Dropping naps…or not?

Sleep is always at the top of the agenda when it comes to parents discussing their babies, and as they reach toddlerhood, it remains a topic of conversation.

Early on it’s all about how long they’re sleeping at night and what’s the routine.

Then they hit toddler stages and sleeping can be all over the window.

You’d hope most would be sleeping through by 1 (I feel for anyone who’s suffered sleepless nights for longer), but then there’s the whole moving to a bed without sides issue, as well as dropping naps.

N’s always been a good sleeper in that he obviously likes to sleep, he likes his cot (so much so, that he tries to climb in rather than get out!).  At almost 2 ½, he’s still happy with his cot sides on so we’re not having to worry about him getting in and out of bed all night.  I’m hoping by the time he does want out, that he’ll still like his sleep and once he’s up will be happy just to lay there, sing or get out and read books or play with toys rather than coming to wake me up at an early hour.  At the rate he’s going though, he’ll have outgrown the cotbed before he wants the sides off.

He does like lying and having occasional naps in one of the double beds though, and when we were away a couple of weekends ago, he slept in  proper single bed with no problems so I really hope it’ll be a seamless conversion when it happens.

With naps, he’s still having them generally.  And still having a good nap.

At nursery he’ll sleep just over an hour, on Saturdays he’s limited to the short time between lunch and swimming so only really gets 45 minutes.  It does seem to be long enough for him, although if we’re at home on a Sunday, he can do a big 3 hour catch up sleep.  Makes for a problem if we need to go out, but he will cope without it.

Occasionally he’ll go without a nap…sometimes there’s too much going on at nursery, or if it’s really hot he’ll just rest.  If he misses a nap, I never know what state he’ll be in until bedtime.  At nursery it’s not noticeable that he’s particularly tired, what with wanting to run around and take part in everything, plus of course there would be the danger of missing food if he flaked out.  But there is the danger of him falling asleep on the 3 minute journey home from nursery.  An hour and a half before bedtime probably isn’t the best time for that.

Everytime I think he might be dropping naps, he’ll then go and have a huge one.  Not sure what he’s going to do come September when he’ll be at the local nursery school for a couple of days a week – I’m not sure they have the facilities for napping?

How did your toddlers drop their naps?  And was it painful or easy?

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