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Home › Articles › Toddlers › Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk

Does Your Child Need a Nap?

By Laurie L. Dove

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Enough Shut Eye
To help tired toddlers and growing infants get the sleep they need, parents need to make naptime a comforting experience, says University of Cincinnati Pediatrician Caroline Mueller. "Make sure you have a pre-nap routine," Dr. Mueller says. "Lay the baby down calm and sleepy, but awake, from early on so that he can learn to put himself to sleep."

The priority, especially for toddlers, should be on making sure your child is getting enough sleep within a 24-hour period, not fitting into a rigid daytime nap routine, adds Dr. Thomas Kilkenny, director of the Sleep Disorder Center in Staten Island, N.Y. A newborn needs as much as 20 hours of sleep each day, Dr. Kilkenny says, and while the amount of sleep decreases as a child grows, toddlers still need at least 10 hours of sleep at night, plus perhaps a one-hour nap during the day.

"A toddler won't come up to you and say, 'I'm sleepy,' but she will become cranky, whiney and irritable when tired. You just have to watch for the signals," he says. However, Dr. Kilkenny cautions that each child needs a varying amount of sleep. While it may be essential for one toddler to sleep a full 10 hours at night and take a two-hour nap each afternoon, a sibling may not need that much sleep and may be able to skip a nap altogether.

Plummer encourages other parents to use common sense when deciding if a child needs a nap. "At 4 years old, my daughter told me she didn't want to take a nap anymore, so we agreed to some scheduled quiet time," he says. "She now goes to her room while her sister naps and she can play in her room watching TV, playing her computer games or playing with her toys. But she has to stay in her room."

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