Forcing my child to sleep?

[1kidmama]

I guess, but if not resting its movie/book time with the lights out for most in my area...daycare center's here have staff in the room to make sure they sleep...

[sunnydays]

I think you will find that most daycares require at minimum a quiet time. It is actually recommended and backed by research that young children need a rest period in the afternoon. And in kindgarten they actually still have a naptime (it is 30-40 minutes)...so I do not take nap away for children starting school soon. If they are sleeping it is because they are tired and need the sleep...nobody can actually force a child who is not tired to sleep...you can force them to stay quiet, but not sleep. My 5 year old often naps still when he is home and he sleeps well at night. He goes to bed a bit later in the summer because we are out enjoying physical activities such as biking and playing at the park etc...so he then has a nice rest in the afternoon. He still goes to bed by 9 at the latest. When he goes to school and has only 30 minutes of rest and doesn't actually sleep...he is so tired he is a wreck when he gets home and he has to go to bed by 7pm. I like our family time in the evening, so I prefer he naps and goes to bed a bit later. 11pm is too late for sure...but be sure it isn't because your son is going through a phase of sleep resistance. I had a daycare boy who did this recently (actually most kids do it at various stages)...finally his parents took my advice and let him cry it out in his room for a few nights until he got back to going to sleep. He always naps 2 to 2.5 hours for me...nothing changed in his naps, but he is back to sleeping at a decent hour at night. Sometimes it isn't lack of tiredness, but testing of boundaries (my kids have all done this to me as well and if I stay strong and firm, it passes).

[Judy Trickett]

I guess, but if not resting its movie/book time with the lights out for most in my area...daycare center's here have staff in the room to make sure they sleep...

This is going to sound argumentative but it's not intended to.

If most daycares in your area (and it's not just in YOUR area I know a lot of providers!) require that children rest for a period of time why do you think that is? I mean, these are the people in the business of caring for kids. They know kids. They spend 50 hours a week with kids.

The answer to my own question (bolded) is that providers require a rest period because kids NEED that rest time. Most kids are chronically over tired. Most behavioural problems are due to over- tiredness. We wouldn't feed our kids junk food so why do we think it's okay to give them junk sleep?

A child that is 2.5 years old needs between 12 and 14 hours of sleep per day to allow for optimal health, growth and development. If he is going to bed at 11pm and, presumably getting up at least by 7am (because he needs to get up to be at daycare) then that leaves a 4 hour gap of time he was robbed of sleep. He NEEDS the nap.

My guess is that your child is actually OVER-tired when you put him to bed and that is the reason he won't go down. When a parent tells me their child won't go to bed at night due to a nap I know that one of two things (or both) are happening. Either the child is over-tired because the parents put the child to bed too late, or, the parent is not parenting at bed time. It is important that the child understand that bedtime is bedtime and Tom-foolery will NOT be tolerated no matter how much fussing, crying or getting back out of bed occurs.

Your son's night time sleep problems are NOT the result of having had a nap.