Transitioned to toddler beds

Today is day one for naps in their new toddler bed. Bedtime went okay and nothing eventful happened during the night or this morning but nap time is not going so well. They've been up there for an hour and are still running like crazy. I've gone up there a few times and as soon as I leave they are back at it. They still need a nap. They are crabby and crazy if they don't get one and I don't have any issues with bedtime when they do take a nap.

What worked for everyone when dealing with this? Should I just cut my loses and put them to bed an hour earlier?? Normal bedtime is 8pm.

 

They may settle down in a few days once the new found freedom wears off. If not, you can sit in their room reading a book and that might prevent them from partying. At not quite three, they really do need the nap... So stick to it if you can.

 

I would stick with your regular nap routine for a bit longer & see if the novelty wears off (definitely go with an earlier bed time for the next few days though to help off set the missing nap). Depending on your kids' personalities you can either a) put them down to nap & then leave them for a set amount of time (1 - 2 hours); if they sleep great, if not, get them up & go on with your day & plan for an early bedtime or b) put them down to nap & either stay in the room or just outside the door & silently put them back into bed every time they get out until they fall asleep; try to keep interaction to a bare minimum as you don't want them to think it's play time.

For my girls, being in the room or going back in only wound them up more, so we had to put them down & leave them. After the first few days they started falling asleep again. Now we don't usually have any issues. :good:

 

I agree with sticking with your routine, and trying to ignore them. Hopefully the novelty will wear off and they'll go back to napping for you.

 

With ours the only way they will calm down and nap is if we sit in the room until they fall asleep. We don't have to do this at night, but at nap it works well.

 

It took us about 10 days to get naps again, but after that they napped again for about 2 months.

 

we never very successfully did naptime after toddler beds (sorry for our revelation!).... we fully switched close to 3 yrs old. at that point ours were really balking at night time bedtime anyway (especially when they got their 1 to 2 hr nap in) and didn't get to bedtime until well after 9pm... so when we finally took the naps away we started to get our 8pm or so bedtime back! YAY!

good luck!!! there are days when ours go back to their beds now and nap... very sweet that they know they are tired!

 

Should I not make them pick up thrown toys and books? They keep trashing their room with the few books and toys they have in there. I really don't have anywhere else to put that stuff so it's there to stay unless I can think of somewhere to put that stuff.

Any everytime I put them back in their bed, they are right back out of it when I close the door.

 

If it were me, I would not make them pick up until their nap was finished. Making them tidy up each time just gives them the chance to play more & re-trash the room (could you put the remaining few books & toys into a rubbermaid & in their closet, or just move the rubbermaid into the hallway for the nap & then put it back after?).

As for them getting right out of bed again, I think that's pretty standard. It's going to be a lot of back & forth with that method for the first while & will take a lot of concerted effort from you. You'll just need to decide if you'd prefer that to just leaving them for a set period of time.

Honestly, I don't think the specifics of what you do matter that much so long as whatever you choose to do you can be consistent with for a week or so & then evaluate if it's helping or not. :good:

 

We don't let them have any books right now bc the one time we accidentally left one in there it looked confetti! We put most toys and all books in a box in their closet. If they throw toys out of bed we leave them. When naptime is over is when they have to clean up.

 

We put one of those handle locks on the closet door and put anything in there that we didn't want destroyed. BUT, my two don't nap now that they are in toddler beds (not for lack of trying everything) and even though they get cranky (and remind me of the dreaded witching hours when they were younger)we don't enforce naps like we used to (they do nap/rest at school so I am only talking weekends). They still go to bed at 7:00/7:30 though and we are more reluctant to change that than to really be strict on naps. They can have a big morning - at the park, zoo, fall festival, etc. and still not fall asleep in the car or when we sit in there with them or separate them so I am just coming to terms with naps being over for us on the weekends !

 

they may fall asleep with the toys & books in there but I think it's too much of a temptation for them... I'd probably start with 1 book each or something... I remember many a book being shredded... even board books! anyway, pretty much we took EVERYTHING out of their room, especially all toys and books. good luck to what you decide to do!

 

Nap time around here was awful till I separated them. Yep, one is in their room and the other is either in my room or their older brothers room. We took their cribs down 2nd week of August. It was awful at nap time. I would have to go back in so many times before they would finally fall asleep. I just couldn't do it anymore. We were at my parents just recently when I chose to have one sleep in the guest bedroom and the other on my parents bed and it was heaven!!! No going back in to tell them to go to sleep. They both fell asleep quickly and slept longer. That was my revelation!

We are in the process of finding a trundle bed and we are going to move older ds back into the nursery (with his ok) after we paint it and he is going to share the room with Riley and then Jon is going to be in older ds old room. In the future, we hope that all 3 will share a room but not till either naps are done for for good or something.

As for toys and books, we don't have toys in their rooms. I couldn't stand the mess they would make so I removed all toys.