How much sleep does your 3/4 year old get?

[Anonymous]

Ours dropped her nap at 2. We’re lucky if she sleeps 10 hours, her mood definitely improves with more. As do ours! Some kids can’t downshift as easily. the more tired ours is, the likelihood of less sleep increases. Melatonin exacerbated her bedtime resistance. It’s a party.

[Anonymous]

My 4.5 year old has slept 10.5 hours a night since she stopped napping about a year ago. She's not overtired at the end of the day and wakes up refreshed, so it's the right amount of sleep for her. I wouldn't focus on what other kids are doing, but how your kid is feeling. If he's fine on 11 hours, then 11 hours is what he needs.

[Anonymous]

Mine will be 4 soon and sleeps 7-7. Older child slept 8-7 + 2 hour nap literally until the week before starting Kindergarten. Each kid's sleep needs are different.

[Anonymous]

11.5/12 hours at night. *Maybe* an hour nap during the day, but usually not. Turning 4 in January and has wanted to completely drop the nap for about a year now.

[Anonymous]

My 3.5 year old needs about 12 hours of total sleep. Some days he naps and sleeps less at night, other days he doesn't nap and sleeps 11-12 hours at night.

Older DC never needed more than 10-10.5 hours of sleep as a baby, toddler and preschooler.

It really depends on your individual child.

[Anonymous]

About 10-11 hours a night. 3.5 and dropped the nap 6 months ago.

[Anonymous]

My just-turned-3yo sleeps about 10 hours a night with a 1.5 hour nap. She’s been resisting the nap lately but we lie down and sometimes sing to her until she goes to sleep. It’s really important that she get that mid-day rest, both for her sake and for ours! So we’ll keep doing this as long as we can.

[Anonymous]

My son is a little older, was 4 in feb but he's been at 10-11 hrs no nap for a while now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ours dropped her nap at 2. We’re lucky if she sleeps 10 hours, her mood definitely improves with more. As do ours! Some kids can’t downshift as easily. the more tired ours is, the likelihood of less sleep increases. Melatonin exacerbated her bedtime resistance. It’s a party.

This is my 3 year old too. Dropped the nap the week she turned 2 and never went back, despite our best efforts. She now only naps in the car when we’re on long road trips; never naps at home. She goes to bed at 6:30-7, sometimes even a bit earlier if we can get dinner/bedtime routine done early. It’s harder in the summer when it’s light out longer. We also have a 5 year old who goes to bed at 7 so it’s easier to keep them both on that same schedule but probably at least 2 nights per week we do manage to get the 3 year old to sleep by 6:30, usually on days she’s been playing outside a lot it’s easier to get her to sleep earlier. She pretty reliably wakes up at 6, and it is super rare she sleeps past 6:30am. So usually about 11 hours/24 hr period and has been that way since she turned 2.

Finally just accepted she’s a low sleep needs kid. Though she is in a remarkably better mood on the rare occasions she gets closer to 12 hours so I WISH she would do that more often!

(My 5 year old napped til age 4 and always slept later in the morning so at age 3 he was getting closer to 14 hours sleep per 24 hr period. Very different kids/all kids really are different)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About 10-11 hours a night. 3.5 and dropped the nap 6 months ago.

My just-turned 3 year old has not been napping for a few weeks now and sleeps between 10 & 11 hours.

[Anonymous]

11 hours is fine. If she's doing well, growing normally, not more irritable than she usually is, I wouldn't get too hung up on the particulars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine will turn 4 in October, too. She sleeps about 12 hours a night and takes a 2-hour nap every day.

Sounds great.

Does she have a lot of physical activities?

How do you encourage this schedule?, tell us your secret.

I want to ask this PP if she actually watches her child on a monitor to see if she's sleeping. Our video monitor broke when my daughter was about a year old, and we didn't get another video monitor until we had a baby when DD was 2.5. We set up the camera in her room and realized a lot of the time she was just quietly playing with stuffed animals, rolling around in bed, etc., but a lot of the time I thought she was sleeping.

This is the original PP. No, we don’t have a monitor anymore, but we can hear if she’s up and playing.

No real secret; she just enjoys sleep. The only thing I’d say is that during the night (so between 8pm-8am) we have never gone in unless she’s really upset. That’s been the case ever since she stopped nursing at night. She knows that’s the nighttime. We also lock her door from the outside, per her pediatrician’s guidance, so she stays in her room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine will turn 4 in October, too. She sleeps about 12 hours a night and takes a 2-hour nap every day.

Sounds great.

Does she have a lot of physical activities?

How do you encourage this schedule?, tell us your secret.

I want to ask this PP if she actually watches her child on a monitor to see if she's sleeping. Our video monitor broke when my daughter was about a year old, and we didn't get another video monitor until we had a baby when DD was 2.5. We set up the camera in her room and realized a lot of the time she was just quietly playing with stuffed animals, rolling around in bed, etc., but a lot of the time I thought she was sleeping.

This is the original PP. No, we don’t have a monitor anymore, but we can hear if she’s up and playing.

No real secret; she just enjoys sleep. The only thing I’d say is that during the night (so between 8pm-8am) we have never gone in unless she’s really upset. That’s been the case ever since she stopped nursing at night. She knows that’s the nighttime. We also lock her door from the outside, per her pediatrician’s guidance, so she stays in her room.

Okay, well, I'm telling you my daughter was also playing and I couldn't hear it. She also stays in her room and doesn't come out, and she's been sleeping through the night since 4 months. If you read either Ferber or Weissbluth, one of them talks about how parents who think their older toddlers/preschoolers are sleeping 12 hrs at night and 2 hrs during the day actually probably have children who are quietly awake for part of that time and they don't know it. If your 4 yo actually sleeps for for 14 out of 24 hrs, you have a VERY high sleep needs child - not really a guideline other parents need to follow or aspire to.

[Anonymous]

My 3.75 year old goes to bed at 9:30 and gets up 8:30, so 11 hours. These days he very occasionally needs a nap if he's going through something.

[Anonymous]

3.25 yr old sleeps 10.5-11 hrs at night (we put him to bed at 8 but he often doesn't fall asleep till 830/845, and is up between 7 and 730). When he naps, it is for 2 hrs, but these days more often than not he just plays in his bed at nap and talks to himself - fortunately, he seems ok with that arrangement, as we need the downtime!