Late naps

[GillL]

Dd is 2.9 yrs. I work full time and she stays with mum during the day. Occasionally she will nap in the buggy when mum does the afternoon school run but most days she will not sleep until I drive her home around 5:30pm. If she doesn't wake up when I take her indoors then I try to wake her up after 1.5 - 2 hours. Most of the time it is impossible to wake her up as she is in such a deep sleep so we leave her in bed. The problem is then she will wake up around 4am. She kept dh awake for over an hour this morning.

It's getting really difficult to cope with this and I'm really hoping she'll grow out of needing a day time nap soon but I can't see it happening in the near future. Anyone got any experience of this happening?

Can you not get your mum to put her to bed for an hour after lunch.

I sympathise, I remember this stage well - not young enough to be tired after lunch but not quite old enough to last until bedtime. I don't think unfortunately there is an easy solution - they just grow out of it. When mine were going through this I would wake them up after half an hour or try to keep them awake and put them to bed early. Neither worked the whole time. It will eventually come right, though while you're living through it, its awful.

How long has your mum been having her ? My DS1 2.10 started with a childminder a few months back and he wasn't really sleeping at all there to begin with, but now he has settled into her routine she tucks him up on the sofa after lunch. Somedays at home he will fight a nap but usually by just telling him he has to rest in bed and I will come and get him sends him off.

I think I would try and limit her late nap to about half and hour so it would be enough to re-charge her batteries till bedtime.

good luck

does she have quiet time during the day to re-charge her batteries?
Another option might be to stay with your mum for an hour or two and then drive home after a bedtime routine at 7ish (or bedtime). You can then put her straight to bed when you get home. With a few days of waking up at 7 rather than 4, she may be able to keep going on the drive home without falling asleep

Classic stage.

Grim.

It passes.

Sorry, no solution here, except gritting your teeth and riding it out...

GilL

will she take a nap on the days she wakes up at 4am?

I find that ds alternates. Waking very early means that he is more likely to take an early nap but he does have to be strongly encouraged to do so, eg walk in buggy, drive in car, dark room in bed etc whatever works for your child.

He then usually (I say usually ) goes to bed at a reasonable time, wakes at a reasonable time (6am ish) and then refuses to nap all the next day and goes to bed early again.

The key is really prioritising his nap on on the days he gets up early.

He has never liked sleeping during the day but if he wakes up at 4am, a drive after lunch nearly always sends him off and he can then be transferred to bed for an hour.

As I say this doesn't always work and ont those days you just get by on a wing and a prayer

MissPebbles - I've tried that at home before and she either just plays or screams.

pippylongstockings - Mum has looked after her since she was 5 months. Obviously at that age she would sleep when she needed to but we have never been able to put her down for a sleep - she would always just scream til she made herself sick.

witchandchips (love the name btw - is it from Room on the Broom?) - no quiet time I'm afraid. Mum also looks after her 3 year old, very loud cousin.

I'm going to try waking her after 30 minutes and see how it goes. Maybe she'll be in a lighter sleep then.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll let you know what happens.

posts crossed lazycow. Dd is very unpredictable. Even if she has been up very early, sometimes she won't even sleep in the car. I think she just goes past it. She has never been one for a routine. I wish my mum had to drive for the school run, that way we could virtually guarantee an early nap.

Agree this is grim. Am kind of in it myself at the moment - guess why I'm on MN at 16.45 DS fallen asleep on the way home from somewhere

Only thing I can think of is stuff her full of food and change nappy (if applicable) before you do the 5.30 car run, and hope it allows her to sleep longer if she does do the falling asleep bit. But possibly you do this already?? In which case ....... ???? try to remove this school run. No chance your mum could bring DD to your house earlier?

Well it seems that we're damned if she has a nap and damned if she doesn't. Yesterday she slept for an hour from 3pm til 4pm, so I was quietly optimistic that she would go to sleep at a reasonable time. We put her to bed at 8:20 and she finally went to sleep at 10:30. I think we're just going to be stuck with it.

mrsgboring - sorry to hear you're in the same situation. It's so hard when all I want to do is go to bed and dd is still wide awake at 10pm. Getting her to eat is another issue (that I won't go into). She refuses to eat tea/dinner that early. Mum has to pick kids up from school as she's a registered childminder and looks after 5 school children in the morning and afternoon. I wouldn't expect her to bring dd home as we live 30 mins drive away, she works from 8am til 6pm and we don't pay her. It's a horrible situation that I think we're just going to have to ride out until she's grown out of her daytime nap, or when I can find a part time job that pays the same as I'm getting full time now (I've been looking so I know it's possible).