It can be really frustrating for parents and preschool teachers when toddlers stop napping.
But whether toddlers willingly settle down for a midday slumber or won't is most likely connected to brain development in the hippocampus, according to a new studylead by Rebecca Spencer, University of Massachusetts Amherst professor of psychological and brain sciences. She collaborated with Tracy Riggins, a University of Maryland child psychologist specializing in memory development.
"A lot of people would think that the transition out of naps is just kind of a sleep process or things related to basic physiology," Spencer said.
But her research shows that a child's transition out of naps is related to learning.
Naps stop when the hippocampus can hold enough information Spencer said. It no longer has to pause or nap as frequently to download memories. If kids stop napping too soon because of something like a loud household, Spencer said, they may forget what they're learning.
Toddlers do tend to sleep better in the preschool environment Spencer said, because they're in this kind of "pack mentality."
"In the big picture, sometimes they're not napping because they're being defiant," Spencer said, "but sometimes it's because they're truly ready. How can we help parents disentangle those two things? That's the importance of our research in the first place."
Spencer said she cannot yet tell a parent how to distinguish between the stubborn child and the one whose hippocampus is developed enough, but that's the direction she's heading toward.
Next up for Spencer is finding a way to develop a measure of memory, through a long-term study of 3-to-5-year-olds.
