Is your toddler having a nap strike?

A lot of toddlers go on a nap strike around 20 months old and again around 26 months old. They seem to think they will miss out on something else going on. If you do experience a ‘nap strike’ with your little one, make the 30 minutes before official nap time pretty boring so that at least there is less motivation for your little one to want to stay up at all costs.  If there is a nap strike one day, just set a boundary that he has to have ‘quiet time’ so that it’s not exciting to stay up. Let him play by himself with puzzles or some small animals in a box or a few books to look at in his room. In most cases, even a tired stubborn toddler will go back to napping again when he sees that nothing much goes on at nap times.

If you can get your active toddler to do the one nap up to at least 3 years old then he will benefit from this. However, if he is already sleeping 12 to 13 hours at night then he may be getting enough sleep. The most tell-tale sign that he needs that nap is his overall mood from 3 pm onwards. If you find he is particularly grumpy from this time or ‘hyper’ then he probably needs that one nap. If, on the contrary, he is full of beans and happy, this is a sign that he can get through to the end of the day without a nap.