They won't have naps!

This is absolutely driving me crazy.
My 2.8 twinnies will not have a day nap and I don't know how to handle it.
Do I continue to try and enforce it or let them run around as they please. For goodness sakes they are only 2! What's worse though is that they are early risers. T2 is usually awake 5-5:30!!! I do my best to have them in bed at night by 6-6:30pm but that takes a lot and we have 2 older kids. Surely a child that wakes up so early would be able to nap. Some mornings you can see she is tired by mid morning, but come nap time (after lunch) NO SLEEP!!!!
I do try and make them lie down and watch a dvd to have 'quiet' time but for the last few weeks, they won't even do that. OMG please just lie still for at least 1/2 hr so we can ALL have some time out!!!!

Am I being unreasonable?
Should I persist, or just suck it up?!!

 

My girls dropped their nap around 3 although I insisted on quiet time still. By about 3.5 we were encountering some pretty intense mood swings & temper tantrums. One day they both just crashed mid afternoon & slept for about 3 hours then were as pleasent as could be the rest of the day. So we reinstituted naps & it worked like a charm. Now at 4.5 they're needing it less although they still nap every 2-3 days. Regardless of whether they sleep or not, they're in their room for an hour and a half every afternoon.

All that to say, I would stick with it. We had to tweak our quiet times & nap times quite a bit to make it work - sometimes they were in the same room, sometimes separate, sometimes quiet time was watching a movie, other times reading books, etc. I think it's worth sticking with it, especially the quiet time, if not actual sleep. Just having that down time & break away from the hustle & bustle, I find, helps everyone's mood.

 

Stick with it and try different things out. Mine stopped wanting to nap around 2.75. Now at 3.25 if I separate them they will rest well- the kid upstairs in his room will sleep and the kid downstairs will, too, but the catch is I have to rest out of sight in the same room. They seem to do better downstairs with Annabelle's sound machine piped through the monitor- many days I fall asleep for a few minutes, too, to the sound of the ocean.

 

I would stick with a schedule that gives all of you a break in the middle of the day. I like to set up quiet time in a way that allows any child that needs it on that particular day to nap, so you would keep a schedule that allows for naps if they feel like it. At 3.5 mine (early risers too) still nap between 2 and 4 times a week, mostly on their long days at pre-school where quiet time is mandatory and taking a nap is encouraged, but also at home. We snuggle up on the big bed and read and listen to music for 30-40 minutes, some days they fall asleep, some days they don't. If they don't we all go downstairs and they have another 20 minutes or so of quiet activity like drawing or doing puzzles while I have a mug of tea and read. I am with them in the same room, but they know that only emergencies are a reason for interrupting me. This really is a ritual now, the kids understand that mom needs her break. They also look forward to reading and snuggling, and their mood is significantly better during the afternoon if I am strict about quiet time.

 

My oldest son napped until this September when he started to go to school everyday all day. I was looking forward to the twins doing the same thing....napping until the age of 4. NO SUCH LUCK! It sucks!!! Well, we are now used to it...but yeah, I liked nap time. It gave me a moment to breath as well as my better half! However, once we accepted it, bedtime is a sinch and we just plow through the day with all that was planned with no need of working around nap time. They just wouldn't nap though. And I don't feel comfortable putting locks on their doors...which would have been the only way to keep them in their rooms.

Anyway, at the young age of 2.5 months, my twins started on the no napping routine.....

 

For the longest time my kids had a nap around 11am. They might be tired by mid morning, but too wound up after lunch to sleep. You could try that maybe. My kids stopped 3 months after they turned 3 or something.

 

My kids are the same age as yours. They still do nap 1.5-2 hrs/day. They nap around 12 or 1 to 2-3. They go to daycare 2 days/week. I stopped by school at their nap time once. All the kids from 2.5-4 were napping. Their teachers told me they all nap every afternoon. None of them is allowed to skip. My friends daughter is a bit over 5, she still naps after school everyday. My kids nap everyday, however they go to bed later than your kids. Their bedtime is 8:30. My kids are not ready to give up their naps yet. If they skip it, they will be very fussy and tired around 5 and then take nap until 7 or so.

You just have to make the decision that u give up on their naps or stay tough make them take the nap or quiet time. My kids were refusing their naps before. I had such a hard time. But I was tougher "if you don't nap, u need to stay down for quiet time. If you break the rules, well it's time out. And u have to stay time out as long as your nap." It's tough for a month or so. But after that, it's easy. Gl!

 

My kids are turning 3 soon, and they totally stopped napping about 4 months ago. They go to bed at 8pm and wake up around 6:45-7am most days (about once a week or so, they will sleep until more like 7:30).

