(HealthDayNews) -- Isn't it wonderful when the kids take a nap? That's when you can sit back, relax, and try to remember why you wanted to have children to begin with.
A team from the Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago followed 172 children from the age of 6 months until 7 years to track their nap patterns.
As reported in the journal Sleep, all children follow similar patterns. Girls don't nap any more than boys, and first-born children don't nap more or less than their siblings.
A pattern of two naps every day was established by 9-12 months. Somewhere between 15 and 24 months, most children switched to a single daily nap.
Between the ages of 3 and 4 nap time declined, and by age 5 most children had stopped napping. By age 7, almost all the children had stopped napping.
The researchers didn't follow the subjects long enough to determine the age at which the desire to take an afternoon nap returns.
