When To Stop, Drop, and Eliminate Naps
Once your child gets older, they’ll stop needing so much sleep. After all, your newborn baby seems to power nap incessantly, but you know that eventually, you’ll need to get them to one long nap in the afternoon (and then to no naps at all).
But how do we do that? And when do we transition? We certainly don’t want to take away sleep from our baby if they still need it, but we can’t have them napping through life for the rest of their existence either.
In this post, we’ll outline how many naps a child should be taking at each age, how long they should last, and when to eliminate a nap from the schedule altogether.
How Many Naps Should My Child Take?
The number of naps a child needs at any given age is determined by their developmental needs. And while it’s true that every child’s developmental needs are different, there are some pretty universal guidelines you can use to formulate your nap plan.
We recommend using these primary guidelines (give or take a couple of weeks):
0-4 months: No guidelines. These kids literally sleep whenever.
4 - 9 months: 3 naps
9 - 18 months: 2 naps
18 mo - 5 yrs: 1 nap
5+ years: 0 naps, unless occasionally needed
How Long Should My Child’s Naps Be?
When your child is sleeping soundly, it can feel counter-productive to step in and stop a nap. But take heart, waking them from one sleep period on schedule ensures they will sleep well again during their next sleep period.
Even still, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much sleep your child needs at any given age; especially when some kids sleep nearly non-stop and others struggle to sleep any time they lay down.
The general rule is: the fewer naps your child takes, the longer those naps will likely need to be.
From a developmental standpoint, however, it’s actually easier and more constructive to discuss how long your child can stay awake between naps, rather than discussing how long they should actively be napping.
In order to do this though, we have to understand a little thing called Wake Windows: the amount of time your child is developmentally able to tolerate staying awake between naps.
So, we created a Wake Windows Chart as a bit of a cheat sheet.
You’ll notice that the windows get longer and longer over time, which makes sense because children need less and less naps as they grow older.
This also means that the longer they are awake between naps, the longer their naps will have to be to compensate.
Based on this information, we recommend the following guidelines for naps:
0 - 4 months: No guidelines. Let them set their own sleep schedule.
4 - 9 months: 1-1.5 hours at each nap
9 - 18 months: 2 (ish) hours at each nap
18 mo - 5 years: 1-3 hours at each nap, time will decrease the older your child gets
5+ years: 1-2 hours tops, if needed at all
When Do I Eliminate A Nap From My Child’s Sleep Schedule?
You may have noticed something else when looking at the Wake Windows Chart above… The number of naps your child takes actually decreases over time.
This is because, once your child reaches 9-12 months of age, they’ll stop needing quite so much sleep spread out across the day. They’ll also be able to stay awake longer, which means the math (and the developmental needs) won’t line up if your child takes 3 naps a day.
You may notice your child suddenly having difficulty falling asleep at naptime, waking far too early from their nap, or no longer showing signs of tiredness around nap time. You may also notice them suddenly crying or protesting far more than usual when going down for a nap, and these are all signs that your child may be ready to eliminate one of their naps.
But how do we do that?
We recommend completing the following steps simultaneously:
Shrink the nap you’re eliminating by 10-15 minutes.
If your child needs it, you can lengthen the other naps by 10-15 minutes to compensate. But if your child doesn’t seem extra tired, you can leave the other nap times alone.
Base their wake windows off the time they WOKE UP from their last sleep period. If you base them off the time you put your child down, the next sleep period will fall too early and they will not be prepared to sleep.
If your child’s final nap runs longer than 3-3.5 prior to their bedtime, wake them to ensure they are able to get adequate night's sleep.
