Is it normal for an 18 month old to no longer need a nap during the day?

Question

When I force my 18 month old to nap during the day, he will sleep for about 2 hours, but then he is up ALL bloody night screaming his head off. When I let him skip a nap during the day, he sleeps peacefully all night. Is this typical?

Answer

IMO their little brains need the extra sleep most days until around age 4. Obviously a skipped nap here and there isn’t a big deal but by and large they need it. Have you tried moving it up earlier in the day and cutting it shorter than two hours? I would be experimenting with that before dropping it all together.

Answer

Our son is 17 months and he has one nap, max of 1.5 hours and then goes to bed between 7 and 8pm, depending on his sleep cues. 
We are led by him in relation to his sleep. As seems to be his norm, he drops naps earlier than the average so I think this nap will stop soon.

Answer

Have you tried cutting his nap so it’s a bit shorter? Most kids need a nap until after they turn 2 but it’s definitely not completely abnormal for some 18 month olds to stop napping. There is always a wide range of normal.

Answer

My LO went through a phase about that time but we just stuck with the same routine and he started taking naps again a few weeks later, no issues. Personally I would continue to be consistent because mama needs a nap break even if my LO thought he didn't 😂. We do a 1230 nap time and  730pm bedtime, it works great for us.

Answer

Sounds like you need to move the nap up and make it an hour to hour and a half. 
Like if sleeping 7-7am then nap at 12.

Answer

My son started fighting his nap just after turning 2. We continued to try, eventually adapted a quiet time when he had to lay down. That became quiet time without laying down and short time periods until after a few months, he just didn’t even need the scheduled quiet time. So we let the nap go. He is 3 years 4 months now and hasn’t napped or had scheduled quiet time for a year. Surprisingly, overall his behavior was better, fewer tantrums and his nighttime sleep was so much better too.  
Having said that, I know this isn’t really common. We tried to continue the napping for months before giving it up. You need to do what’s best for your child and your family.

Answer

Our son gave up his nap around then. He started napping again around 2, basically one day on/ one day off type of pattern. He'll be 3 in April and naps are now few and far between.

Answer

Our daughter is struggling with similar issues but she’s over 2. We decided to cut her nap at 1 hour. Some days she doesn’t sleep. We still put her in bed with books for at least rest time. Some days she’ll fall asleep after reading a bit, some days she just reads to herself. When she sleeps we wake her up after an hour for the same reason. When we’d let her go until she woke up herself, she wouldn’t sleep at night.  She’s unpleasant when we first wake her up but bedtime is better.

Answer

I think naps are important, but some kids just don’t do well with them. 
Have you tried cutting down to maybe an hour nap? 
If that doesn’t work, no naps may be the way to go!

Answer

My 19 month old used to take almost 2hrs naps but then she quickly went into a stage where it would take her forever to fall asleep, like an hour +. We had a few days that she didn’t nap due to other circumstances and she lasted all day just fine and went straight to bed. We dropped her nap about 3 weeks ago and she’s been great.
Sucks to have a newborn and 2 toddlers who don’t nap lol but bedtime goes a lot smoother!

Is it normal for an 18 month old to no longer need a nap during the day?

Let’s Glow

Glow is here for you on your path to pregnancy

25+ million

4.8 stars

20+

Getting Pregnant

Pregnancy

1st Year (Baby & You)

Baby Products