When do toddlers stop napping? How many naps your child needs, for how long and when to stop will all very much depend on your child and how much they sleep at night. The NHS recommends that at 2 years old, your child should have 11.5 hours sleep at night and 1.5 hours of sleep in the day. The daytime napping recommendation reduces to 45 minutes when your toddler is 3 years old and by the age of 4 years old the NHS recommends that they should no longer need daytime naps.

How do I get my child to nap in the daytime?

As your child gets older, daytime naps are likely to get trickier as your little one becomes more and more interested in what is going on around them. Your toddler may give all of the signs that they are ready for a sleep, but when it comes to taking them to their bed or cot it all changes. Here are our tips to help you win the battle:

• Make a snoozy environment. The Gro Anywhere Blind is a portable black out blind for when it is still too light to say night night. It attaches to the window using suction cups to block the light out.

•  Keep naptime consistent, from the time that you take them to bed to the number of books you read. It is quite common to put your little one down after lunch or a snack so that they associate the end of food with naptime.

• You might like to use a Groclock sleep trainer to help teach your little one when they should be in bed and when it’s OK to wake up. Using fun images of the stars and sun for daytime and night-time sleep, your child will know when to rise and shine.

How do I decide my child doesn’t need a daytime nap?

If your child takes a long time to get to sleep, or doesn’t really seem tired at nap time it might be a sign that they are old enough to start skipping their day time naps. Alternatively, if your child seems too active at bedtime, this could be another clue. It might be time to skip the sleeps during the day completely or slowly phase them out of your routine.

How should I go about phasing out daytime naps for my child?

Remember that it all very much depends on your toddler. Whilst some toddlers will stop napping very happily on the first day, others will need the change to happen more gradually.

• Try to have a rest time instead of an actual nap, some down time to play with toys or read a book.
• Whilst you are transitioning out of the baby’s daytime naps, your little one might need to go to bed a little earlier - this is quite normal.

Top tips for easing your little one off their daytime naps from our Twitter audience:

“We’ve now stopped afternoon naps and found organising fun activities or trips out during usual nap times was a good way to keep her awake and wanting to be active in the afternoons, fighting off any tiredness” @TattooedTeaLady

“We are attempting to just go cold turkey, some days it works other days it doesn’t.” @MummyCatNotes

“My daughter always fought napping anyway. But when she started to not go to bed the naps had to go! I just gave up trying to get her to nap and we have quiet time instead.” @Santillatron