Mums with Toddlers.. advice please!

TheWaltons_3

My little one will be 2 in a month and this past fortnight has refused to have her afternoon nap. Her routine was, bed at 12 noon for 2 hours, then she would go back to bed at night at 7pm.

Now, she will not go to sleep in the afternoons. I take her up to her room and she trashes the place quietly - I am not comfortable about leaving her upstairs alone unless I know she is asleep.

I keep her downstairs with me and she plays with her toys, watches TV.. draws on the walls etc but she has become so whingy and demanding in the afternoons. I know it is because she is tired.

At this age, do they need that sleep or not?

Spendless

Mine outgrew PM naps too, around this age. If I was desperate for some time to do something/be without them, I would try a walk whilst they napped in their pushchair or if even more desperate measures were required, I even resorted to a car-trip.

If you prefer her to continue with afternoon naps, maybe more 'tiring out' activities in the morning parks, swimming etc.

Something to bare in mind with afternoon naps, here you daughter would be in (school) nursery in just over a years time. Just in case you end up with PM sessions.

TheWaltons_3

Spendless wrote: »

Mine outgrew PM naps too, around this age. If I was desperate for some time to do something/be without them, I would try a walk whilst they napped in their pushchair or if even more desperate measures were required, I even resorted to a car-trip.

If you prefer her to continue with afternoon naps, maybe more 'tiring out' activities in the morning parks, swimming etc.

Something to bare in mind with afternoon naps, here you daughter would be in (school) nursery in just over a years time. Just in case you end up with PM sessions.

At the moment with this weather it is really difficult to do anything, and I have three under 2's so if I were to venture out.. guaranteed there would be a bum to do, a bottle to do.. all of this is really hard to do when I am on my own.

I hate being stuck in at weekends because that is the time for the kids.

I will just leave the afternoon napping, she gets to bed OK at bedtime - her usual bed time is 7pm when she is having afternoon naps. Should I put her to bed an hour earlier now that she isn't having these naps? I think by 7pm she is overly tired and has these past few nights, been really upset when we put her down.

Counting_Pennies_2

When my son started to lose his day time nap I used to put a stair gate up on his door and say he could play, but it was quiet time now. I put a series of safe toys in his room and he played nicely.

This worked for a few weeks, and then he started to go back to needing a rest again, when his sleeps did eventually stop and he would refuse to spend quiet time in his room, I would say that he needed quiet time having a rest on the sofa and I would put a half hour dvd on the tv which sometimes resulted in him dropping off, and the rest of the time the half hour break was enough to recharge him until bed time.

I'm not convinced an earlier bed time would be the answer, but all little ones are different, you might just find she wakes earlier in the day!

troll35

Do your other little ones have a sleep at the same time? I would try to do something quiet with your 2 year old, maybe choosing a longer story than you might normally read and snuggling up on the sofa together. If you read it in a quiet soothing voice she may well drop off. she may only have a short nap this way but it may be enough to get her through to bedtime.

jamgirl

if she really doesn't want to sleep anymore then quiet time is probably the way to go.
explain to her that it is now quiet time.
tidy away all the noisy active toys and settle down with a book or jigsaws if you have the time to sit with her.
as you also have other littlies this might not be so easy! so other options could be some crayons and paper, a bit of tv or dvd.
again i know its difficult when you have others to consider but if you designate quiet time it can sometimes help if everyone is quiet and calm. if you're lucky she might drop off even just for a short time.

if she is getting over tired at bedtime you could try either bringing her bedtime forward 1/2 hour or just trying to make the process of bath/story/bed last a bit longer (by starting a bit earlier) . its amazing how long mine would stay in the bath rather than be whingy downstairs

Ishtar

My little one (who's now 2.5 years) stopped her naps at about 15 months and nothing I could do would persuade her otherwise. Having said that, if she's in the buggy or the car just after lunch, then even now she's very likely to have a sleep. Of course, that has a knock-on effect for bedtime as she doesn't feel tired and it takes a long time for her to get to sleep.

When she first dropped her naps she was exactly how you describe, becoming more whiney as the afternoon progressed. I found it useful to have a cuddle on the sofa, perhaps reading a story, just to give her some time to recharge her batteries. A high-energy snack was also useful - something like a flapjack and some fruit would keep her going until teatime.

Personally (and I'm not saying I'm right!), I felt that as she had dropped the nap herself, then she probably wasn't getting as much from it as before.

D.

fesdufun

I have two sons 4 1/2 and 2 1/2, my eldest dropped his daytime nap at a year ago and my youngest is still having them. They both went through stages of not wanting them for a while and then went back to having them. I have blackout blinds in their rooms which I think really helps. When they didn't want a nap I would try for about half an hour and then give up but I would try again the next day. Obviously every child is different but I think my children and me really benefitted from having afternoon naps. Good luck it sounds like you have your hands full.

TheWaltons_3

fesdufun wrote: »

I have two sons 4 1/2 and 2 1/2, my eldest dropped his daytime nap at a year ago and my youngest is still having them. They both went through stages of not wanting them for a while and then went back to having them. I have blackout blinds in their rooms which I think really helps. When they didn't want a nap I would try for about half an hour and then give up but I would try again the next day. Obviously every child is different but I think my children and me really benefitted from having afternoon naps. Good luck it sounds like you have your hands full.

I really have and am desperate to get back to work!

Poppy9

I stopped DD afternoon naps at 18 months old as she was getting later in the afternoon before tired and then sleeping too long. I brought forward her bedtime to 6pm and she would sleep through till just about 7.30am. We started the wind down with tea at 4pm followed by bath, quiet play and story.

Becles

My son started creating when I put him to bed for a nap, so I used to just let him play quietly while I pottered on with something quiet like ironing. Quite often he'd just fall asleep on the floor, with a car or something still in his hand. I'd just scoop him up and chuck him on the sofa with a blanket over him, and that worked for us.