To Nap or not to Nap...

[princessophiali]

My little guy is 4 years old and is phasing out of his afternoon naps. Our trip is planned for November, and I am on the fence on whether we should come back for naps in the afternoon. Am I heading for disaster if we skip naps??
I’m wondering what other families do...

 

[jo-jo]

Forget the kids, I'm the one who needs the nap.

Are you bringing a stroller, will he nap in there? Unless you are visiting a park with a resort within walking distance, I find it takes way too much time to go back to resort for a nap. My grandkids might fall asleep on the bus for 20 mins and that's it. Get back to room and bounce off the walls.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

Forget the kids, I'm the one who needs the nap.

Are you bringing a stroller, will he nap in there? Unless you are visiting a park with a resort within walking distance, I find it takes way too much time to go back to resort for a nap. My grandkids might fall asleep on the bus for 20 mins and that's it. Get back to room and bounce off the walls.

we have had the same problem and the grandkids were worse when we tried to return to resort for nap

 

[BarlowFamily]

We took DS4 earlier this summer and decided to skip naps. We didn't stay late in the parks so he could go to bed "on-time." We were really hoping to get him to bed early, but that didn't happen. We found that a down day mid-week was important than daily naps. Just a relaxing pool day where we didn't leave the resort. It really helped. We also brought a stroller to the parks. Though we don't use the stroller in our everyday life anymore, it was nice to zip around the park and let his little legs rest. Try skipping nap, you may have zero disasters. Have fun!

 

[johnny778]

I have two boys (5&3) and we tend to get out early, head to the parks and then come back to the resort for a few hours before heading out for an evening meal. It get them out of sync with bed times but we find that they are much happier for the hour or two of downtime in the middle of the day.

 

[martikus]

Our son woke up early (like 6am) so we chose no nap and rope drop but leave parks by 3 or 4 every day to return to hotel for swim or dinner/evening. Sure we never saw evening stuff but it worked for us. I also found the time to leave park and return took to much chunk of the day.

 

[sponica]

If he'll nap in the stroller, I'd try that. Personally I find leaving to go back to the hotel and returning to the park a massive time suck.

 

[Spunky946]

We like taking breaks during the day. I get tired and cranky, and need the breaks as much as my kids. When they were younger we would usually do rope drop to just after lunch, and then back in the evening for a couple of hours, it’s what worked for us. We went last summer and the kids were 14 and 10 and we did a really unconventional schedule with staying out late, sleeping in and going to the park for a few hours, taking a break and going back to spend the night. We did a few early nights as well.

Taking a break or a nap is a real personal thing. We found in order to last longe in the parks, we need the break. There were a few times over various trips that we didn’t take a break, we were done by dinner or shortly afterwards. Maybe try a break on the first day and see how it goes.

 

[princessophiali]

I’m a 51 year old mom with the 4 year old, so yes, I need the nap more than the kids! We are taking a stroller and I’m leaning towards just staying and having downtime the parks. I feel like it’d be a waist of time to go back to resort. Thanks for the input

 

[MooseBucks]

We don’t “skip” naps but if a child still naps we have th do it in the stroller. Disney has this odd nap/stroller magic that makes our kids nap in strollers they refuse to even ride in at home we find we waste to much time and doing mid day breaks and it makes for late nights

 

[DduzDis]

We just returned from a trip last month with DDs 6 and 3. The 6 yo does not nap at home and the 3 yo is hit or miss, but they both do at WDW. We always head back to the room for an afternoon break and take a mid week day off from the parks. We don't push them. All that said, no one knows your kids better than you. What works for us may not for you. We just know for us that breaks are the difference between happy kids and not so happy kids as the days draw on.

