Our Tips for Transitioning from Naps to a Period of Rest
The switch from naps to rest can look different for every child. Some children decide to stop napping on their own, while others seem to need parental guidance to move away from naps and towards a rest-time. When Fox turned 4, he began having a hard time falling asleep at night. The nightly struggle between parent and child for rest and sleep lasted for hours, beginning around 8pm and with him finally sleeping somewhere between 9:30 and 10:30pm. As you can imagine, this left my husband and I with very little evening of our own, one using the time to work and the other trying to get him to sleep. It also seemed to leave Fox in a chronic sour mood. He was not getting enough solid sleep at night, which meant he would crash hard for nap and be wired at night. We first tried shortening his nap but it seemed any amount of day sleep would keep him up at night. So, we made the decision to halt naps completely and move to a time of rest. The transition was difficult in the beginning, Fox would beg to sleep so it really took quite a bit of guidance on my part to keep him awake. But, once his body fell into the routine, magic happened.
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