A 2 year old should nap for 1.5 hours to 3 hours at most.
If your 2 year old only naps for 1.5 to 2 hours that is okay but 3 hours of nap time is even better.
A 2 year old also needs at least 10 hours to 12 hours of sleep per night.
Daytime naps can affect the night sleep for toddlers.
If your toddler does not nap or sleep during the afternoon then you may find that the toddler is too tired to eat an evening meal and so you may put the toddler to bed early.
Too few or too many naps, as well as naps that are too long or late in the day, play the same role in toddler sleep problems — they make toddlers too sleepy or not sleepy enough so that they're not getting good-quality sleep.
Every child is different, but most kids stop doing their afternoon nap sometime between the ages of 3 and 5.
There are plenty of signs to look for that your child is ready to stop napping, such as not sleeping during naptime, having trouble falling asleep at nighttime, and waking up earlier than usual.
Children who nap have longer attention spans and are less irritable than those who are not napping.
Naps are valuable and when they are given up – usually sometime after 3 years of age – they should be replaced with a structured quiet time.
Children need this time to re-group, as do their parents.
When toddlers don't nap they become more cranky, irritable, whiny and prone to tantrums that day.
Night sleep is worse when a toddler hasn't napped that day.
Overall sleep in 24 hours is consistently 11 hours or less.
Napping allows memories to move to the cortex, freeing space for more information to be stored in the hippocampus.
You can liken the developing hippocampus to a bucket of varying size.
When the hippocampus is inefficient, it's like having a small bucket.
Your child's body makes HGH (Human Growth Hormone) while they sleep, which not only helps their body grow but also repairs muscles, tissue, and bone.
This hormone helps your child throughout their life, from triggering those rapid growth spurts in early childhood to facilitating development during puberty and beyond.