Hi guys, Melissa from CloudMom.com, and so your question today from the viewer, at what
age did my children drop the nap?
So I do have a couple of videos on napping.
I have one in transitioning from three to two naps, I have one on transitioning from
two to one naps, and I have another video that I'll link to from the post for this blog
on my site on dropping the nap entirely, which is really what I'm talking about today.
But this is just sort of quick summary to talk about when my kids actually dropped the
nap, but I'm doing this in hindsight now because actually when I filmed that last video, Annaliese,
my daughter, my fourth child, was four and now she's getting close to turning five.
She's gonna turn five in a few months so I have sort of that experience and I'm gonna
share that today.
So basically, with my kids two of my children dropped the nap at three, and two dropped
the nap after three.
My oldest child, Hedley, dropped the nap at age four.
He was napping with his brother who is a year younger.
And basically we kind of cut the nap out for both of them at the same time and the reason
was they were staying up late chatting in their room, so it seemed like it was just
a better idea to put everybody to bed earlier, and they seemed to be showing all the other
signs which I talk about in my video about dropping the nap and not really needing the
nap anymore.
So anyway, Lachlan was at three, Hedley was at four, Beckett was at three, Annaliese went
way longer then anyone else.
She naps now and still actually, occasionally naps well into her fours and what happens
with Annaliese is that, now most days I find she really resists it.
And sometimes on the weekend I try to give her a short nap of an hour or so.
And if she's tired she will take it, but she doesn't really, really want it, but she did
sort of have a few naps a week well into her fours, I would say until around four and a
half even.
And for some reason she just needed that and so that worked.
Now it's much more rare.
It's really like if something has gone on the night before, like we had a sleepover
last week and she didn't sleep well at all, so the next day I put her down for a two-hour
nap, from 12 to two, and then she went to bed at her regular bedtime.
And that day she didn't fight me so much, she actually wanted the nap.
What happens, and is happening with her which happened with my other kids which I think
is interesting to share, is that some of that nap time got absorbed into their nighttime
sleep.
So with Annaliese right now, I put her down usually most nights by 7 o'clock and she sleeps
through on a school day until eight the next morning and on a weekend sometimes even until
nine.
All my kids sleep really a lot, so I've been lucky to have good sleepers, but she's sleeping
beyond 12 hours, like 13 hours a night sometimes even 14.
So I think that she's kind of taken that nap time and moved it into her nighttime sleep.
And this I found also to be the case with my other children.
By the time they got to be six, seven, eight, nine, they rarely went beyond 12 hours, and
actually my oldest child is nine, now more often sleeps 11 hours a night which I think
is normal.
He definitely can go 12 though on a good night.
So anyway that has been our experience.
Marielle is still napping usually two hours a day, she's gonna be three very soon.
She usually naps from one to three, I try not to have her nap any later then that and
then she's down for bed by around seven, 7:30, and sleeps through also until around eight
the next morning.
So she's sleeping around 14 hours a day at around age three.
Now my kids tend to be huge sleepers, their dad is a huge sleeper, I think it's genetic.
I've been lucky in that way and in some cases not so lucky 'cause when they don't get that
sleep, things are not so easy for me.
But anyway that's been my experiences.
Other moms please share what you've gone through when it comes to dropping the nap, at what
ages your children dropped the nap, and how you sort of went about this transition.
I would love to hear from you on my site on CloudMom.com.
Thank you so much for watching my videos.
Good luck dealing with these sleep issues with your children and I will see you next
time.