Please share you 2 year olds nap and bedtime routines. Suggestions for starting a new one please.

[Hillsnearby]

We are about to move into our new flat after a few very disruptive weeks of temporary accommodation. :)

My DS's (24 months) routine needs to be reestablished. At the moment he has been napping in the car and going to bed with me late. He has been overtired and tantrumming a lot more as well We have had no books or toys are anything, so has been very reliant on tv and ipad and parks for entertainment.

Please can you help me sort out a routine so we can turn over a new page :)

Before all the disruption he was starting to need to be woken up from his afternoon nap as this was making him too wide awake at bedtime, so I was waking him up after an hour.

This worked well and he was going to sleep at around 7.30-8pm and waking up at around 6.30-7.00am which I was very happy with. So I hope to go back to a shorter nap in his cot like before. His nap was usually 11.30- 12.30pm.

Please can I have some ideas of what sort of things you do an hour or 2 before bed?

Also do you suggest exercise or outside play in the late afternoon, early evening? What time do you suggest being home every evening?

In our new flat we will be able to eat together as a family as we will have a kitchen table and chairs, so I wanted to incorporate dinner together but I worry about him being overtired, so what time would be a good time to eat? He used to eat his main meal for lunch and I gave him something small to eat around 6pm but I do want to change it so we eat something together.

After dinner he will be having a bath and then what sort of things do you do to calm down before bed (tv, books, play) and how long do I need to schedule for that before he needs to get into bed?

Thanks for you help.

I can only tell you what we do - most evenings it works (though in this warmer weather DD seems more irritable in the evening).

DD is few months older than your dc but has been in this routine, give or take 15/30 mins, for a good while:

6.30/7.00am - up for the day. No naps - she stopped them herself over a year ago . if she does nap (ie if ill) she is up til 10pm+ and that isn't any good for anyone .
5pm - dinner, then tidy-up time where we put toys away
6pm - bath-time, story and milk til any time between 7-7.30pm.

I do playgroups, library, activities etc in mornings and afternoons and tend to be home by 4.30pm to get dinner started.

DD gets quite tired in the late afternoon and i let her watch tv for while as i get mealtimes organised. I wouldn't suggest tv after dinner, it tends to wind kids up rather than down.

Dd has started in the last few days waking up at 4am and going back to sleep at 6am to then wake up at 9.30am... - i think it's the light summer mornings but any advice re keeping her in bed would be very, very gratefully received

Jeez, didn't mean to write an epic!

26 mths here.

Woken around 6.30 by older brother!
At nursery most days, but at the weekends we tend to run about play at least twice a day. In this heat, early morning, and early evening.

Naps at Nursery 12.30-2. Didn't nap other than for 10 mins in the car over the weekend.

We all eat together around 5pm.
Little bit of TV, or a board game (mainly for the 4 year old).
Upstairs, bath every other night, PJ's, teeth, into someones bed for story, and then talk through what we've done today, and whats happening tomorrow (normally just "outside" from the little one, but we started this around this age with the oldest - starting with did you do X today - sometimes things we'd done, some times things we hadn't done to make him think about the day).

Not very good at going to sleep at the moment, so maybe need to totally loose the nap. Not sure.

Wake up at 7.30pm, leave house at 9am for nursery. We get home from nursery at 6pm, dad has dinner ready and we eat straight away. Bath 6.30 (ish) then dried, pjs, and a little tv. 7pm ish upstairs and into bedroom. I spend about 30 minutes talking to dd and reading her stories.

We decorated dds room and she helped us put stickers on the wall etc so she felt part of it.

Dd has a long day at nursery so generally wants to go to bed.

The constants are:
I always take her to bed but dad plays the 'bye bye' game with her and then waits at bottom of stairs.
Dd and I talk about our day and what we will do tomorrow (mon - fri usually same)

We make a big deal out of her bedroom and now that she's in her 'big girls' bed we say how lovely and grown up she is (she's 2.9)

That's all really. Make his sleeping area as comfortable \ nice as possible, and bedtime fun then he'll start coming to you telling you its bedtime.

i thionk it's just down to finding a routine that suits you and the kids.

Just watch out for stopping the napping too early. I find overtired children less able to sleep than well rested ones

Thank you, lovely to read these ideas

I'm so looking forward to buying a proper bed for him and doing up his room, as we never could before, and he gets to help :)

I think I will let him watch some tv while I get dinner ready between 5-6 and then no tv after dinner. This should work also when he starts nursery as we should be home before 5.30.

More shared routines would be greatly appreciated.

Mine is a bit younger (23 months) but here's how our day looks.

Up at 6.45am. Out of the house at 9am. Toddler group, music class, meet up with a friend etc. in the am. Back home for lunch at 12.30pm. Three books at 1pm. Naps between 1.15-3.15pm.

Trip to the park or play in the garden after his nap, plus a snack. Dinner at 5.30pm. Bath at 6.15pm. Three or four books at 6.45pm. Bed at 7pm.

If he goes to bed any later than 7.30pm, my sweet boy becomes an unbearable whingebag!

