How do you facilitate rest or down time?
My almost 3-year-old son is just about giving up his one midday nap. He won't fall asleep for a nap unless someone sits next to him for about 20 minutes until he's asleep. I think he doesn't really need the sleep anymore because he has trouble falling asleep on nights he does nap (1 hour past bedtime), and he doesn't fall asleep even when we're in the car.
But when he does not nap, he gets very cranky in the evening. I have heard from parent education sources that he could still use rest or down time. But what counts as rest or down time? Does he need to stay in his bed? Is it enough for him to be by himself in his room? What activities are OK (singing, reading, blocks, puzzles)? How long should rest be?
I'd love to find out what other parents are doing or did when their kids are transitioning to no nap.
1 Answers
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When we went from nap to "quiet time", we started with requiring her to stay in her bed, essentially telling her that she didn't need to sleep but she needed to stay in her bed. We quickly nixed that as it was really hard for her and she spent the time either crying or yelling that she wanted to get up.
We decided that rather than let her bring toys into her bed, we would just limit her to having to stay in her room. This has worked out much better as she typically just plays with her dolls or looks at books, which is what we wanted all along. If she does start to play a little to rough, we just remind her that it is quiet time and she needs to play quietly and that after quiet time we will go outside so she can run around.
For now that is working.
We usually do 45 minutes to an hour,
- Carl Haynes, Feb 8, 2010
+1 to Carl's answer. Without really thinking about it, this seems to be what's happening at our house too :) We put our 2 3/4 year old to bed for naptime, and if he gets out of his bed to play quietly (which he's doing more and more now) we just ignore it. If we hear a lot of activity, we come in and say "it's time to rest." and he climbs in bed, for awhile, and usually pops out to play quietly a bit later.
- andrea, Feb 9, 2010
That sounds similar to what we are trying to do. Glad it's worked out for you. How long does your daughter spend in her room for quiet time?
- sweethi, Feb 6, 2010