One wants to give up a nap

I think what's going on is that Elias is ready to drop a nap. He does fall asleep at nap time (though sometimes after an hour of playing) and I regularly have to wake both of them up so they don't nap too late so they do want to have a chunk of sleep. But Elias stays awake for at least an hour before falling asleep every night. He plays. Sometimes he cries so I go to him and he asks for another toy or says he wants to go to the washroom but I know he's just bored. I may be oversensitive to this as I had to go to bed waaaaay too early when I was a kid and I used to lay awake bored out of my skull in bed night after night after night and I hated it. Ezra, however, will hit his bed and generally fall asleep right away unless he is having too much fun with Elias. Still, I don't think his schedule needs to be tweaked.

One napping and one not napping is not a place I want to go. Have others had that situation? What did you do?

Here's our schedule:
6:30 - wake up
12:30-1:00 - go down for nap.
3:00-3:30 - wake up for nap (I give it a little longer if they were partying for a while before falling asleep)
8:00 lights out.

And they are newly three years old (on Saturday)

Looking forward to your advice.

 

Does he sleep during the nap? Maybe instead of sleep nap, he gets quiet time nap? Let him read a book, listen to music, play quietly with toys?

 

We ended up going to quite time with all three kids long before they turned 3. Their naptimes were torture and then they would fall asleep later in the afternoon, so bedtime was torture. For me, I cherished my quiet time at night too much to continue doing naps.

 

Mine will be 3 on Thursday and I just threw a crying tantrum because they WILL NOT SLEEP! We have the exact same issue going on in terms of playing for an hour then sleeping then throwing the entire day off. I'll be watching this one. I actually logged on to post about our terrible sleep issues.

 

Serrano Boys - I think our boys are kindred spirits. We often seem to have the same issues at similar times. I'll check in to say how this weekend goes (they pull the playing thing with me much more than with my nanny which makes me think it's more about time with me than readiness to give up their nap). If the weather is nice, we might skip nap on Saturday and see how that goes as there are 4 great things to do outside that day...we'll see.

 

We ended up going to "quiet time" not too long ago because I was fighting them to nap. I make them lay down on the couch between 1 or 1:30pm and I put on the Soundscape Music Channel. They have to lay down for at least an hour and listen to music. Most of the time they are both asleep by 2pm.

 

Well, both of them skipped nap today and we were all fit to be tied by the end of the day. Could other people describe to me what "quiet time" looks like for them. My kids kind of have two speeds - ridiculous and asleep. Do you keep them in the same room. If they are in big boy beds are they expected to stay in bed? Do you let them play with toys? Afraid I might be moving there sooner than I want.