G'day Ruthie. So it's obvious you are not connecting to your network. Is this happening with a completely new iPad3 you have just bought or is it on an iPad, version 2 or version 3, where you were not having any trouble before now?
Check back on that, can you, your answer could help with the solution
Regards, Andrew
It's an iPad she bought in March, when it they first came out. And we can safely assume it is an iPad 3.
It is hard to really know where the problem is in a situation like this. Each device has a little bit different characteristics in terms of its ability to receive and send a wireless signal.
How far are you typically from your wireless router when the wifi drops out? Several rooms away or in the same room? It could be that you are on the edge of the range for your router and your iPad, for one reason or other, is just not pulling in the signal. Sometimes there can be other folks using their wifi on the same band and that makes it harder for your iPad to get it's signals. Do you live in a single dwelling unit (like a house) or in one were several families live (apartment, condo, townhouse, etc)? I know in my house several of my nearby neighbors are all emitting signals on the same band and as I get farther away from the router things get tricky. Just last night, while sitting on the couch, my iPad was having difficulty, while my phone generally did better. My Nexus 7 typically just drops out at this location. While it may seem as if they all should work if one works, that is not true because the antennas are in different locations and in different environments.
I wish there was an app for iOS devices that would let you monitor the strength of your wireless connection. There are such tools for Android devices (Wifi Analyzer) that let you essentially map out the strength of your wifi signal for a given device so you can know in what areas you have a marginal signal (comparatively speaking). These tools also tell you the strength of other wifi signals that are in your house due to your neighbors, and what channels they are using. With such a tool, you can decide if perhaps you need to tell your router to use a different channel where you may have a stronger signal and fewer conflicts with neighbors and such.
I suggest you try the same apps at locations very close to the router (in the same room, with no walls between the iPad and router) and then at farther locations (at the other end of the house, through walls) and note if the problem happens everyone or in just locations that are farther away.
So, at this point it is not clear if the problem is with your iPad or not. More info is needed.