DD an angel at nap time, not so at bed time. What am I doing wrong?

[BabydollsMum]

That's it in a nutshell. She's 19 months, naps for an hour to two hours at lunchtime and goes down like a dream. She's asleep before her head hits the pillow.

Bed time is a different story altogether. We have all this fuss and it can take her up to an hour to go to sleep! Not necessarily crying, just wide-awake chatting! She's recently in her toddler bed and without a gate at her door so I've just been sitting in with her until she nods off and frankly I want my evenings back . Any ideas?

Get a CD player with stories

Seriously - DS was like this, and I spent many hours reading, singing, talking to get him settled until someone suggested a CD player

Have you tried limiting her nap to one hour so she is tired at bedtime? What time does she wake up from nap and then go to bed? My 18m DD will go to bed at 6.30 without fail, so long as she doesn't nap later than 2pm. If she does, we just keep her up a little longer until she is tired - no later than 7.30 though (I like my evenings too)

i hate to be the bearer of bad news but this usually means - IME and from friends with kids as well - that they no longer need the daytime nap OR they don't need such a long nap any more! Mine went to 1 nap at about 14, then to a 1hr nap from a 2hr one after lunch at about 16-18m then by 21m no naps at all shudders... hes 2.9 now and hasnt slept during the day since, except for the odd day (say, travelling) and every time it takes him ages, like 2hours+ and it is generally a nightmare to get him off to sleep at bedtime, whereas with no nap days he is ready for bed and goes off in a flash at 7pm :) quite common I'm afraid, I know some children do sleep during the day AND at night but its more common for them to drop the nap by 2 I think.... takes a bit of getting used to, but you get a proper evening!!!!

Both DCs started doing this at about this age. There was no way I was going to drop daytime naps this early so I just let them get on with an hour's chatting/playing in bed until they dropped off. They're engaging far more with the world at this point and it just takes them longer to wind down/process all the extra work they're doing.

I'd stick a gate on her door and leave her to it.

I have to agree with brightonbleach - my DDs both dropped any daytime sleep at all [need an exhausted emoticon] from 18m. DS is 19m and naps from 45mins to 2hrs during the day but can now stay up a bit later at bedtime, so he goes to sleep a bit after 7.

Friends of mine have also sworn by CDs with music/stories.

I'd say she needs longer to wind down and maybe too tired by the time she gets to her cot. We spend a good half an hour winding down in DD's room before she goes in her cot. That said. Very short nap yesterday and w.ent down like a dream

up four hours later though

Put her to bed an hour later, or shorten the nap. The length of time they stay awake before getting sleepy again gets progressively longer as they get older.

e.g. when my DS dropped to 1 nap at 13 m.o. he would be ready for bed 5.5 hours after waking from a 2 hour nap (ie 6.30pm bedtime). Now at 2.8 y.o., if he napped for 2 hours, he'd not get sleepy till 10 hours later (11.30pm bedtime).

When he naps (every few days now rather than daily) I wake him after a 35-40 minute nap at 12.45, and he's rarely tired much before 9.30pm.

Sleep cycles are generally at 30-45 mins, 1.5 hours and 2 hours, so it might be worth experimenting with reducing the nap to one of those lengths and see if it helps.

I find it's helped not having a set 'bedtime' in mind - I put DS to bed at the point at which I know he's tired and will go to sleep, and never before. He is very predictable about exactly how long after a nap he'll get tired, though, so that makes it easy to calculate.

Wow, thanks all for great advice. If she misses her nap she's as grumpy as hell about two hours after she'd normally have it so my instinct's telling me she's not quite ready to drop it yet. Maybe I'll think about bringing the nap forward and keeping it short so she has enough time to get tired again for bedtime. Thanks Angel that's really interesting!