Last week the Today Show did a little segment about a new study that suggests when a child reaches the age of 2…naps may be doing more harm than good! As soon as I heard that “tease,” my ears perked up and I had to stop what I was doing and literally say out loud, “Are you serious?” There is no way my 2 year old (or his younger brother), can successfully navigate and entire day without a nap, and I stay sane.
Let’s be honest here, kids — and I have 2, have a lot of energy and more often than not I am the one counting the minutes until nap time, so I can either take a nap too or successfully catch up on stuff around the house. Usually, the latter. I take many steps to plan the day around some kind of nap schedule, even if it’s not the exact same time every day, but I build it in somewhere.
Every child is different, but my boys get really cranky, whiny and grumpy when they need some rest. It’s almost like they are running out of fuel and need a nap to recharge. I love when they wake up refreshed from a nap and greet me with a smile. The study says a daytime nap, may actually “disrupt” nighttime sleep. Honestly, I do have to make sure I don’t let them nap past 3 in the afternoon if I want them to cooperate and go to bed by 8:30pm, but that’s what works for me. My kids go down 8:30/9pm and usually rise 6:30/7am…on a good day.
These are my reasons they need to nap:
- Kids need a midday recharge
- It cures the grumpy, whiny, cranky, needy pleas
- I need silence
- Children grow in their sleep
- It maintains order
- Gives me a moment to regroup
- Downtime and quiet time are a GOOD thing
Okay, so maybe my case for them napping benefits me more than them…but at the end of the day, I need a break time and sometimes the only way to get it…is when they nap!