Old Two Year Old Nap Question

[Anonymous]

My son will be 3 at the end of June. He still loves his nap and would sleep from 1 til after 3 if we let him.

The problem is that he will stay up til like 9 or later on those days.

So, we've started to cap his nap to one hour -- 1-2 p.m. on the dot. And...he seems exhausted. He melts down a lot, especially in the mornings (wakes up grumpy) and evenings (huge tantrums around dinner time and bedtime).

WWYD -- should I suck it up and stay the course of the one hour naps, knowing he is going through a transition that will hopefully pass? Or go back to longer naps and deal with the late nights? FWIW I don't think the latter is a great option...

This is my second child so I know this is a rough age and it will pass, but just wondering what's best protocol here.

My older son's transition to stopping the name came in the form of him not wanting to nap. Yes he was fussy at bedtime, but it wasn't this situation where he still LOVED the nap but was wired late into the night.

[Anonymous]

Could try 12-2 or 12-1:30 for a bit and slowly shorten it.

[Anonymous]

I would move his nap a bit earlier, and try 90 minutes. One of my kid's had exact 45 minute sleep cycles, so her naps were either only 45 minutes (sob!) or almost exactly 90 minutes.

But giving him a longer wake time in the afternoon might help him go to sleep sooner.

[Anonymous]

I’m in the same boat and am just accepting the (horrible, inconvenient) later bed time. Brain science says at this age if they naturally still want to nap it’s important for their brain to process and consolidate memory and learning from the day. That is the priority to me. But I hope it ends soon.

[Anonymous]

Cutting the nap in half was waaaay too extreme! 15 mins at a time.

Start waking him at 2:45 for a while, see how that goes.

[Anonymous]

Move that nap back

[Anonymous]

I stopped allowing my almost three year old to nap and now she sleeps from 7:30pm until 8 am. She is much less grouchy in the evenings, probably because she’s getting more sleep at night. She sometimes sleeps in the car but only for 30 minutes or less, and we don’t adjust bedtime.

[Anonymous]

For my three year old a lot depends on how busy and physically strenuous the day and evening are.