to stop my 18month old from dayrime napping?

[bejeezus]

It seems really wee. But I can't get her to sleep before 930pm in the evening if she has slept in the day. I'm a bit delirious with tiredness and craving child free evenings. It's also disrupting dd1s bedtime, she is 7 and needs sleep for school

Is it mean?

Her nap cam be anytime really. Sometimes she will go down in the morning, which is better for bed time. Most usually she wants to sleep around 1 or 2pm which is not good

Spoke to her nursery and they have not been putting her down and day she is fine with it. She is staying awake about 70% of the days she is with me. It is better

Last night she sad asleep at 7pm with a little bit of resistance. I went to bed around 1230am and she had woken up before I fell asleep. I took her into my bed as she was disturbing her sister. She didn't go back to sleep till around 3am. I am shattered and now feel ill let her nap today, so I can have some time away from her. Lovely as she is

This happened to us when DD was 2.5. Every child is different but I remember the nightmare bed times and the wakeful nights if she had napped. What worked really well for us was naps on some days and not on others. plus keeping them to one sleep cycle of 45 minutes.

I know it sounds as though I'm missing the point because yours is v young, but I think you have to do what works. It's better to have 12 hours quality sleep at night than a few hours here and there, not to mention less stressful for the family.

Is your going to bed routine too long? I'm not sure where I've picked this up but I read that it should be no more than 30 mins. So we start bath at 7 and have pjs on, story and lights out by 730. Seems to work for us but DD is only 1.

Hmm, this is really interesting...my 18mo is a terrible sleeper. We cut him down to one nap a day earlier than all his peers and that seemed to help for a while, but now we're back to 9.30pm bedtimes, waking through the night (sometimes for 2-3 hours) and completely unpredictable waking in the morning. Anywhere from 5-8am!

On the few days he has - for some reason or other - not had a nap, he does go down very easily in the evening. I wonder if we might experiment with no nap one day out of three...not right now, of course, because he's got bloomin chicken pox. Let the disturbed nights continue! :(

God, I've abandoned all semblance of a bedtime routine because it got bloody depressing to do the thing and then just end up coming back downstairs anyway.

The 'routine' in theory is probably not longer than 40 minutes? Do you count all the gagging about to get dd2 to sleep as part of the routine? That would take it to 2 or 3 hours. Which definitely IS too bloody long

Oh please don't think its a motherhood fail my dd1 was a NIGHTMARE sleeper until 3 yo but due ti sleep apnoea. So when dd2 was great from 6 weeks until 12 months, she went 7pm till 7am, I was too experienced to feel smug. Unless you can stomach the 'controlled' crying I don't think its much to do with them parenting (beyond the obvious, obviously)

Does your daughter still use buggy a lot? It's just that Iv found evicting them from buggy for all reasonable journeys around 18 months makes them more tired as walking more.

Works the same way I suppose as when a 7 monh old starts waking when usually slept, then as soon as they start crawling, go back to routine. Then a few months later seems to happen again before they start walking. Then they start and seem to get worn out quicker.

Does any of that make sense? X2 runs/ walks a day ( yes yes sounds like a dog!), but their sleep/ eating/ everything seems to improve. Can just be 10 mins to get some milk or afternoon wander to park if close enough rather than buggy to park

I dont think yabu at all. Having made a baby who just doesnt seem to need much day time sleep. For the last month (since he was 10 months old) he has 1 x 2 hour nap. He wakes from at at 11.30am and stays awake until 6.30pm bedtime. Thats 7 hours awake!

My eldest needed twice that and couldnt go 3 hours without sleep at the same age.

I can quite believe him needing no day time naps at all from 18-24 months.

I like them in bed early (6.30-7pm) if that means forfitting day time naps so be it! Although only if the child is happy of course. We have a bit of whinging the last half hour of the day occasionally but thats it. No tears ir tantrums or other indications of over tiredness.

I say give it a go and see. You can always change back.

Best of luck.

Aaaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh

Lovely 7pm bedtime after no naps yesterday BUT awake 3am until 6am!

That's no better!

No! Poor you

It's definitely a case of trial and error. Over 3 kids I had 7 years of broken nights, everyone finally sleeping through thankfully but took almost 2 yrs for dc3 to get there.