Dropping naps at 27 months ?

I honestly don't know what is right or wrong, just that each child is unique and following the generalized advice that is often meted out in books can be stressful. My older one dropped his naps at 27 months, and would be out for 12-hours straight, at 6:45 or 7pm, no struggles. And, when I forced the nap, we did have bedtime struggles. I really missed the nap time respite, but in general found the lack of predictability more disruptive. Just go with what turns out easier on you in the long run, because sanity is crucial to surviving these crazy times. Good luck!

My 3YO has had phases over the last year where he won’t nap for a few days, but he still takes solid 2 hour naps most days. Might be just a phase? I would but her to bed early on days she doesn’t nap, and try to keep her super active in the morning to tire her out. Good luck!

My daughter gave up her naps early, too. I'd put her down for a nap and she'd bellow "I'M NOT TIRED! I'M NOT SLEEEEEEEPY!" for an hour and a half. I finally gave up. It was fine, except that preschool, of course had a prescribed nap time and my daughter hated it. One of the teachers created a sticker book for her, where she would get a sticker whenever she actually fell asleep. At the end of 6 months she had 5 stickers. Fortunately, after the few non-napping kids made an earnest effort to fall asleep, the teachers would let them engage in QUIET activities for the duration of nap time. But I don't think her health or development suffered for giving up naps early.

I don't think we dropped the last nap until about 3 years of age. However, what you are describing is the situation we were in at age 3. If she got a nap, she'd blow past her normal bedtime and wake up tired the next day. For a while, we survived by giving her the nap, but keeping it short (<30 minutes). That worked quite well until she was ready to fully drop the nap. It was a massive fight with daycare to get them to go along with it (they really fought us on waking her up after a short nap, even misleading me on the relevant state regulations).

I've heard bad things about using nursing/bottle to get to sleep. If you're up for it, I highly recommend sleep training. It may be emotionally hard, but a kid with the confidence they can fall asleep by themselves is stunningly magical for everyone involved.

Follow your instincts on this one. My first child stopped napping completely by age 2, and it was fine. My second child napped every day until age 5 and that was fine too. Same parents, same household. Just different kids. Please don't place too much value on what other people tell you you "should" be doing. Just do what feels natural for your child and you. All cultures are different, and what is the norm here is totally not the norm in other countries and cultures, and yet kids grow up mostly happy and fine. 

I went through something similar recently with my now-29-month-old. He still is nursing at nap and bedtime. He seemed to be either refusing to nap or taking forever to fall asleep at nap time, and then when he did nap he wouldn't fall asleep till like 10:30 p.m., with much struggling (like 1.5+ hrs sometimes) getting him to sleep at night. When he didn't nap, he'd fall asleep much earlier. And by my estimate, he would get about the same amount of total sleep--maybe more--when he didn't nap (still only 11-12ish hours, which I guess is just barely acceptable). So what we've done is this: I give him afternoon resting time, in which he occasionally will fall asleep, but in which I don't try to force him to nap. It's taken a little while for him to put up with this, but the main gist has been no battling, gentle encouragement, and letting him listen to old-old school Disney recordings (he loves Snow White on Spotify, which is a solid 45 minutes). When he does happen to fall asleep on his own, his bedtime is totally destroyed . . . but most nights recently he's fallen asleep at a reasonable time, and there has been like an 89% decrease in crying/battles/etc. As long as he's averaging about the same amount of sleep either way, I'm personally feeling OK about not forcing a nap, as long as he is given a consistent opportunity to nap. And he dropped his morning nap super-young, so I am thinking my guy must just not be a big napper. I recommend consulting your pediatrician, though, to talk it through (I'm not a doctor!). . . . Happy to share more of my process if you'd like to reach out directly--none of this was easy, and I'm half worried I'm jinxing something by writing this now! ;-)

My first napped pretty regularly until he was almost four.  Then my second came along, and she dropped naps altogether right after she turned two.  It wasn't worth the struggle and the late bedtimes.  I would read their cues and adjust accordingly. 

My son tried dropping his nap around that age too. I did hear from some people who said, "Yes, my child dropped naps early at XX months and we were fine," but everyone else, including his preschool teacher, his pediatrician, the advice nurse, etc etc etc all told me it was too early. So we decided to stick to the nap. It was a struggle, and there was crying involved (some of it mine!), but I put him down the same time every day and just committed to it. After maybe 2 weeks my son went back to napping, and he napped BEAUTIFULLY and consistently until he was 3.5, at which point it was clear he was ready to drop it. Many kids try to fight their naps and have a sleep disruption when they are 2, it's developmental. Try to get over the hump. Good luck!

When our kid was about 24 moths old, it regularly took 1.5 hours get her to fall asleep for a nap that lasted 1.5 hours. Then at night, another 1.5 hours before she would fall asleep. I experimented with napping every other day (hah!) -- we were napless after that.  The result was a less broken-up day for me and more options for afternoon activities, and she fell asleep more easily at night.

A neighbor says her older son (now 30-something) slept 8 hours in 24 from something like six months of age, wouldn't or couldn't sleep more.

My daughter was basically done with naps around that age. She had to nap at preschool, but when she did, she stayed up ridiculously late. It settled into a pattern: +1/2 hr nap=+1.5 hrs awake past bedtime. Not a good tradeoff. But she seemed fine with no nap. The struggle was convincing the preschool to *prevent* her from napping. We eventually settled on a compromise of a 30 minute nap just to refresh, and then activities with the handful of 4-yr-olds who didn't nap--a contributing factor to extremely early literacy! :D She's now almost 7, and she certainly never suffered any problems from not napping.

That said, if it's only been 4 days, it could be a temporary thing, due to all kinds of factors. Who knows--maybe the smoke can affect this. She could still return to napping.