3 year old will not take a nap some days
We have a 3 year old who is wonderful (most of the time ;). Somedays, however, she will not settle down and take a nap. We wakeup, go to sleep and nap on the same schedule everyday. If she doesn't sleep in the afternoon, she is terrible to her little 2 yr old brother... and defiant to us... We've tried all sorts of stuff read in books, hinted by parents ect... (we always read books after lunch, before nap, after getting jammies on... very routine home)
She has begun to wiggle and spit and laugh at mama when she's trying to rock her. She yells in bed, bangs the walls, etc... OOOOOO! It really get's to you. We are patient, but need something else. Just looking for MORE IDEAS!
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On the days when she won't take a nap, can you just leave her in her room for quiet time? When our daughter started to outgrow her afternoon naps, we allowed her to play quietly in her room for the time allotted for a nap. Sometimes she would end up sleeping, sometimes she would play and just watch the clock for the time to get up to arrive. But it at least allowed the rest of us some respite. And if her body was tired even though she was determined not to nap, the quiet time allowed her body to get its way and get some sleep.
Sleep is communicative. Our 3 years old is not a good napper, and we get remarks about it from school.
But during the week-ends, I can get a nap from him: I noticed that if I do nap myself, and the kid in beside me, and I tell him that he do not have to sleep, but he has to let me sleep, and get angry at him if he moves too much or makes noise, and ask him to leave our bed, then he will want to stay, and finally fall asleep.
My son gave up naps around age 3. It wasn't ideal. He just decided he didn't want to nap anymore. I think some of this stemmed from the fact that he saw his baby sister taking naps during the day and decided that naps were for babies. Every so often, like if he's sick, he'll take a nap.
Despite this, though, he still has a daily quiet time. It may involve playing quietly, coloring, looking at books, playing with Legos, but, more often than not, vegging out on the couch and watching an age-appropriate show or two. The deal is that he can't make a lot of noise (so as not to wake up his sister--in fact, he's not even allowed upstairs while she's sleeping), and he can't disturb us (Mom and Dad) as we frequently use that time to clean, check email, make phone calls, etc.
We've also rolled back his bedtime to ensure that he's getting plenty of sleep at night. He was becoming insanely cranky as the evening wore on and we finally explained to him that if he wasn't going to take a nap then he HAD to go to bed earlier to make sure he was getting enough sleep. He didn't like it at first, but he's settled in to the routine and generally falls asleep very quickly at night now (because he's exhausted!).
The other thing to consider is that this might just be a temporary power-struggle thing. She's 3--it's entirely possible that she's just flexing her 3-year-old muscles to see what she can get away with. I had a friend of mine whose daughter tried the same thing around age 3. She eventually went back to taking naps again a few months later on her own. In the meantime, I think if you try to force it, your daughter will just try to fight harder to avoid the nap. Giving her a quiet place (it doesn't have to be her bedroom) where she can sit alone and do something quietly until naptime is over might be your best option.
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