 

[vwdisney]

It is great if your child will nap in a stroller. We were lucky when my son was young because he would nap anywhere so we never HAD to go back for a nap. Over the years, however, we have discovered that a nap is a great thing for all of us...kids and adults alike! We always rope drop, stay in park until just after lunch, go to the resort to nap (or swim, if you prefer) then go back to the parks for dinner and stay until the park closes. It works for us! That way we are in the parks for the shortest ride times in the morning and get to enjoy the fireworks, too! The afternoons in the parks are the most crowded time and we found that the few days we decided to skip the nap at the hotel we just got frustrated with the lines. We found ourselves tired and a bit grumpy by the evening without our break. I think that escaping the crowds is worth it! No one wants to be grumpy at WDW! BONUS: My son when he was about 8 thought that it was a new day every time he woke up from the nap. So we told him he was lucky because he was getting twice as many Disney World days! Kind of hilarious!

 

[buckeyegirl51]

So this has been something I have been thinking a lot about. I have a DS12 and DS7. Believe it or not my DS7 still takes a nap almost everyday but it's usually later in the day, he is also very famous for power naps out for 10 and ready to go. Sometimes if he doesn't get one he is a bear. I think we are going to try the no nap, because like so many have said it is a huge time sucker to go back to the hotel and then come back. We tried the first time (in 2009) I took my DH and DS who was 5 at the time and half the time him and I went to pool while DH took the nap, but this had been what my parent's did with us when we went.

2009 - 1st trip with my own family - Caribbean Beach Resort//2nd - Late Sept/Early Oct 2019 - Caribbean Beach Resort.

 

[sponica]

@buckeyegirl51 everyone is different...I view it like this, in my real life, if I get back home from work, I'm not going back out. Nope. If I'm on vacation, once I get back to that hotel, I'm done.

 

[saraheliz]

We did a little bit of everything when the kids were younger. A couple of days with an early start/back for afternoon swim and nap/back to parks in evening, a couple of days with early start until they were done late afternoon, and a couple of days with a sleep in/later start.

 

[Kbosch]

My kids will be 6, 4 and 2 turning 3 while we're there. Only my youngest still naps so we decided to not do an afternoon break; I'm just going to hope he falls asleep in the stroller at some point. I'm sure the other two might take turns napping in the stroller too!

 

[loves to dive]

I started taking my son when he was just shy of 3. He hated strollers so we rarely used them, except maybe once or twice a trip late in the afternoon. I was a single mom so we just played it by ear and went with what he indicated he needed. Mind you, we always stayed in the monorail resorts since those were the only on site resorts at the time. We would go at his pace, if he needed to just sit on a bench and rest for 20 min. we sat. If he was getting too cranky for words, we would leave the park and either go back to the room or back to the pool. Usually back to the room and turn on cartoons, if he didn't fall asleep (or I didn't fall asleep) we would go to the pool for awhile just to give him some time away from all the people and noise. We always had park hoppers, always stayed on site and always just went with the flow. Lots of times he would fall asleep in my lap on the monorail or a bus and if that happened and we were on the monorail, we would loop it again, if a bus, I would just carry him back to the room or he would wake up and that would be enough nap for him. It really depends on the kid and the parents tolerance level.

 

[Jdella27229]

From someone who has 3 kids and went with a 4/2/5 month old.....NAP. I was amazed at how good they were behaving with the long lines when we went back to the parks at night. Even if they don’t sleep and just go to the pool or the game room, it makes a difference. Also, we stayed at Art of Animation which is far from everything except HS. But now we own at CC, so the 5 minute boat ride back from MK should be glorious.

 

[ktlm]

We could not let DD take naps at home after her 3rd birthday. If she slept for even 10 minutes during the day she would be up until 2:00 a.m. She was never one of those that needed a ton of sleep- still isn't at 13- she is high energy. At WDW at age 4, she took naps in the stroller during the day even though she never took naps at home. We have taken her to WDW or DLR (and often both) every year since she was a pre-schooler and going back to the resort for a break/nap never worked for her. A stroller was also still very necessary at age 4, even though she had not used one at home since she was 12 months old and took her first steps.

So, I would say try a stroller and stroller naps in the park. Just be ready to be flexible if that isn't what works for your child. Carousel of Progress was always good for a nap too (sometimes for DH and DD- well okay- I might have dozed in there too).

 

[Brett Wyman]

Our 5 year old who doesn't nap at home anymore, falls asleep in the stroller at Disney sometimes. Its a big big day for their little bodies,