How old is a child before they don’t need a nap? How can I tell if they don’t want to sleep or if they don’t need to sleep?

Babies usually sleep for a long time after birth, and even during the day, they will take more than one nap to replenish their energy.And as your baby grows older, he will become more energetic and stay awake for longer periods of time, and the number of daytime naps will decrease.This will slowly transition to only needing a midday nap throughout the day to replenish energy, or even the whole day without sleep.So, how can we tell if a child needs a nap? If so, how long is the best time to take a nap?

Let’s start by talking about how to tell if your child needs a nap.

Babies of different ages need different amounts of sleep.

Newborns sleep for 15-18 hours a day, and there is no set pattern to the number of naps they need during the day, and they can fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

Whereas babies aged 1-6 months need about 15-16 hours of sleep and generally take 3-4 naps during the day.

for babies aged 6-9 months, they need approximately 14-15 hours of sleep, with the number of daytime naps typically being 2-3.

for babies aged 9-18 months, they need approximately 13-14 hours of sleep and the number of naps during the day is usually 1-2.

In general, between the age of one and a half and two years, there is a qualitative leap in the number of daytime naps, with the number of regular naps gradually decreasing from “two naps per day” to “one nap per day”, with the sleep time being more fixed at midday, also known as “concurrent sleep”. This is also known as the “parallel nap”.

The napping habit then starts at the age of 2 and continues until about 7 years old.

As a whole, all children under the age of 3 need a nap, while after the age of 3 it varies from child to child and parents can arrange this according to their child’s circumstances.

In general, the need for naps will depend on the ‘duration and quality of sleep at night’, the ‘discharge of activities during the day’, the ‘schedule of the child’ and “Individual differences in the child’s sleep needs”.

According to research, around 50% of children do not need naps after the age of 4 years. By the time a child is 5 years old, most children do not need a nap.

So how can parents tell if their child doesn’t want to sleep or doesn’t need to?

If your child is very resistant to naps during the day, parents patiently put them to sleep for more than half an hour and still can’t fall asleep, or parents try to give up naps after the child from afternoon to night before going to sleep, are full of energy, not half tired or irritable performance, it means that the child may not really need to sleep.

Parents can arrange for their child to cut back on strenuous exercise in the middle of the day and switch to quiet activities, such as drawing and reading, or to bring bedtime earlier in the evening to ensure that the child gets enough sleep.

And if parents try to give up putting their child to bed on a particular day and let him or her skip naps as they wish, the child will start to get sleepy as soon as he or she is in a quiet environment, for example, his or her eyelids will start to droop at mealtime, and he or she will even fall asleep at the dinner table. This means that your child still needs a nap and still needs to sleep during the day in order to keep their energy levels up.

Otherwise, not getting enough rest will not only tend to make your child restless, but will even affect the timing and quality of sleep at night.

Parents can help their children improve their subjective resistance to napping in three ways.

① Sleeping at a fixed time.

Scheduling your child’s nap at the same time each day. By fixing the nap time, this will help your child establish a biological clock that will enable him or her to fall asleep more quickly.

②Comfortable sleeping environment.

Create a comfortable and quiet sleeping environment for your child, with minimal light and noise disturbance.

Especially before bedtime, avoid showing your child products with electronic screens, such as mobile phones and pads, so that the stimulation of blue light does not make your child over-excited before bedtime and resist falling asleep.

③Sleep rituals are established.

As with nighttime sleep, naps can also establish sleep rituals for your child to help them transition from a playful state to a state of readiness for sleep as soon as possible.

This can be done in different forms such as changing nappies, changing pajamas, talking about picture books, playing children’s songs, etc. Choose one or more of your child’s favourites to establish a regular sleep ritual and help reduce your baby’s delay in falling asleep.

Next, let’s find out how long is appropriate for your child to take a nap?

Generally, around one and a half years old, naptime is about 2 hours; while after two years old, the need for naps will decrease and nap time will be reduced to about 1-2 hours.

Parents just need to grasp the child nap both to ensure that the afternoon mental state, but also does not affect the time and quality of sleep at night this big principle can be.

Sometimes parents may feel that their child is taking too long a nap, but there is no need to wake the child up and wait for him to wake up naturally if.

① the child naps for more than 3 hours.

② there is difficulty falling asleep at night, falling asleep more than 30 minutes later than the normal bedtime.

③ Early awakening in the morning, waking up more than 30 minutes earlier than usual or before 6am and having slept less than 10 hours overall during the night.

So, if your baby doesn’t want to sleep at noon, stop forcing him to sleep!