Going insane-2 year old won’t sleep

[Whatnext2018]

Does anyone have any advice, my dd turned two a few weeks ago and the last couple of weeks, she just won’t take her daily nap. It’s also taking a couple of hours to get her to sleep at night. She’s had the odd few days like this, but this is now everyday. I’m a sahm (tutor part time but not at the moment) and recovering from illness, so I’m finding being with her with no break or even tiny bit of quiet from 7 am-9/10pm is a nightmare.
I love my girl, but really struggling with this, she used to nap fairly easily, now she just jumps on the bed, runs around the room, it’s like she has excess energy but is clearly tired and needs her afternoon nap (as do I!)

Cot with a stair gate on the door. She might well lie down and go to sleep when she hasn’t got distractions

What happens if she doesn’t nap all day?

I feel pretty terrible as always lie down and nap with her and dh take it turns to do the same each night, but I’ve just left her in the bedroom (has stair gate on etc) and said it’s nap time and left her and come downstairs, she fussed a bit at first but now it’s gone really quiet. Am hoping she’s asleep, will nip up in a minute ( scared to wake her if she is!) but I feel guilty having done that 😒something has to change though.

I'd say that a few things are happening here op. Firstly, she has probably dropped her nap , or is in the process of doing so. Secondly , with the bedtime stuff she is probably struggling because of the light , hot nights. The only suggestion I have is to be patient with her , she'll probably settle easier once it cools off.

Oh god don’t feel guilty, sometimes we just have to crack on with things.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers She’s quite hyper the rest of the day and not herself. I can see she’s tired and wants to go to sleep, she tries her hardest, bless her, but then just jumps back up to bounce around. It makes her difficult to handle, when generally she’s a fairly easygoing child

When my two dropped their naps I still kept quiet time. I found they still needed the rest. This was generally CBeebies or a film. It meant I had some time but also they had a relax. You might find she goes to bed easier in the evening or you might need to bring bedtime forward by half an hour.

She’s asleep!! 🤷‍♀️

Do you think she’s really ready to drop her nap already? (Hoping not!)
She’s definitely still tired and fighting it everyday as she does the crazy overtired thing, even trying to bite me the other day, not in a nasty way but laughing afterwards, I was so cross, totally different child.
It’s almost like the ‘Terrible two’s’ kicked in literally when she turned two.

Both mine dropped naps at 18 months - you've done well!!

She could be @Whatnext2018 , my son dropped his last nap at 2.

Really, I assumed was early 😬

Bedtime will have to change then..because of where we live, especially in summer, children seem to go to sleep 9 onwards, she’s always napped for 2-3 hours after lunch and a later than uk bedtime. If she drops that nap completely, the bedtime will have to be brought forward to much earlier. She (and I) won’t last easily with a full day until 9.30 at night...would be different if her bedtime was 7pm.
Would she still be ready to drop her nap though if she was so obviously tired?

Sounds like she's ready to drop her nap, both my girls dropped there day time nap before 2 but they easily do 12+ hours of solid sleep at night and go to sleep with no fuss.

Yes I missed the day time break but I rather a chilled evening

It would be rare that a just turned 2 year old was really ready to drop their nap. 10 hours sleep is just not enough for that age.

I'd do whatever it took to keep her nap, including pushing her around in a buggy or driving for an hour. If she's less over tired she will sleep better at night

DS is the same age and also a bit of a pickle currently. Today, he messed about for an hour before finally falling asleep. We’re still keeping him in the cot otherwise he’d probably mess about for even longer.

I doubt he’s ready to drop his nap as once he does fall asleep, he sleeps for 2-2.5h. There were days on holiday when he only got 1h and he was grumpy as anything for the rest of the day.

Currently by not having the nap and sleeping that late, she’s clearly not getting enough sleep so I’ll try to keep the nap going as much as I can. If she really won’t, we’ll have to work on bringing the bedtime right forward.

Dd did drop her nap at around two and can stay awake all day without getting crabby

I wouldn’t say she must be ready to drop her nap... they go through phases where they don’t want to as realise others aren’t but doesn’t mean they are ready. My son did this for 2 weeks around that age and now still has a 1.5 hour nap a day at the age of 4.
Napping is good for them. I would keep putting her to bed and see what happens.

2 is a totally normal age to drop her nap. I would certainly try a few days with no nap but an earlier bed time.

If she goes to bed late then I dont see harm in a nap or just even leave her in her room for some quiet time after lunch.

Plus it's a good skill to learn to go to sleep alone.

Firstly, it's very hot at the moment (at least in UK... Not sure about where you are ). My almost 3 year old is struggling to nap and refuses to go in his cot because he gets overheated. The only place he'll fall asleep is in the middle of our big bed with two fans pointing at him and then we have to transfer him to the cot when we go to bed. Also, he'll only sleep when exhausted so staying up till 9 atm (he's bushwhacked, poor thing, and we feel the same).

Second, if she's tired in the day, she doesn't sound ready to drop her nap so I'd keep persevering with that.

Third, is she in a cot or bed? If a bed, maybe try moving her back to a cot (even if a travel one). She may miss the security of it. DS here is much older and still in a cot bed as he sleeps much better than in that then in a bed and doesn't try to climb out. If you can't move her back to a cot, definitely stairgate over the door and remove toys so she gets bored and goes to sleep.

Fourth, is she getting enough exercise? We always do a walk or playground trip before naptime so DS can work out his energy and is ready to settle down.

Hope you get it sorted!

I thought my 2yr old dropped his nap aswell, because he was fighting sleep for about 3 weeks! But I persevered and i would put him in his bedroom and he'd play with toys for a while so I got a bit of a break.
Then he started napping again! I'm so glad as I was sad at the potential of it being over.

However, I've noticed now that I can mix his days up a bit depending on how he is and what we are doing. It works really well as when he doesn't have a nap he goes to bed at 6pm and I get the whole evening to myself!

If he has a nap he will go to bed around 8pm which isn't too bad.

Keep trying, hopefully she hasn't dropped it yet.

I don't think she necessarily is ready to drop the nap. My DD went through phases where she wouldn't nap for a few days, then would happily start taking naps again with no problems. This lasted from about 22 months all the way up until she finally did drop her nap just before she turned 3.

I think there's absolutely no problem leaving her for a bit at nap time to see if she'll go to sleep. Obviously not for ages and ages but ten minutes or so is no big deal.

Alternatively I was never averse to pushing in the buggy or going for a car drive to get a nap out of her as she got older!

If she really refuses then definitely try for an earlier bedtime. Since dropping the nap my DD has always gone to bed at 7pm and sometimes even earlier (she is up at 6.45am though!)