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AIBU?

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Original poster

2 year old won't sleep until 9-10 pm

27 replies

worriedbaby · 09/03/2022 22:16

Gets up at 8. Sleeps at lunch in nursery for about an hour to an hour and a half. Is up again by 2pm. Unless they're making it up and she sleeps all day there..

Any advice ?

OP posts:
MikeWozniaksMohawk · 09/03/2022 22:19

I would try getting her up earlier at the start of the day. It won’t work instantly, but it will gradually creep her bedtime forward. Same with cutting down her daytime nap. I presume if you ask nursery they will wake her after a certain time?

Original poster
worriedbaby · 09/03/2022 22:19

@MikeWozniaksMohawk

I would try getting her up earlier at the start of the day. It won’t work instantly, but it will gradually creep her bedtime forward. Same with cutting down her daytime nap. I presume if you ask nursery they will wake her after a certain time?
Yes they've said they'll do whatever I need. I was thinking maybe to ask them to let her nap for only 30 minutes.
OP posts:
Champsandbubbles · 09/03/2022 22:20

Mine get up 6.30am regardless and have a nap at 12 for 2 hours no more then bed latest at 7.30pm.

Can you push their wake up time in the morning for a later bedtime but try gradually x

Original poster
worriedbaby · 09/03/2022 22:21

I put her to bed at 8 tonight, she only fell asleep at 10! Can't be good !

OP posts:
ChiefWiggumsBoy · 09/03/2022 22:22

What's she doing between 8-10? Happily chatting and singing to herself, or crying her eyes out?

soootiredddd · 09/03/2022 22:23

Sounds like she’s ready to drop the nap. Or at least cap it to 30 mins. She also needs to be up earlier if you want her in bed early, generally they can do a 12 hour gap between waking and bed at this age and even longer if they’re napping.

RandomMess · 09/03/2022 22:24

How old is she exactly? Giving up naps around 2nd birthday isn't unusual.

Limiting nap or missing it so she goes to sleep earlier and gets up earlier would work. Sounds like she only needs a nap every few days.

Original poster
worriedbaby · 09/03/2022 22:24

@ChiefWiggumsBoy

What's she doing between 8-10? Happily chatting and singing to herself, or crying her eyes out?
Tonight a bit of crying and then just hanging out and chatting
OP posts:
Bunnycat101 · 09/03/2022 22:24

She might be ready to lose the daytime nap. Both of mine started stretching bedtime from about 21/2. My eldest carried on napping well into the 3s but was late to sleep and is still an owl so it suited her. It has messed with my youngest much more and she stopped her nap quite early much to my annoyance. she is more of a lark and always has been so getting rid of the nap so she could get an early bedtime suited her better.

RosesAndHellebores · 09/03/2022 22:25

To be honest op, ds didn't sleep until about 10/10.30 and woke at 6.30. We realised quite early on that unless we wanted him up and climbing the walls with Hunger for knowledge, entertainment, attention, from 1.30am until about 5.30am it was best not to put him down at 8pm.

He never needed more than 10.30 to 6ish really. DD wasn't much better. MIL and mother both explained that dh and I didn't need much sleep either.

Just learn to go with the flow op. Benefits: lots of time for homework.

Toodleloodle · 09/03/2022 22:26

Second getting her up earlier. My 2.5 year old wakes up between 6.30-7.15am. She naps at nursery for an hour (2 days per week), but won't nap at all at home anymore, unless I take her out in the pushchair for a bit - sometimes that works...

What's your evening routine like? Ours is no tv after 5pm, when she has dinner. Quiet / wind down time (books, puzzles etc.) Bath at around 6.15pm. Then teeth, PJs and stories (often lots) - in bed by 7pm. She usually falls asleep pretty quickly but sometimes chats to herself or her toys for a while. Sleeps through most of the time.

Original poster
worriedbaby · 09/03/2022 22:26

@RandomMess

How old is she exactly? Giving up naps around 2nd birthday isn't unusual.

Limiting nap or missing it so she goes to sleep earlier and gets up earlier would work. Sounds like she only needs a nap every few days.

She's 2 years 1 month. I've done it at weekends and she was out by 7 pm like a light with no nap on one day. She was completely fine.

