At what age to give up naps?

[lmwbasye]

What age did your DC give up their naps? I'm so frustrated with DS right now. He is 38 months and has gotten up a million times from his nap and will not sleep. On days he does nap (a fair amount of the time), he sleeps for around 3 hours! At school, he sleeps for 1 - 2 hours (they wake him up at 3 p.m.). Anyway, I'm wondering if I'm forcing something on him that he is old enough to outgrow (although, I'm honestly not ready to give up that time, LOL!)

Just curious what others have experienced.

TIA!

Laura :)

[tny915]

It totally depends on the child. DD, at just past 4, still naps most days for 1-2 hours. These days 1 hour is perfect. With 2 hour naps, she has trouble falling asleep at bedtime. She will generally sleep from 9pm-7am with a 1 hour nap. With a 2 hour nap, she may not fall asleep until 10-10:30pm.

Whenever DD does drop her nap, I'm going to have her do quiet time, where she'll stay in her room for some down time for both her and I. She does occasionally skip her naps, and on those days she'll hang out in her room with the shades drawn or read or play quietly in her play tent.

Most of DD's classmates who range in age from 3.5 to 4.5 years old have already dropped their naps. They generally have earlier bedtimes than DD.

[brittone2]

I stopped DS from napping when DD was born, right around the time he turned 3. There was a transition point that was a little challenging, but it was too hard for me to juggle timing all of the naps. The problem w/ him was that he actually liked napping, but he also was not tired until 10-11 pm as a result. For me, it was just too much to have him awake all evening long. He was crabby before his nap, but happy and genuinely not tired until late at night. Once he gave up the nap, it was a little tricky w/ his tiredness and grouchiness at nap time, but he was going to bed by 7:30-8pm, which was nice for us.

I think he would have kept napping for a while longer, but the transition worked out great for us. DD isn't much of a napper at all unfortunately!

[lablover]

For my DS I think the regular nap stopped around 3. I turned it into quiet time in his room for awhile, but for us the problem was that if he napped then he would be up until midnight before going to sleep for the night. Frequently at quiet time he would read for awhile and then all asleep, so I was constantly trying to catch him before he fell asleep. I then moved quiet time to the couch where he would stay awake. Even now at age 4 I have to watch him if we are in the car during the late afternoon hours because chances are he will fall asleep if I don't make sure to keep him up. Even a 5 minute catnap in the car screws him up and he won't fall asleep until 10-11pm. He does still take a nap at daycare on Mondays and it's just become a part of our schedule that he won't fall asleep until around 11pm on Monday nights. We put him to bed around 8:30 and he just looks at books until he falls asleep.

[dotgirl]

We've made the decision to trade our DS's naps for "relax time". He just turned 4, and we find that if he takes a nap, he just will not go to sleep that night, and then wakes up the next morning tired and cranky. But with *no* rest of any sort, he's a big ball of cranky by 7pm.

So we put him in his room (or ours) with a couple of books and have him sit quietly and read for about 90 minutes - it does wonders. He comes out relaxed and pleasant (for a 4-year old), and doesn't stay up until 10:30 every night.

[lmintzer]

Jack gave his up between 4 and 5. He napped every day until 4 and every other day until 5. We instituted what we call "book rest," and it worked for a few years. Now, it has morphed into quiet play time for an hour on days he's not in school.

Joshua is starting to give up his nap at 4. He naps roughly 4 days/week and just talks in his bed on others. He's a total bear when he doesn't nap--it's really awful.

I think my kids are much more sensitive to "sleep loss" than some others. Even a half hour less really affects their moods and behavior.

[saschalicks]

DS#1 just gave up his nap about 6 weeks ago. We try and try to get him to nap, but it aint happenin'. LOL! He just turned 3.5. It's different from child to child. There are mamas here who tell you their child stopped at age 2.

[hez]

DS is 4 1/4. He hasn't napped much since Dec. 14th, which is when I went on vacation. In contrast, he's been sleeping longer at night/in the morning. I think when we go back to our regular schedule on Jan. 2nd he'll be napping more often again.

From fall 'til now, he napped 3-4 times a week. He was napping 4-6 times a week over the summer (before PM preschool started 3 days a week). It's been a gradual step-down.

