What's the latest nap your kids take?

roses25

What is the latest nap your kids take? Aiden really needs a nap but fights an early nap (like 1 pm ) but will take one 3 or 4 pm? Then he's out for the night and is grouchy if I try to wake him and wants to go back to sleep. Do you think it would be workable to do nap time from 4 pm to 6 pm once I go back to work and then let him stay up later? I don't know if I made him get up by 6 pm for a week or so and planned something fun for after he wakes up if he would get used to it or not. Any suggestions would be great.

Carolyn

mommylove

I refuse to allow Sebastian a nap past 1pm. He normally sleeps 2-3 hrs once he goes down so if he goes to sleep any later than 1 he sleeps past 4 which means his regular 7:30pm bedtime would never work. Personally I prefer to keep a steady bedtime routine as we enjoy our adult/quiet time in the evenings. I also think since kids really do require such a good amount of nighttime sleep that it is important to get them down on the earlier side so that when they wake in the morning they are well rested for the day ahead.
I suppose though you may just have to decide what works for you and Aiden.

fisch

Aiden is losing his nap. It's just like when they were babies and went from 3 to 2, the transition was always a little crankiness. We have a non-napping 4.9 year old. At his school they still require naps, so he lies down on his cot staring at the ceiling for 1.5 hours. I'm glad that he "rests", but I feel kind of sorry for him!

Have you tried a "quiet time" from say 2-3pm in his room where he is allowed to read books on his bed quietly? We did this from about 3.5-4.3 years and it worked fine. His clock had a timer (he has a "tot-clock") that turns from red to green when the time is up. I would set it for 55 minutes.

On a few occasions he fell asleep, but mostly, he read quietly on his bed. I have a rule following child though, and know, because we have a 2nd non-rule following child, that not all kids will stay on their bed as told and be quiet.

Still, it might be worth it keeping a regular bedtime routine, because I completely agree with pp. It's important, and, come school time, it will be harder to train him back to an earlier bedtime.
Jack is a night owl as it is, so even though he is in bed by 8 every night, he can stay up past 9 on some nights and it's frustrating (and hard to wake him in the morning!).

Best of luck on this one....I'm a bit of a broken record on this one, but 3.5 is a tough transitional time.

Katydid

I did what Fisch suggested. When naps were disappearing I started one hour "books in bed." We chose a ton of books and put them in the bed, and the rule was as long as they were quiet and stayed in the bed they didn't have to nap. If they didn't follow that rule then I took the books away and said nap time. After a week or so both boys would fall asleep on the days when they really needed the sleep, but at least everyone got a daily break I am a big fan of a decent bedtime too so that there is me time at the end of the day.

tc0104

I wouldn't! Laney is 2.5 and dropped her naps before she turned 2. If she falls asleep in the car when dp picks her up at 4:45 we wake her little butt up as soon as they get home...makes for a rough night all around if we don't.

sara291

Nope! I don't like late naps, messed up with night sleeping a lot, creates horrible cycles at least in the boys . . If Z was up late due to a nap, then had to get up early still he was so grumpy!

Z did the same thing basically the same time frame. It basically started shortly after 2 because he moved out of the crib. He still needed a nap but once he was in a toddler bed he took 2-3 hours. I just kept him up & did a early bed time with a 1 hour quiet time in early afternoon. For a while Z would fall asleep for 15 minutes after school & then was a MAJOR grumpy boy!!! Though that slowly faded. A short nap at 5:30 on the drive would cause a 1-2 hour difference in how early he would fall asleep . . Which then created a grumpy boy the next morning still needing to get up for school.

So I only let them nap in the evening if they are sick. I don't force them to stay awake though & find things to get by until a early bedtime if needed.
R (2.5) takes a nap at 12:45-2 or 2:30 & goes to bed fine by 8-ish
Today we took a rare late nap at like 1:30 & he slept until 3:30. I'm sure he'll stay up a bit in his crib but it does not effect him in the morning & I LOVE hearing him talk over the monitor while he falls asleep.

annerbones

I refuse to let maggie fall asleep after 3pm - she will not go to sleep at bedtime then. There are days that she stays up through nap.