On the second day with no nap, she did start getting tearful and tired at around 5:30 pm. So we got her to sleep at around 6:30 pm and she was absolutely fine.

Maybe it's time. This has been going on for a while, so maybe it's not a regression.

OP posts:
SpinningBob · 09/03/2022 22:30

My eldest was like this at age 2, usually 9.30pm bedtime. It was exhausting. We tried every trick in the book to change it, but never could, now she is aged 10 and bedtime is still 9.30/10pm, It seems that’s her internal body clock. I know it’s not what you asked, but my only recommendation is to normalise having a long period of quiet play/story time in their room from when they are in pyjamas , for however long you can manage. That seems to have been a good outcome for us, as now she can happily spend a couple of hours in her room after dinner/bath etc entertaining herself quietly before bed, and has been able to do that since probably 5 or so (whenever I was happy to leave her for a good long while). We have 2 younger children as well-same house, same meals, same routine, and the middle one used to go to bed at 6.30pm until she started school-didn’t do anything different but we just couldn’t keep her awake any longer! Best of luck

OfstedOffred · 09/03/2022 22:30

She might need to phase out the nap. Start with every other day, then reduce to one in 3 days. Trim it to only 30 mins. Gradually you'll find she only has one on unusually tired days.

squeakyheart · 09/03/2022 22:30

Mine's like this but we just accepted that she's a night owl and leave her to settle in her own time. Previous attempts to get her to settle earlier just led to tears and frustration on both sides.

TheKeatingFive · 09/03/2022 22:31

Drop the nap

RandomMess · 09/03/2022 22:35

I have 4 DC, one had to drop hers by her 2nd birthday - she has ADD it turns out Grin

Two of them were more like 2 and a half.

One of them could have carried on until she was 4 but she was a summer baby and was going to school. When she was in reception she was asleep by 6.30 latest and we were waking her up just before 8am!!

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 09/03/2022 22:36

I'd ask the nursery to put her down ASAP after her lunch, and wake her 45mins after she falls asleep. 45mins is a sleep cycle so she should wake relatively happily.

That, combined with you waking her at 7am may well be enough.

TinySaltLick · 09/03/2022 23:18

Sounds like you could test out dropping the nap for a bit. Mine dropped naps entirely before 2 for the same reason - completed disrupted bed time which was bad for everyone involved. Even fifteen mins seemed to refuel them so much it would push back bedtime by hours

Sciurus83 · 09/03/2022 23:23

Yeah drop the nap

onwardsandupwards22 · 09/03/2022 23:27

Both mine dropped their nap at just 2 but my second had a miserable few months whilst he adjusted. He would nod off in the car if we were out in the afternoon and that helped a few times in the week.

I don't think 10 hours overnight is bad if your dc is sleeping 1-2 hours during the day

Defo try cutting the nap down and I bet itll
Bring bedtime forward

SarahAndQuack · 10/03/2022 00:19

I think this is normal (though miserable for you), and agree with everyone about the nap.

But also: what sort of sleep routine do you have, and is it working (not just for DC but also for you)? I had a long stage where DD would wake around 6 or 7 and go down at 11 or midnight and she didn't nap, and we had to figure out how to get her down asap, because we were so tired. At one point we would drive her around until she fell asleep; at another we would snuggle her up with us and be very boring, and she'd fall asleep. The details don't matter: you need to find something that works for you.

Nelliephant1 · 10/03/2022 00:21

@worriedbaby

I put her to bed at 8 tonight, she only fell asleep at 10! Can't be good !
My three were all like that and still are. It wasn't unusual for them to go to bed about 11ish, the same time as us, and they were still up and at it by 7am. Apparently I was the same as a child and I still don't need much sleep and neither do my children.
HogDogKetchup · 10/03/2022 00:25

My ds was the same at that age. I tried to cut the nap out altogether and he ended up sleep deprived and started having nightmares. It passed and now he sleeps 7pm-6am with no nap. I moved his bedtime forward to 6 on no nap days - this made a huge difference and capped his nap to an hour.

jeaux90 · 10/03/2022 00:43

Drop the nap, mine was the same around this age.