couch and he sometimes nods off and sometimes doesn't.
I also found that they got to a certain point where if they had a nap they were later/more difficult getting to bed and it wasn't worth the 30 min to and hr I got of peace in the arvo. I think you kind of have to play it by ear and if they look/act like they need a sleep then encourage it, but if they are fine without it then just leave them. A bit of a guessing game, like a lot of parenting!

HTH

For us it was when after having her day sleep, DD would be up bouncing off the walls till all hours of the night :duh: She was happy enough to have the "hours quiet time" and would often nod off, but then getting her to bed at night became really hard, where skipping the day sleep yes she was a little ratty towards the end of the day but she'd conk out like a light come bedtime. Big difference :)

Kaz I just re read this and realised you are talking about going to no sleeps! Just ignore me sorry-can I blame baby brain?

I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as no sleeps ever. DD hasn't had a day sleep routine for four months, but she still sleeps in the pram or car if tired but not everyday.

I find the days she sleeps in the day are longer because then she's up till late and takes ages to fall asleep.

I would think it's a long transition process and they stop sleeping in the day when they stop falling asleep at random in the car or pram etc which will probably be a long time for us yet.

Was that a help? Geez nappy brain today!

we cut DD's sleep to save our own sanity! she was terrible at night so dropping it meant straight to sleep at 6.30pm, wish we'd done it earlier

When it started to impact night time sleeping. The time is coming for us to cut day sleeps *sobsob*. My kids are waking anywhere between 4.45am and 5.30am. Just rediculous....but I love the time they sleep in the day it's my only quiet time, I am soooo reluctant to say goodbye to it!

When getting her to sleep was a challenge (both for her nap and at night). She would be up past 10pm anytime she had a nap (even if it was early in the morning, not that that was easy to get to happen anyway). Now she wakes around 8:30am and goes to bed at night at 6pm, no dramas! I know some people can't bare the thought of losing the day nap but I much prefer those 4hrs in the evening than the couple of hours she was having during the day ;) We usually have a little 'rest' in the afternoon where we will lay down and just read some books or have a chat or do some puzzles, something quiet and if we have had a really busy day out she might fall asleep in the car but that is pretty rare. When I first tried it she didn't get cranky and after a few days was still fine, that is how I kinda knew it was right.

Definitely felt guided by DD's behaviour when it came to that last day sleep... Found that she was more than happy to be out and about, and we would often lose track of the time and then realise "oh it's 3 o'clock already!" I did go through a stage of her wanting to have a nap at about 4, and in short this was pretty disastrous - she would either think it was her night sleep and stay sleeping, waking at 4am or she would wake up invigorated and not go back to bed til 10pm :wall: In the end I felt a bit cruel, as I would make it my mission to not let her fall asleep, and boy did we have some terrible witching hours around 5-6pm. But honestly it didn't last long, she adjusted and started going to bed no dramas 6.30-7pm and sleeping really soundly. Think from memory this started happening for us at about 3, and by about 3.5 it was gone... Think it all depends on the child though aswell, DD hasn't kept still since the moment she arrived :)

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I don't have baby brain but I'm tired so I won't remember who said what but yes, we're looking at going from one sleep to NONE!! He has never been a great sleeper. Ever. And it's hard to describe what he does because it constantly changes and I know that's normal to some extent but there has always been some issue with sleep. He usually wakes at least once a night, even now at nearly 2.5yrs and we've had some really rough periods with lots of waking (and staying wake for hours on end!) in the past :( If we were home, or got home over lunchtime, I could always count on him to have at least one decent day sleep though (unless we were out all day and then he would stay awake for hours watching the world, no pram sleeps ever, even as a newborn, and only occasionally car sleeps). Aside from those really busy days, he's only ever not slept at home a handful of times up until he turned two in March. Since then he has gradually stopped having a sleep most of the time when at home. If we're at home all day then he gets in and out of bed a few times but rarely stays there long. Sometimes he does still sleep and I don't worry either way. His night sleeps continue to frustrate me at times but I'm pretty relaxed about day sleeps. I haven't tried to purposely settle him for a day sleep since he was 6 months old and just went off tired signs and then he got old enough to say he was ready/wanting to go to bed and it seemed to work because he'd pretty much always sleep at home.

He is still having a sleep at daycare and it is usually 1-1.5 hours. As far as I know he's only ever not slept there once or twice. I have them waking him after 1 hour now because he was catching up on his night wakings and sleeping 2-3 some days!!!!! but our evenings have been totally ferral lately and he is staying up an extra 1-2 hours and wanting lots of cuddles etc which is doing my head in as I'm tired (back at work) and just want my own space and he is lying all over me for hours :( That sounds really mean doesn't it? :(

ARgghh, I know I'm not explaining this well at all. He is so hard to describe sleep-wise. Sometimes he can daysleep and still go down ok at night but usually not. Sometimes he doesn't have a day sleep and then he may or may not sleep well at night. There is no pattern or predictability in his sleep. (That's actually the bit that does my head in the most, I never know if he'll go down at night or not and then when he does, I never know if or when he'll wake me up again).

Anyway, I'm really tempted to drop the day sleep at child care but because of the lack of pattern I'm not sure what to do. I think he goes to sleep because its part of the routine and also I suspect they pat him or sit with him or something?? I have told them he goes off without help during the day at home (if he's going to) and said they don't have to do that from my point of view. I thought they'd stopped but something they said this afternoon made me think they are still sitting with him to help him settle. On the days at home with no sleep, sometimes he is fine all day and other times we have had some horrible afternoons like nurseymum described above where he is ready for a sleep at 4 or even 5pm and I know he'll be up in a few hours and ready to party. I've kept him awake and copped the screaming and then whinging, I've let him sleep 30mins and then copped 45mins of screaming and crying after waking him and then he didn't go down until late that day anyway :wall:

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'm not sure how I expect you guys to help me work it out when I clearly have no idea what's going on myself :redface: I think I'm just feeling like I must be mad for purposely cutting out the daysleep after all the sleep issues we've had.

Hi Kaz, What a pain!
Do you have any kind of night time bed routine going?
For example, ours is usually a bath, then put on jammies, the then tidy up their toys, then have some stories, and then settle into bed and kisses etc.
I know that a bed time routine really works for us and that we have more problems if we haven't put them to bed quite right!
I hope you find something that works for you, poor sleep and not enough you time is really hard, esp when you are working too, Hugs.