Is your child ready to stop naptime? 😴
, sing yet another song. But the rambunctious 2½-year-old refused to nod off. “I would spend the entire time running up trying to get her to fall asleep or yelling at her for getting out of bed,” said the 32-year-old Calgary mom of two. “After two hours, I was so flustered that I spent the rest of the day just angry that she hadn’t slept.”
like Gabrielle are typical: Major cognitive changes occurring around age 18 to 24 months, and again at 36 to 42 months, can prompt some children to fight napping. “It’s not necessarily because their physical bodies have decided they don’t need it, it’s their cognitive capacity to want more autonomy and power in the relationship, to fight for stuff when they aren’t allowed to fight for almost anything,” she says.
Toronto mom Katie Lawrence has braved sub-zero temperatures to get 31⁄2-year-old Gwenyth to nap in the double stroller she shares with 71⁄2-month-old sister Sophie. Lawrence says the cold weather doesn’t faze her “as long as the sidewalks are clear and I have a hat and mitts and a warm coat on.”