[KrisM]

We dropped DS's nap for him at 32 months. He was only napping an hour and it was making bedtime 11pm. He still got up at 6, so was only getting 8 hours for the day. Dropping the nap was hard, since he really wanted it, but it did change bedtime back to 7:30 and he got so much more sleep it was better for everyone!

I wish we could do rest time or quiet time, but he'll still fall asleep if given the chance and it's been a year. I hope we can get to that point.

[HHCs Mom]

DS1 is 3 years 8 mos and still naps 1.5 - 2 hours each day. He goes to bed at 8pm but usually doesn't fall asleep until about 9:00. That's fine with me though since I need for him to nap in the afternoons. :) He also needs it and on the rare occasion that he doesn't nap, you quickly realize WHY he still needs that afternoon siesta! :)

[DDowning]

My DS is 4.5 and he's recently in transition now. He refuses to go down but he still soo needs it. Come 5:30/6pm, He's an absolute BEAR. The best I can do is get him to sit still on his playroom couch and watch a video during DD's naptime. Even that is challenging. There are some days where I will literally throw the two in the car and drive around for an hour or so just so that he naps - he doesn't want to but his body is telling him otherwise!!!!

[hardysmom]

Like everything, this has so much to do with the child and how much effort you want to put into napping..

My 4-in-march twins will stillnap BUT I have to stay in the room for about 15 minutes until they fall asleep to keep the peace. Of course, most don't have 2 3yr olds in one bed! If I just put them down and left the room like when they were smaller, they would never go to sleep.

Once asleep, they will sleep for 1-2 hours and they have no problem going to sleep at 7:30 - 8 pm. One crashes hard, the other fights it. They wake up arund 7 am. If they don't nap, bedtime doesn't change, but they are very, very cranky by about 4pm and evenings are very difficult.

For me, the hour of peace is worth hanging out in their room and giving up afternoon errands/activities. If we have something to do in the afternoon, the nap isn't critical and/or they will sleep in the car. On school days, they have a brief nap time on mats. 50% of the time one twin is asleep when I arrive at 2:30, the other is rarely asleep.

My 6 yr old DS has "quiet time" during the twin's nap. Occasionally, he'll also fall asleep.

Stephanie

[SnuggleBuggles]

Around 3.5yo. But, there were times off an on till he was 4.5 that he still napped. Sometimes he would have a few weeks where he napped every day even if he hadn't been napping in months (usually when the weather got hot). Naps were about 3 hours long.

Beth

[Jenn98]

DD#1 went from 2 to 1 nap at 12 months and dropped her nap all together at about 2 years and 3 months. There are a few other kids in her class that also do not nap.

[Tondi G]

It all depends on the child. DS#1 stopped napping around 2.5 years old. He was pushing the nap later and later till he was going down way too late and then wouldn't go to bed till 11pm. I had it and just stopped trying to get him to nap.... for a while he was a little cranky in the evenings and there were days he would fall asleep in the car if we were going out for dinner. I'd have to wak him up when we got there and spend a little while getting him alert and happy. He figured it out and we basically never looked back. With DS#2 he will be 3 in early May and he is still needing and taking naps regularly... typically at least 2 hours... sometimes 3 or more (but the 3 hr naps tend to push bedtime later). He needs the nap. There have been a few holidays/birthday parites where he just wouldn't go down and he often ended up passing out sitting up on the couch around 6pm.... I let him get a 30 minute catnap and then roused him so it wouldn't kill bedtime. He was ok. I am hanging on to his nap as long as I can.... we'll see!

~Tondi
Mommy to Mason 7/01 and Aidan 5/05

[AngelaS]

My oldest napped most days until the end of kindergarten. So, she was 6.

My second is in kindergarten and naps daily for 1 to 2 hours. She sleeps 10 to 11 hours at night.

My youngest is 3 and still naps about 2 hours every day.

All of my kids went thru a stage at about 2.75 or 3 where they stopped taking good daily naps for a period. I kept putting them in bed, telling them to stay in bed and making them 'rest' for an hour. After a couple weeks of listening to them play during that time, they all went back to sleeping during that time. :)