Maintaining Naps During Change

Has your child stopped napping during this time at home?

A lot of people have been asking me about this. When there is change, kids try to hold onto things that they can control (sleeping, eating & their bowels). Naturally this is a lot of change for them during this time but sleep is CRITICAL. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If your child under the age of 5 is fighting their nap- HOLD the frame! What does that mean?
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For kids under the age of 4, it’s best to have ~1 hr of nap/quiet time. For kids 4-5, you might find that they don’t need as long of a nap but sometimes a quick 20-30 min cat nap can do wonders for their energy/attitude (and your sanity). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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If you find that they are having a hard time going to sleep at night, then you might need to wake them up earlier from nap. For example, my almost 4 yr old could nap for 2+ hours, but that leads to her falling asleep later at bedtime, thus I wake her up by 2:30pm (90 min nap). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For your older kids (5-7), quiet time is still important. This can range from reading books to listening to audible books to playing quietly by themselves. This type of in breath activity is important to balance them out throughout the day. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For clarification, quiet time is ALONE time. They are not playing next to you. They are by themselves. Now how do you achieve this? This may be very hard at first but if you are consistent & follow through trust me it will work. You must continue walking them back to their room and say “it is time to rest your body.” If they continue arguing with you and you are about to lose your cool, you may say: “I really want to play with you but if I don’t get rest by myself, I won’t have energy to play. Please help me.”