Have you tried making their bedtime later? 6-6:30pm seems like a really early bedtime at almost 3. If they are going to sleep at 6:30pm, and waking at 5:30am, that's the same amount of sleep my kids get, just shifted by 2 hours. I know making their bedtime later would be miserable for a bit while you are working on it, but maybe if you could get them to go to bed a bit later and wake a bit later, a better routine would settle in. I often ended up tinkering with my kids schedule, and sometimes just moving things 15 or 20 minutes, or even 30, would make a huge difference in their overall quality of sleep and happiness.

I tried a quiet time for awhile, but it was more hassle than it was worth - they ended up fighting, jumping on their beds, tearing stuff up, constantly saying they needed to go potty, etc., so I just gave up. Naps had become the same battle, too, and it was just too stressful. Now if they are really cranky or tired, I get them to sit down and we read books, which usually chills them out, or they watch a DVD.

 

I gave up naps around 2 cause my girls just weren't having it. After a couple months of putting them down and having them just laugh and play for an hour or 2 in a dark room and not sleep I just gave in and stopped. The will still nap when we are in the car for a long time though.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

Admittedly, I'm big on routines and have had to be with twins and my eldest has AS, so routine has become a way of life......
Probably why I'm struggling with this no napping thing I guess.
They haven't 'napped' regularly for at least 6 months now and for the last few months, I struggle to get them to even have some quiet time. :babyflips: :babyflips:

However, I do wonder if I expect too much sometimes. What's resonable 'quiet' time at 2 yrs 8 months? If I put on TV or a quiet dvd, they might be still (ish) for around 10 mins or so. Then one will want to go to the toilet or they'll want a drink or the dvd isnt the right one etc. I've tried being patient, letting them read quietly, etc even sitting with them for a little while, but frankly, I used to use their rest time to get things done and have lunch myself and don't really want to most days. I've also tried time outs and even the odd smack (which I absolutely hate as I don't want sleep and rest to be associated with anger and angst.)

Also if I let the idea of peaceful rest time go, it makes for a very long day keeping 2 two year olds amused.

I have tried letting them stay up a little later but they still seem to rise early. For example, we had to go to my hhusbands christmas work party tonight and it was very relaxed with them running around with some of the other kids. :smilie_xmas_116: :smilie_xmas_116: T2 (the early riser) was ok mostly but by the time I took them home at around 9:30 ( very late for them) she was screaming! However, I will be amazed if she actually sleeps past 5:30! DH always joke that anything past 6am is a sleep in at our house lol. :rotflmbo: :rotflmbo: :rotflmbo:

 

My boys stopped napping before they were two years old. I had one who was a nightmare at bedtime. We went from 3 hours of complete and total hell at bedtime to a total of 5 minutes before he fell asleep. It was a huge relief to all of us to stop naps. My boys at that age were both asleep by 6 PM and up by 6-6:30 am. Even now at almost 4 they are often in bed with PJs on at 6:00 PM. They are asleep by 6:30 PM. My boys need about 12 hours of sleep. And since they don't nap they have to get it at night.

I also do not do a formal quiet time where they have to lay on their beds and be still. What I have started is doing 30 minutes of quiet play. I turn on music which signals the start of quiet play. I have quiet play things (books, puzzles, any type of hands on toy that is quiet) they have to sit on their rug (bath mat that they picked out at the store) and stay there and play until the music goes off. I dim the lights as well. I do this 2x a day. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I will sometimes let them sit on my lap and we read stories but I keep the music on and use a lamp instead of the overhead light. Or I will sit nearby while I read a book and they are looking at their books or playing quietly on their rug. It took a lot of consistency to implement. I started with 10 minutes and built up to 30 minutes. You may have to put them in seperate rooms to start with.

I have also created a calm down box for each of them if they are really struggling with calming down for quiet time. I also use this when they are having bahavior issues. You can google calming box and get ideas for it.

Keep in mind as well that TV is not truly quiet time. TV is very stimulating to young brains. It is much more likely going to get them stirred up and crabby then it is to give them any true quiet rest. You think it would work but it really doesn't.

I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to not struggle with naps or bedtime. My nightmare sleeper started having major sleep issues at 4 months old. We had him evaluated 2x by early intervention because he had such major issues (trust me it was pure and total hell and anyone who says just let them cry it out was lucky I didn't smack them). If I had known the real problem was naptime I would have stopped naps at 12 months so we would have only had to endure 8 months of pure hell not over a year.

 

Once my twins were out of cribs, we had to start sitting in their room with them at naptime to prevent them from playing. It sucks. My husband does it. He stays in there until they fall asleep. Luckily it's only on weekends and they nap fine at daycare.