When did you stop naps?

At what age did you stop naps completely? Did you just decided to do it, or were they changing their sleeping habits and you made the change? My girls will nap for 2 hours, but the 1:00pm nap has turned into the 3pm nap and bedtime has now shifted until way too late. If I put then in bed for their nap at 1:30-2:00, they will sing and talk until at least 3pm and then won't fall asleep at night until like 9:30 and wake up at 8-8:30 am.

 

My boys will be 4yrs old at the end of December. Their naptime has gradually got pushed back and has been around 2:30pm for quite some time. Just within the last month there has been more changes, they have begun to skip naps. Pretty much they tell me..."no nap today mommy...or its a nap day". It ends up, my one son (who requires more sleep), takes a nap about 5x/week. The other takes only about 3 naps/week. I'm assuming that this trend will continue until they are dissolved.

I don't mind in the least the later naptime. I'll take it! It's a great break for me to get the house in order, make dinner,etc. I get far more accomplished than I ever do after bedtime (even an early one).

We don't mind a 9-9:30pm bedtime and they sleep until 8am. With summer, it has been fine (it didn't get dark until after 9pm). DH and I are night owls and don't go to bed until 11:30pmish. So we get time alone yet plenty of sleep.

I think in many cases, people who don't "dig" that schedule, just end up making the decision to skip the late nap and make an earlier bedtime.

 

We still do quiet time at 1 PM and if it turns into a nap (like once a month if that!) fine. I think I need it more than they do. But it works for us. If it doesn't fit into a busy day, we just don't.

 

My girls still take naps. Some things that helped us with naps is seperating them so they can't talk to each other and keep each other up, which makes them fall asleep quicker. For us nap time is around 1pm (I did have a little while that I put them down earlier since I noticed it taking them longer to fall asleep). they normally sleep till 4 but we have been waking them up at 3 now and they go to bed at 8. We wake them up since we noticed it was taking them longer to calm themselves down at night (which they share a room) and Katrina would keep Kira up (Katrina needs atleast 30min to calm down before going to sleep, Kira falls asleep right away). I have tried no naps and for me it was a nightmare with more tantrums, whinning and crying and everyone is just miserable. I rather have that quiet time too, for me to get to relax. If they don't fall asleep (which Kira doesn't always, she's the one who really doesn't need a nap but I have to put both down), I just make sure she is being quiet and resting.

 

None of mine have stopped napping till just before they were 4. I knew it was time to give it up because if they did nap they would stay up insanely late and if they didn't nap they WEREN'T cranky. I would try moving naptime back an hour to 12 and see how they do. Or once they fall asleep don't let them go past an hour of sleeping. Since yours just turned 3 they may be on the way to no napping but I wouldn't give up just yet.