how much sleep does/did your 3yr old get in a 24 hr period?

[lmh2402]

DS is killing me. he's just...i think he's trying to kill me.

we've opted to remove his nap - haven't offered it since last week.

it has helped a little bit with the early evening drag-outs - he had been going into his crib and then yelling and calling for me and crying for me repeatedly for up to two hours. in the last 5 days he's only done that twice...the rest of the time he falls right to sleep b/c i guess he's exhausted.

but he's still waking at night at least once...to tell me that he's ready to get up. or then he says he has to pee - but sits there grinning...like last night at 2am. no pee. just smiling saying, "you know, we could go play if you wanted mama."

and he is also now waking up before 6am.

so in total he went from getting 11-12 hours of sleep...so now getting maybe 9-10. and it's not solid. it's disrupted. i'm exhausted and i don't understand what's going on. he looks tired to me.

i've tried putting him to bed earlier - he wakes even earlier.

i've tried putting him to bed later - he wakes a little later, but not that much

just wondering if 9-10 hours seems like the norm for this age - he is 3yrs, 2 mths

thanks

(poll coming)

[wellyes]

At that age, wakefulness like that is often a sign of overtiredness. I would resume the nap.

[Green_Tea]

At that age, wakefulness like that is often a sign of overtiredness. I would resume the nap.

:yeahthat:

Sleep begets sleep. The more they wake up (IME) and the harder time they have falling asleep, the more they need it. If I remember correctly, my 3 year olds needed a solid 12-13 hours a day AT LEAST to be at their best. Usually that meant a 90-120 minute nap that started sometime around 1 pm, bedtime between 6:30 and 7 pm, and up the day between 6:30-7 am.

[alootikki]

Does he have black-out curtains in his room? Both my DC started waking up ridiculously early when summer hit because of the early sunrise. They both have black-out Roman shades, but the sliver of light that still came in was the culprit. Try completely covering his windows and see if that helps too...

[Snow mom]

I'd say somewhere between 11-14 hours. Right now her schedule is all messed up and she is overtired which causes her to stay up later than she should. Technically her bedtime is 7:30 although we are lucky to have her in bed by 8. She'll usually sleep 11-13 hours at night. I'm not sure what she's doing at school for nap right now (just changed classes) but their nap is 2 hours which she probably sleeps 1.5 hours of on most days. When she doesn't nap at school I can tell when I pick her up as she's cranky and bedtime becomes a huge battle. I agree with others that I would put the nap back in if night sleep is the only reason to remove it.

[Momit]

:yeahthat: to Wellyes.

It seems crazy but the more tired DS (also 3) is, the less he sleeps. Example: on Saturday we were at a party and stayed until about 9:30 (normally he has a book or story in bed at 7:30 and is asleep by 7:45). The next morning he woke up at 5 instead of 6. It will probably be another day before he's back on his normal schedule. It seems so counterintuitive yet it happens every time.

I would give an earlier bedtime another try, and also the nap, and give it at least a week-10 days before you decide it's not working. One poor night of sleep can throw DS off for several days.

ETA DS also takes a 2 hour nap every day

[arivecchi]

I've had a lot of difficulty with DS2's sleep lately. He is 3 and 1/2. A couple of months ago, I asked our nanny to not let him nap because he was not falling asleep until 10-11 and it was a nightmare. Without the nap, he was easily going to bed around 8-8:30 and waking up around 8.

A week ago, he started going to daycare in our new town and they make him nap there for an hour/1.5 hrs. So now he is going to bed around 9 (cannot make him go down earlier even though he is tired) and waking around 7 - so approximately 11-12 hours overall.

It definitely has been hard to nail down his sleep schedule lately. The fact that his older brother needs a bit less sleep and likes to go to bed late does not help either.

[elliput]

I voted "Ambien".

My kids are both crappy sleepers. DS can have a nap and go to bed at a reasonable time, yet will invariably wake up in the middle of the night to come climb in with me and wakes up at the first hint of daylight. Between DS and DD, I'm lucky if I get a decent night's sleep. Last night was a rough one. :dizzy:

[catsnkid]

Ugh. We are dropping our nap too lately. The goal is 8 p.m. but doesn't sleep until 830 sometimes, and wake up is between 6 and 730 a.m. naps have varied from none, 45 minutes and 1 1/2 hours.

[JBaxter]

None of mine napped regular after about 2-2.5 Jack is 3.5 goes down at 830 sleeps till 7-8 depending.

[theriviera]

11-12 hours, including a nap. However, we are experimenting with dropping her nap. She will still take one, but then she will want to sleep for a long time (2+ hours) and she wakes up in a horrible mood. We often wake her from her nap in order to preserve bed time (8 PM) but even if we let her sleep, she wakes up in a terrible mood. Yesterday we skipped her nap and she was pretty happy all day. She went to bed at 7 but was up at 6.

