20 Month Old Won't Take Nap

[spud912]

The 20 month old would be my daughter. She generally stopped taking a nap about 2 weeks ago. She went from sleeping:

Night Time
7:30 pm to 9:00 am TO
7:30 pm to 7:15 am

Nap Time
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm TO
nothing at all (75% of the time) or 1:00-2:45 pm (the other 25% of the time)

I know I was spoiled before (16 1/2 hours of sleep in one day ) and I'm ok with less sleep. However, I do think a nap for a child under the age of 2 is necessary.

Nothing has changed in our schedule, we have a great bedtime ritual, and she seems to be acting fine with less sleep. She has become more "ornery" lately, but I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to lack of sleep. She seems to just be asserting her independence as her vocabulary has skyrocketed in the last 2 weeks. I would say the BIGGEST change for her was cutting her off of her nap time pacifier around the same time she stopped taking naps.

Is there any hope that she will start taking naps again or do you all think it's a done deal? She is so loud during nap time and too young to really understand how to be quiet. She is too young to even sit and watch a movie for longer than 15 minutes, so that's not an option.

[Jenniferdawn]

Oh that's a tough one. I know many people here may say she should still be taking naps, but my #2 child stopped taking naps at the same age and there was NOTHING I could do to get her to sleep again. To this day, she needs much less sleep than my other two kiddos to be happy and healthy. On the other hand, my #3 stopped napping around then for a few weeks, then started sleeping again And took naps until she was three. I would say keep on trying each day for a while, but its hard to make a little one sleep if they aren't tired, ykwim?

[cheerfuldom]

I would still make her lay down. Even my four year old lays down for 2 hours every day. You cant make her sleep but you can make her lay down and have quiet time. I would personally never give up on naps for a 2 year old. Sometimes they go on strikes but almost all of them pick up naps again with a couple weeks.

[Sunchimes]

I have a 23 month old dcg. She was out for 3 months when her mom had a baby, and when she came back at 18 months, she was refusing her morning nap and arguing about the afternoon nap.

I let the morning nap go for awhile, but it was awful, so I just started making her get on her mat. It took about a week, but now, she takes two 2 hour naps a day.

This is probably unrelated, but she had started having night terrors at home and here during nap. I decided that the night terrors were making her afraid of the dark, so I left the curtains open and the light on. She sleeps like a champ now (here, still having them at home). I'll add that I only have 3 kids, and it's easy for me to do this. I couldn't if I was in a different situation.