Shanny

The short answer is no way, no how! If Kate slept from 4-6 pm I would be lucky to have her in bed for the night at 11 pm! The long answer is that I feel your pain. Kate is making the longest transition out of naps in the history of the world (painfully so and hampered by her constant sickness). It has been at least 6 months and she is still no where near completely giving up naps. Right now she can skip nap - but only for 1-2 days at a time. Beyond that it is meltdown city. I'm usually a pretty good judge of the days I need to "force" her and those I can see what happens. I base that on our schedules, how much sleep she got within the last couple of days total and her behavior. Ocassionally lately I have gaugedd it wrong and have found her asleep on her playroom floor late in the afternoon, like 3 or 4. I let her sleep for 30 minutes max. Maybe you could try every other day and just have rest time even on the days you know he won't fall asleep. If I do the math I can always know that with or without nap Kate gets 12 hours of sleep per 24 hours. Either 10 hours at night plus 2 hour nap or 12 hours at night if she skips nap. I know this is what her body and brain need to function at her best. Maybe figure out Aiden's # and then try different scenario's in your head to figure out the best way to get him to that number every 24 hours. I agree with everyone though that talked about good night time sleep. If Kate went to bed late everynight but still had to wake up early for school she would certainly take a nap but we'd get stuck in this vicious cycle of not getting proper night time sleep!

Ibelieve

Maybe Zayden is an exception to the rule. He naps from 2.30 or so till about 4.30-5.00pm most days of the week. (He can go without a nap for one day but is horrible if he goes two days without a nap) He then goes to sleep from 8.30pm to 7.30am which works for me.
If he goes to sleep much later (like 4-6pm) he wont go to bed till after 9.30pm. He seems to need 4 hours of being awake from his afternoon nap before he will go to bed at night.

Zen

At preschool the kids nap from like 12:30 - 2. Or maybe it's 12 - 1:30. I'm not sure which. If she has no nap, I have to be careful if we're in the car after 4-5pm. Because if it's for more than 5 minutes, she'll pass out!

mel

Ibelieve wrote:

Maybe Zayden is an exception to the rule. He naps from 2.30 or so till about 4.30-5.00pm most days of the week.

My kids were like that, too. They could sleep from 3-5 and still go to bed at 7:30. But once they were older, and giving up naps, as it sounds like Aiden is, we would try for a nap at a particular time and then just skip it if it didn't happen. The summer before they turned 3, I spent hellish hours sitting on the floor between cribs in their room trying to get them to sleep (if I didn't stay, they'd climb out and tear up the room) and I wish I hadn't wasted all that time (and that I'd saved myself the frustration!) and just instituted the "quiet time" policy we had by the end of summer.

I would never do a 4-6 nap and then a late bedtime. It would never work for our family because the kids need to be up at 6 in the morning, and they need to sleep longer than they would. I have a friend whose daughter goes to bed at midnight or later and sleeps until 10-11 in the morning. That's their family schedule, and it works for them! But I think I remember you are a teacher, and so Aiden would have to be up early. In that case, I'd push through afternoon crankiness if he didn't nap earlier and put him to bed early. My kids slept 7:30-7:00 for a very long time. Now they're starting to need less sleep and sleep about 10 hours a night with no nap. I wish they slept more!

jenoglv

Rhys is very hit or miss on naps since we transitioned to a toddler bed (he gets out and plays). I don't even put him in there until 1 and sometimes he'll play around for an hour or two and finally fall asleep. He might sleep till 5ish, and still goes to bed at his normal time. His normal time is 9 though, so that's why this works for us. The other day he did fall asleep from about 5:30-7:30, and I will never do that again.

Ibelieve

Mel I totally agree with you. As Zayden is about 2 1/2 I can still get away with the later naps but Im sure it wont last much longer so I am really appreciating it while I have it! lol

Kari

Justin often fights taking a nap on weekends, so I just do an early bedtime those nights. Yesterday he didn't nap from 1-3, so bedtime was 6 instead of 8. I've also discovered that he'll sleep if I put him down at 12:30 instead of 1:00, even though he naps at 1 at daycare.