Why You Should Rethink Dropping Naps Too Soon
Why You Should Rethink Dropping Naps Too Soon
Dropping the nap is one of the most common questions I get from parents. Usually it comes up around age three or four, when the nap starts to feel like a fight, or when preschool schedules make it hard to protect.
My answer surprises a lot of people. In my professional opinion, kids should nap or have a rest time until age five.
Here is why, and what the research actually shows.
In a hurry? Everything I use for sleep in our house is rounded up in my Amazon sleep list, and if you're shopping for a non toxic mattress or pillow, start with this post where I break down what to look for. Otherwise, keep reading for the research on why naps matter longer than most parents think
Sleep is when the brain does its most important work
There is a wonderful piece in Harvard Medicine magazine on children's sleep that is worth every parent's time. A few things from it stuck with me.
Think of the hippocampus as a short term filing cabinet. Everything a child learns in a day gets dumped there. During sleep, it gets sorted into long term storage and the cabinet clears out for tomorrow. Adults take for granted how much kids are absorbing. They are not just learning their alphabet. They are learning that the sky is blue and bunnies are furry, all day long. Their filing cabinet fills up faster than ours and needs to be emptied more often.
The nap research is striking. Children who napped soon after learning new words remembered them about 80 percent of the time. Children who did not nap remembered them about 30 percent of the time. And the difference was still there the next day. Sleep has to happen shortly after learning for the learning to take root.
Naps reset emotions, not just memory. A child collects small frustrations all morning. Shoes they did not want to put on. The wrong breakfast. A toy someone else grabbed first. A nap releases that emotional load, and they wake up with a clean slate. Without one, the load never gets released, and by afternoon they may overreact to everything.
Growth happens during sleep too. Almost all human growth hormone is produced during deep sleep, and a 45 minute nap is long enough to reach it. When sleep gets disrupted by illness or travel, growth can slow, and kids often have a growth spurt once their normal routine returns.
It matters for older kids too. A study of more than 8,000 nine and ten year olds found that children sleeping under nine hours a night had more mental health and behavioral issues than peers who slept nine or more. Brain imaging showed less gray matter in the areas responsible for attention, memory, and impulse control. Those differences were still visible two years later.
And there is a meaningful connection to ADHD. Sleep supports inhibitory control, which is the core skill kids with ADHD struggle with most. Kids with ADHD may need roughly 45 minutes more sleep than their peers to get the same benefit. When an underlying sleep issue like sleep apnea is identified and treated, ADHD like behaviors often decrease significantly.
How much sleep do kids really need?
These are the ranges from the CDC and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine:
AgeSleep in 24 hours4 to 12 months12 to 16 hours, including naps1 to 2 years11 to 14 hours, including naps3 to 5 years10 to 13 hours, including naps6 to 12 years9 to 12 hours13 to 18 years8 to 10 hours
Naps count toward the total. That is the part parents often miss. Most young children simply cannot get 12 or 13 hours in one stretch at night, in part because they still need to eat and wake frequently. The nap makes up the difference.
Nap or rest time until age five
Most children outgrow the biological need for a nap somewhere around age five, though kids vary enormously. But outgrowing the nap does not mean outgrowing the need for a reset in the middle of the day.
If the nap is gone, quiet time still gives the brain a break from constant input. What that can look like:
Books alone in their room
An audiobook or calm music with the lights low
Puzzles, coloring, or magnet tiles on the bed
Lying down with a lovey, with no pressure to actually sleep
A few things that make it work: keep it at the same time every day, aim for 45 minutes to an hour, and keep screens out of it. The consistency is what turns it from a negotiation into a routine.
Our favorite things for sleep
These are the things we actually use in our home.
Light
Light suppresses melatonin, which is the hormone that helps induce sleep by calming the brain. Dimming the lights an hour before bed makes a real difference, and shifting to red light in the evening helps even more.
Check out our blog on why light bulbs are more important than you think and the ones we use
This is the clip on reading light that I use on my kid’s bed
The wind down ritual
The ritual matters as much as the individual pieces. It is essentially about cueing the body that it is time for sleep.
Dr. Hauschka calming cream— I use this to rub their feet before nap and bedtime. Honestly, any lotion works. The magic is not the cream, it is that kids love getting their feet rubbed while you tell a story or sing a song. It is one of the easiest ways I know to help a resistant kid settle.
We Nurture quick bedtime stories — They came out with a book of short bedtime stories that is genuinely great. Short is the key word when you are trying to wind down rather than wind up.
Magnesium flakes in the bath — We add these to the tub as part of the bedtime routine. A warm bath on its own is one of the classic ways to cue the body that sleep is coming, and the flakes make it feel like a ritual rather than just getting clean. Follow the directions on the package for how much to use, and check with your pediatrician as always.
Where they sleep
Naturepedic organic toddler pillow—(USE CODE DRORGANICMOMMY) For toddlers and preschoolers, roughly ages two to five. It allows the head to settle without pushing the chin toward the chest. I also appreciate that the toddler version has no zipper or removable cover, specifically to eliminate the zipper as a choking hazard.
Avocado toddler pillow — Another good organic option in the same age range.
Coyuchi — What we moved to after the toddler years.
There is no one right answer
Kids are wildly different sleepers. You may have an easy one who naps anywhere and wakes up smiling, or one who is hard to put down and hard to wake up. Anybody who has more than one child knows this. Some parents simply have a harder assignment, and that does not mean you are doing something wrong.
But sleep is one of the highest leverage things you can protect for your child. If the nap is on its way out in your house, try replacing it with rest time before you let it go entirely. You may be surprised how much of the afternoon it saves.