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Just received this email from a friend of mine regaring naptime:

Q: Ok, so Duncan is 2.5. He and we are struggling with him giving up his nap. We have tried making him lie down and be still to rest for a set time, tried keeping him awake in the afternoon with an earlier bedtime, tried short naps and every other day naps. I have also tried laying down and snuggling him to get him to lie still and rest. Most of the time I end up getting pinched and kicked for my trouble.

I know the giving up naps thing can be painful. Right now, napping is either holding him kicking and screaming on the bed for 30 minutes (or more) till he exhausts himself and goes to sleep or him falling asleep in the car at 5 pm as we take siblings to activities. Now I
don’t use the first option (it happened by accident twice when he was physically out of control), but he is just unbearable to be around if he doesn’t nap. And if he does nap then bedtime is delayed by at least an hour, most days almost two, putting him going to sleep after DH which is bad because that means DH and I have not gotten any connection or down time.

We are seeing an increase in hitting, pushing, punching, throwing with the loss of a consistent nap. We are also seeing burgeoning negativity and just all around meltdowns over everything. Help!

I will say that twice over the last couple of weeks he has told me “sleepy night night mommy” and gone and laid down somewhere and gone to sleep. So he recognizes it, at least some of the time. During the day the two older kids are at school so I can devote a bit of time to him if needed. Jenavieve is a really easy baby most of the time.

A: We tried the following suggestion out of “The No-Cry Sleep Solution” and I think that it could also work for you.

I (or my husband) tell our son Jack (almost 2.5 years old) that it is nap time and take him to the bedroom which is equipped with blackout curtains. I undress Jack down to a shirt and pull up and show him that I am setting a timer for 20 minutes. It was my husband’s idea to get one of the ones that you can actually hear the click click as it counts down the time. I repeatedly remind Jack that he has just 20 minutes to lay down. I lay down too. If its me laying down with Jack he usually nurses. His options are to nurse while laying down or lay down quietly. He can babble and sign all he wants but it has to stay quiet and he has to lay down. If he sits up, I remind him that it is just [however many minutes are left of the 20] left to go and lay him back down. After being laid back down several times, he does not get up that much anymore. He usually nurses to sleep. My husband reports that Jack does not get up at all with him and they lay there looking at each other until Jack falls asleep or the timer goes off.