Sleep issues with toddler 2 1/2 years

[TLoubieL]

Hi,

Wondered if anyone had any ideas?

My DD goes to bed at 19.00, she needs a lot of persuading to go to bed and wont sleep till about 19.30-20.00 (we have stopped her wandering round the house all evening with a stair gate on her door. She usually wakes about 5.30 am and can be persuaded (mostly) to go back to bed for 30mins to an hour. She often wakes her sister who is 5 and is really good at going to bed but she really needs her sleep at night as she is at school all day. 5yo also thinks if her sister is up late or awake early that we are giving her special treatment and this is unfair!
I have been considering stopping her daytime nap to promote a longer sleep at night. She normally sleeps for two hours about 12.00-14.00. On the odd occasion we have kept her up it has made no difference to her at night time and sometimes she will crash asleep on the floor about 16.00 and then wake up really cranky an hour later! I usually let her sleep til she wakes as she can be really grumpy when you wake her.

Just wondered if her sleep pattern is normal (her sister has always slept well 7pm-7am) and what other people do about sleep/naps?

Thanks

It could just be her sleep pattern, so I would consider investing in a gro clock. I swear by mine now, though it took a week or two for ds to get used to. He had begun waking a 6, but now sleeps until 7 or 7.30, though if he's awake earlier he will now stay in bed until the sun comes up on the clock. Last weekend we accidentally set it wrong, so I wondered why by 8am he still hadn't come in. I went to get him and he was just lying there happily and quietly playing with his teddies waiting for the sun to come up!

DS is six and very rarely, since he was born, has he slept for twelve hours. His usual pattern, since he was three, has been bedtime starting at 7pm, asleep by 7.30 and he naturally wakes at between 6 and 6.30am. BUT, before he started pre school, when he was two and a half, he'd have no nap, bed at the same time and up between .... 4.30am and 5.30am - argh! Never found a solution - we do have a glo clock. He used to come in to tell us that it wasn't wake up time yet but he wanted to get up... we did consider a mallet but felt that may seem a bit excessive...

He now gets ready for bed at 7pm, story and can then sit up reading to himself until 7.30pm when it's lights out. He's usually asleep by 7.45pm and gets up naturally at 6 - 6.30am. Late nights never seem to change him much. I had a surprise birthday party recently as I'd reached a 'significant' age. DS, by his own choice, was still up and dancing at 1.30am and woke us up at 9am. He just doesn't need twelve hours. I do!

She may be a child who doesn't need as much sleep as others but I would definitely drop the afternoon nap or restrict it to 45 mins max. She will be tired late in the afternoon but will get more used to it and you should be able to get away with an earlier bed time, say 6.30. She may always be an early waker. The gro clock didn't work for us but its worth a try. Good luck!