If you are a parent
of a toddler you should have by now cut the blessed two naps a day down to one
and trust me, I know you are dreading the day that the one becomes none. The
general rule of thumb is this should happen somewhere between the ages of two
and three but each toddler is quite their own person (I know you already know
that!) and some end up still needing the nap as they head closer to their third
and fourth birthdays. Hell, I’m 41 and I still need mine!
I get asked a lot in
the shop how one will know when the last nap should go and there are two quite
opposite but obvious signs: either your toddler will start sleeping longer and
longer during the day and therefore shifting his/her night time sleep hours into
the day which means they’ll probably not be falling asleep till very late at
night, OR they won’t want to nap at all during the day and the process of
putting them down will become more and more difficult.
Bizarrely, most
toddlers I meet, fall into the first category and seemingly love that middle of
the day nap more and more just as they resist night time bedtime more and more.
So I asked a friend and a customer, who just had her second child two months
ago, to explain what she does with her toddler, and this is what she written:
‘As my newborn
approached three weeks, my toddler’s long day nap really seemed like a miracle
as I could finally catch up with the piling amounts of work around me, but of
course I was paying for this as his bedtime was slipping later and later. So I
did it: crazy me decided to cut out the nap (again, this is a personal choice
but it worked for us).
The report so far is:
I am insane for doing
this with a newborn.
I have taken up
drinking double shot lattes to make it through the day.
Most importantly my
toddler is much happier and he is going to bed almost two hours earlier.
Now, I’m not going to
deny that there are about 20 minutes each afternoon that he tries to curl up
into a ball while resisting “I don’t have to take a nap because I’m a big boy”,
as his eyes flit into the back of his head. It is at this point that my double
shot latte comes in handy as I need the energy to do jazz hands, turn up Lady
GaGa for some unknown reason litters my iPod and we dance. So if your toddler
needs to drop that nap, even if you have to take up therapy to get through it,
you can do it. I know you can!’
Thank you Sam!!!
