{"id":8726,"date":"2015-07-17T09:28:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T13:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=8726"},"modified":"2015-07-17T09:34:43","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T13:34:43","slug":"kids-dont-give-up-naps-parents-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/17\/kids-dont-give-up-naps-parents-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Kids Don’t Give Up Naps, Parents Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard it time and time again since I started working with young children 10 years ago, parents proclaiming “my child gave up napping at 2” (or 3 or whatever). \u00a0Whenever I hear these kinds of statements now, I’ll admit I chuckle a little bit for myself, for two reasons. \u00a01) Because I feel bad for the parent who no longer has the glory of nap time in their day and 2) Because I know that children don’t give up naps, parents do.<\/p>\n

My first year as a preschool teacher was a bit rough, while I was surrounded with wonderful teachers who taught me a lot, I didn’t mesh well with the Master Teacher I was paired with and so the days were long and sometimes tense. \u00a0But I nonetheless respected her experience and knowledge of a world I was just dipping my toes into and I did learn two very important things from her that I have taken with me: encouragement vs. praise<\/a> and kids who sleep more sleep better<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I get it, it’s been a week and your little darling hasn’t napped. \u00a0Instead, she’s dancing\u00a0around her room, coming out 45 minutes later saying she’s napped, waking up the baby, driving you crazy and you think “is this it? \u00a0Is she done napping?”<\/p>\n

Or it’s bed time and your little one won’t settle down. \u00a0He’s all hyped up and it takes you until 11:00 to get him off to slumber land and all you can think is “what if I hadn’t let him nap so long\/late today? \u00a0Should we cut out napping?”<\/p>\n

My answer would be: probably not. \u00a0Young children are growing and changing constantly. \u00a0Their needs are ever-evolving and you can’t base a decision like nap time on a few days.<\/p>\n

We all know when kids are growing they will eat, a lot! \u00a0And then when they’re done it may seem like they stop eating altogether. \u00a0Does that mean that you assume they’re done eating for life and it’s time to cut out lunch? \u00a0Heck no! \u00a0You know to keep offering food and they’ll cycle back around to eating normally again.<\/p>\n

\"give<\/a><\/p>\n

Sleeping is the same way. \u00a0My kids have been through soooooo many napping ups and downs but so far (with the exception of Honeybun at\u00a06<\/em> years old<\/a>), all of them have returned to regular napping after a short time and I’m glad I never gave up on nap time, because I need<\/em> that time to rest, relax and regroup as much as they do!<\/p>\n

At the preschool we used to constantly have parents coming in to us saying “Sally Jo won’t go to bed at night, please don’t let her sleep at nap time anymore.” \u00a0And it seemed totally logical. \u00a0Except that’s not how it actually works, usually.<\/p>\n

I’m a big fan of late naps, pushing it as late as 3:00 most days. \u00a0And sometimes my little ones will sleep until dinner (which for us can be as late as 6:30 or 7:00 with hubby’s work schedule). \u00a0And then they’re back in bed by 8:00 or 8:30.<\/p>\n

How does she do it, you ask? \u00a0It’s our routine, it’s our expectation, it’s what we do and what we’ve always done. \u00a0I’m sure my kids don’t fall asleep right away every night (and Honeybun has struggled<\/a> more than the others) but they also generally don’t come out and bother us, nap or not. \u00a0They know to lay quietly, read a book, sing or whatever else they want to do in their rooms until they are tired. \u00a0And then they sleep until around 7:00, always have, nap or not.<\/p>\n

But there’s this weird thing that is currently happening in our house that brings me back to my original point: kids who sleep more sleep better.<\/p>\n

When we returned to the states from Dublin (we spent a week in Massachusetts with hubby’s family after), I expected my kids to be up waaaaay early due to the time change as they always were when we would return home while living there. \u00a0But Doodle slept in\u00a0longer<\/em> than usual, even with his normal bedtime and loooong naps. \u00a0He would go to bed at 8ish and sleep until 8:30 or 9:00.<\/p>\n

I expected him to return to his usual 7:00 wake up when we returned home to Florida. \u00a0But he didn’t. \u00a0He continued napping normally\u00a0and<\/em> sleeping in until 8:00 or after. \u00a0That was until this week. \u00a0When Sugarplum decided to go off naps. \u00a0And thump around for an hour before waking Doodle up.<\/p>\n

So Doodle is back to waking up before 7:00 and is napping less than an hour each day. \u00a0And bedtime has been\u00a0horrible<\/em>, he fusses, screams “no!” and fights us to the last minute, whining as we shut the door. \u00a0And all I can think is “If that poor kid could just get a decent nap, we’d be back to normal!”<\/p>\n

Have you ever laid in bed at night, exhausted but unable to sleep? \u00a0Our bodies have a weird way of dealing with a lack of sleep and children are no different. \u00a0Children who are well-rested will easily lay down, drift to sleep and take a decent rest whether nap time or night-time: Children who sleep more sleep better.<\/p>\n

There is a reason that every state (that I’m familiar with) requires nap time for all children up to kindergarten age in school\/childcare settings: because young children really need<\/em> that time to rest their bodies. \u00a0So next time your little one (I’m talking the under 5 crowd here) decides to not nap, consider sticking it through (unless those glorious hours of quiet time aren’t your thing). \u00a0Stick with the routine, set boundaries “you can lay in your bed and read, you can do quiet puzzles, you can…” but make them have that quiet time and I can almost guarantee you as your child’s body grows and changes they will cycle back to napping when they need it.<\/p>\n

And being consistent with nap time\u00a0and<\/em> bedtime should help with night-time, too. \u00a0If your child doesn’t seem ready for bed at bed time, give them the same rules\/options and let them drift to sleep when they are ready.<\/p>\n

Sleeping is a habit and a skill that we all have to learn in life and like anything, some of us are better at it then others but setting our kids up to be successful will only makes us all a little more rested and hopefully less stressed!<\/p>\n

When did you give up on nap time for your little ones?<\/address>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard it time and time again since I started working with young children 10 years ago, parents proclaiming “my child gave up napping at 2” (or 3 or whatever). \u00a0Whenever I hear these kinds of statements now, I’ll admit I chuckle a little bit for myself, for two reasons. \u00a01) Because I feel bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-business","category-family-life","category-mommy-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8730,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions\/8730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}