💤Some toddlers stop napping by age 2-3, while other kids will continue to need naps past age 5💤
However, the average age for kids to stop napping is sometime between age 3 and 4.
Here are the signs that you must look for:
🥱Taking too long to fall asleep at nap time
🥱Taking too long to fall asleep at bedtime
🥱Skipping naps altogether and seem fine (no crankiness, no sleepiness, does not seem exhausted by early evening, can go to bed at a reasonable time)
🥱Waking up early than usual in the morning is sign that he wasn’t tired enough at night because of his afternoon nap
🥱Increased night time wakings
🥱They remain awake, pleasant, and engaged throughout the afternoon
🥱They begin to consistently have short naps—when longer naps were normal before
If you see the above 👆 signs, then you can start shortening their afternoon nap and eventually move to NO afternoon naps BUT also move towards an earlier bedtime 🛌
How to transition to no naps?
✅Rather than quitting naps altogether, replacing nap time with quiet time can allow children to choose whether they’d like to sleep or play quietly. Just like nap time, quiet time should be structured in a specific location & time.
Things to expect after dropping the nap:
👉🏻 The child may need to go to bed a bit earlier (and he may wake a bit later in the morning) in order to compensate for the sleep
👉🏻Don’t expect things to change overnight, either. There might be some days where your child doesn’t want a nap, and others when they seem like they do.
👉🏻Once children start to go through this period where they are not tired enough to nap earlier, they might want to nap around 4:00 or 5:00 pm because they will start running out of energy. Please resist this since a late nap will make it harder for your child to fall asleep at bedtime.
👉🏻 If you find that your child is sleepy or irritable during the day and wants to nap (even after having given up on naps already), it’s OK to let him do so (occasionally)
[toddler sleep tips, baby sleep]