Thanks stopgap. That is pretty much what I think we will aim at doing.

Go out at 9 (or 7.30 if it is a work/nursery day) for some sort of morning toddler activity or play date.

Come back for a sleep, he finds it hard to eat lunch when he's tired so i used to do a biggish morning tea and then lunh after his nap, although this will probably change when he starts nursery as he will have to eat when they eat.)

Then a play at home for an hour after his nap and then out at 3 to a park or for a walk and back home to get dinner ready and eaten.

Nursery day we should be home by 4.30-5 so will have to skip the park and just get dinner ready so tht should work.

It is interesting that most routines have dinner between 5 and 6 which means we will have to be home 45 minutes before this to get it ready.

Does anyone give a little snack before bed or do they not get hungry if they eat at 5 and go to bed at 7?

I think I will have to be pretty organised and keep telling him what will be happening as it will be a big change from what we have been doing, as it has been so erratic lately. I think he will thrive on some routine though.

I do something very different. I don't have any strict rules on naps and bedtime. Ds 24 months sleeps when he's tired. I did try to get him to bed early at one point, tried every trick in the book to no avail. All that was happening was that we were having nightly battles and I came to the conclusion he just wasnt tired enough. Sometimes you have to pick your battles so now I let him dictate when he's ready for bed and out evenings are calmer and actually very lovely. Despite my lack of rules he has fallen into a little routine if his own.
8.30 -9 wakes.
Anywhere between 1 and 4 naps (usually at least 1.5 hrs.)
Tea 6 - 6.30
Evenings are spent reading books, watching movies etc. in the summer we often take him to the park, allotment etc of an evening too.
8-9 bath.
Bedtime anywhere from half 9 to 11 :-0, whenever he asks and will go straight to sleep. We co sleep so usually just comes to bed with me.
I work part time and dh works late most nights, so as well as removing the stress from it all, we get to spend some quality time together before bed.
A bit controversial, I know, but works for us. Ds is a happy and well behaved little lad so I can't see it has any detrimental affect at all. Some kids / people are just night owls.

jakey your routine does have it pluses especially the late wake ups but I know my ds needs something more structured with a regular early bedtime.

For the last few weeks we have been living in temporary accommodation in just a single room so he has been going to bed at the same time as me out of necessity. From about 7.30 onwards he is getting very hyperactive and overtired and very hard to manage, this isn't helped as he is already tired due to naps in car instead of at home. Also even though he has been going to bed around 8.30-9.30pm he still wakes up at around 6.30--7 am and this adds to his overtiredness the following day.

Also we need to structure his mealtimes as his eating habits/times/choices are also terrible at the moment which is why I wanted some ideas about a good time for dinner/eating together in the evening.

im all for doing what suits you as a parent and family

no routine would drive me nuts, forget about the child!

Your new routine sounds great! You are right to tell him what's going to be happening, even if it seems like he doesn't really understand it all. My DS is a bit older but he always seems to behave better, and enjoy things more when he knows what is going to happen next eg in the morning when we get up we start talking about what we going to that day - go to nursery, music group, visit people, whatever.

DS often doesn't eat anything much from having tea at nursery at 4 until breakfast at 8 the following day! I offer tea at around 6 usually but sometimes he has a small snack at 7 instead before bed or just a drink of milk.

It sounds like you must have had a hard time lately so good luck with the move and hope your new flat works out well for you!

Sounds like a brill start
Remember, it doesn't matter if it all goes wrong sometimes, and scrambled eggs make a lovely supper if your running short on time.

My 2 year old DD has a nap around 1pm for an hour - no longer (any longer and it triggers her Sleep Paralysis at bedtime). At 6pm she's taken upstairs, bathed (or washed) then taken to her room where we dim the lights, read her a few stories, and let her drift off to sleep.

She has night terrors and Sleep Paralysis so we have to be pretty strict but we're in the process of having help.

I think you're making a really good start. It'll not always go to plan but you'll get there :)

My DS is 26months

He gets woken up at 7, as thats when our day starts for work/nursery. Although i only work 3 days a week my DH gives him his breaky every morning to give me time to get ready [shocked] (I'm a lucky lady!). Until about a month ago he was having an hour and a half nap during the day from 1-2.30 ish. But we have reduced this to an hour as he was taking longer to settle at night.

We have dinner at 6ish when my DH get home. And generally the bath is running while my DS is finishing his dinner. In the bath by about 6.45 ish and then up to the bedroom for a story (we are quite strict and he only gets one, he was taking the piss wanting more and more stories every night). We do a "what did you do today" chat which he seems to love then into his cot (we move house at the end of august so im hoping to keep him in his cot till he is well and truly settled in the new house).

My DS gets a bath every night as i see this as his chill out time. He plays and has fun but the cosy water and getting cosied up in a big towel just help my little one chill out.

Think my DS will be dropping his daytime nap altogether over the next month or so. And he definitely needs loads of running about time no matter what the weather.

Good luck, hope it all goes well