2 year old resisting going to sleep

[Birdies]

We have always sung and rocked our DD1 to sleep. Just never faced the whole self settling thing, although when she half-wakes in the night she's pretty good at settling on her own so it's never been an issue.

But in the last couple of weeks, her bedtime has gone from 830pm to 10pm. And it's taking between 40mins and an hour to settle her both for her lunchtime nap and bedtime. She's yawning and almost dropping off and then she starts chuckling and moving about and almost trying to fight sleep. And she seems tired now compared to usual.

Her usual routine before this happened is:

Wakes 7-730am

Asleep for nap 12-1.30pm

Asleep 9pm

Can anyone offer any advice?

I am also about to post about my 9 month old too. Help!!

My Ds is 15 months with a bedtime of 9pm and no or rare daytime naps.

Perhaps she just doesn't need them!?

Funnily enough I posted for help yesterday with my DD's sleep. She's 2.8 and is usually a pretty good sleeper. Normal bedtime is 7.30-8pm and she'll sleep through 'til 7am.

However, the last week has been very stressful - I've had to go out at short notice to resolve some issues of a personal nature, and have been getting home late. In turn, her bedtime has crept to later and later, but even allowing for that, she just won't settle. Wednesday was the worst - she was still awake at 11.30.

She does have a daytime nap, but I've shortened that to 1hr maximum.

We've not long returned from a two week holiday where she had her own room, and because we were out and about every day, she didn't nap.

Now we're back home (one bedroomed flat), she's in her cot, and having a snooze during the day.

So....I totally sympathise. I'm now working on bringing bedtime back into line half an hour at a time.
The last few days have been increasingly structured. Today I made sure I took her out for a long walk. And then she had an early tea, fairly high in protein. Then she had a shower. Then milk, with the lights dimmed, some soft music on and a story read. Then teeth cleaned and bed.
She still dragged it out - wanting cuddles and hand-holding. In the end, I left her musical box/mobile (it has a nightlight and plays a lullaby) running, and quietly but firmly told her I was leaving the room.

That was at 8.50pm. So far, so good.

I'm wondering that too, but once she's finally gone to sleep at lunchtime (now at 1pm instead of the old 12pm), when I then wake her at 2pm she is very tired and grumpy.

But maybe I would be grumpy if I'd been made to go off to sleep and then woken again....

Hmm maybe it's an age thing then. As in, they're at the age where they find it more fun to stay awake.

The only thing that's changed is I've started singing her more songs when rocking her to sleep and she's really into music at the moment. So perhaps I need to make the routine a bit more boring.

the only rules are; when you figure out the rules, they change the rules.

My child stopped daytime naps at 6 months. Was dreadful for me. every now and then would nap but not like when young.

I realised early on you can't force ANYONE (regardless of age) to do 5 things:

1. Sleep
2. Eat
3. Go to the toilet
4. Have fun
5. Love

doing so makes things crap for semone concerned later on.

My 2 year 2 month will be awake until 10-11pm if she naps durimg the day. Has been that way all year.

If as an adult you can't sleep then having another person get annoyed and tell you to go to sleep doesn't help.

My advice: stop forcong daytime naps and use empathy to figure out what works for your child and your family.