[chottumommy]

My 3 1/2 year old takes a nap at daycare (about 1 1/2 hour). Bedtime is 10 and I can't make it any sooner because of the nap and wakes up at 7. I tried everything under the sun to make him go to bed earlier but it didn't work and only made the situation worse.

So now I finish his bedtime routine by 8:30 and he can stay in his room or in the office room where I work after that. He can play with his toys quietly or read books. I don't entertain him after 8:30. After I started this, its so much easier at night. He plays and sometimes if he's tired goes to his room before 9 otherwise he usually is on his bed by 9:30 and asleep at 10.

He now follows his sleepy cues because I made him incharge of his sleep time. Before that it was a power struggle and led to so much frustration and anger both on his side and mine and it always boiled over to the next day.

I know I'm in the minority but I feel they need to realize when they are sleepy instead of setting a strict bedtime which needs to be followed everday.

[roseyloxs]

8pm to 8am most nights with no nap during the day. She gets an extra hour if she does nap. She is in the process of dropping her nap. Most days we go without it now. She does wake up at night sometimes but we just let her crawl into our bed and she goes back to sleep in a matter or minutes.

[Minnifer]

DD dropped her nap at a smidge over 2 despite my best efforts to preserve it. Since then, she has gone down between 7-8 pm and slept typically 12 hours. At 3, she rarely if ever woke in the middle of the night (now, as a new 4, she does a few times a week, for some random reason or another - drives me nuts and usually wakes DS - grrr!).

[ilfaith]

DS3 turns three this Thursday. He typically sleeps from about 8:30 or 9 pm until about 7 in the morning, and usually takes a nap for an hour or so in the afternoon...often in the car when I pick up his brothers from school, although occasionally he will conk out after lunch (if we have had a particularly busy morning).

[Dream]

DD is almost 4 yrs and I would say she gets about 9 hrs of sleep without a nap on a good day. But most of the time its less. And she still wakes up in the middle of the night. The minute she see daylight she wants to be up. And even if she sleep, she's a terrible sleeper. I've tried everything in the books but nothing worked. So we're just continuing hoping one day she'll be a good sleeper.

[jjjo1112]

DD2 turned 3 in February. She goes to bed about 7:15ish and sleeps until 6am then she naps from 12:30-2:30. If we are out and she misses her nap, she goes to bed around 6:15/6:30 and will sleep until 6am. My other kids all had pretty much the same schedule at age 3.

[maestramommy]

Laurel goes to bed around 7:15. Most days she falls asleep by 7:30-7:45. But she's up by 6-6:30. And sometimes this includes getting up at 5 to go pee. Then she has a one hour nap. Doesn't matter when it starts, it ends in one hour, give or take.

And imo it's not nearly enough. She seems raring to go and full of beans. But she's also very short on the fuse.

[kijip]

Usually in bed by 8PM and sleeps till 5AM when he climbs into our bed and snoozes for 2-3 more hours. Sometimes he naps. Sometimes he does not nap. If his nap is more than 1 hour it throws everything off but if he does not nap, he does not sleep as well that night (and he is an overtired cranky cranky pants come dinnertime.)

[twowhat?]

Mine sleep about 11 or 11.5 hours total. Naps are hit and miss. If they nap they don't go to bed until 8:45pm or 9pm and wake up between 7am and 7:30am. If they don't nap they sleep from 8pm until 7 or 7:30am.

They definitely do better with the longer stretch of nighttime sleep. Even when they nap for an hour and sleep from 9pm unil 7am, they are CRANKY. They do better with no nap (or a short 10-min snooze in the car) and sleeping from 8pm-7am. They'll get cranky in the evenings with no nap, but I'd rather have that and have them go to bed earlier and wake up in a better mood.

Preschool requires a 2 hour rest period. It kills me.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

ds is almost 2.5 and usually sleeps 930-830 am, and 2-3 hrs nap so i guess 11 hrs at night, 13-14 hrs total. though recently he's been waking up early at 730-8am, and napping longer (close to 3-3.5 hrs). he is in a crib still. (and for those who are jealous, don't be; my 15mo DD doesn't nap as well as DS, requires much less, and most of the time DS naps for 3+ hrs my DD only naps ~1 hr, so it's not like i really get a break! lol)

i would try the nap again, as others say, sleep begets sleep. when my DS skips his nap (as he did the other day bc he fell asleep 10 mins in the car on the way home from after lunch, and refused to nap despite an hour in his crib), he is CRANKY and is like a different child..after 6pm it is like constant whining and i'm pulling my hair out. i have to make sure i'm at home before noon otherwise risk of falling asleep in the car is there and i have 50/50 shot of getting him to nap again later.