Why is my three year old staying up so late?! Help!!

[MediaMum1224]

My DD is 3.5 and has always been a great sleeper, and usually does 7pm-7am. She has a one hour nap in the afternoons, 2-3 (I go and wake her up after an hour, I don’t know how long she’d sleep if I left her).

The last three weeks she’s gone to bed fine at 7pm but then stayed awake in her room until 9 or 10pm. She doesn’t cry but she usually sings/talks, and can mess around and do naughty things like taking her bedsheets off or throwing stuff out of her room (there’s a baby gate on the door); in the morning she’s always shattered.

I tried dropping the nap yesterday and she was vile; toilet accidents, drawing on the wall, throwing things....although she went to sleep ok at bedtime!

We haven’t had any life or routine changes that have triggered this, and I’m just stumped. Has anyone been through this, or got any suggestions?! Her behaviour was so horrid without the nap that I really don’t want to drop it just yet! (Also it’s the only time I get ten minutes to sit down, also have a baby DS!)
Any ideas greatly appreciated!

Mines 3.5 and for the past week won’t go to bloody bed at all. It’s too dark, too light, too hot, too cold, wrong sheets, different blanket, no teddies, all the teddies, needs a wee, needs a drink, wants to go downstairs.

It’s driving me up the wall. I have a 1 year old too, and as soon as one drifts off, the other squarks and wakes them up.

I yearn for the days when the big one went to bed awake on her own at 7pm and was asleep with no further input by half past

I'm afraid it's either ride out the horrid late afternoon phase until she adjusts to having no nap or make it much earlier.

It is an awful stage - especially when you have a younger child and you can't risk going in the car after about 2.30 or being somewhere where a meltdown would be a disaster but it's the only way to get bedtime back to a reasonable time.

When my DC were at this stage I'd do their main meal at lunchtime and then a decent snack about 3.30 knowing they'd probably be too tired and grumpy to eat dinner. Good Luck.

Marmite27 - the constant chatter is the worst!! I hate all the negotiations, I’m doing the supernanny silent treatment tactics at the moment! For my sanity!

Avebury - did you drop the nap at this stage then? I’ve tried to move the nap to 1 but she doesn’t go to sleep straight away as she’s not quite ready, I’ll try again tomorrow....maybe dropping the nap is inevitable, but I will mourn my lost child-free hour!!

I did. Phased it by offering quiet time in bed looking at books for 20 mins which gave DC time to drop off on the days they needed it. Found they did this maybe every third day for a couple of weeks but doesn't take them too long to adjust to not having it once they are back to sleeping well at night.

Missing child free time is a shock at first but you get your evenings back and can have full days out etc. Or just park them in front of the tv for half an hour and get your 'me time' that way instead.

And never ever negotiate. Once you do it once you are destined for hours of it every night.

Ah the quiet time is good, I actually remember a phase a while ago where I did that, so that even if she didn’t sleep I still got a tiny bit of space! The baby still has two naps a day, so we’re curtailed by that quite a bit but the tv could be a saving grace!
Thanks for the ideas!
Also I already firmly take the gov’t line of ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’.

Perhaps you’d get more replies if you moved this thread from travel advice!

We're moving this over to parenting for the OP now.

Ahh that's a shitty faze but it doesn't last long. You have to drop the nap and put her in bed at 6.30pm. Ride out the vileness. Then move her bedtime up to 7pm when she's happier in the afternoons.

Definitely drop the nap. It’s horrible because they are either monsters by 5pm or up til 9pm, but sounds like it’s time. We just did earlier bedtime on no nap days.

My 3.5 is exactly the same. Takes 1.5 hrs to go to sleep after bedtime.

Today we drop the nap (she’s at nursery so they can deal with the fall out)

My child dropped the nap at 2. 3.5 is quite old to still be having a nap and an hour is a long nap at that.

Sounds like it’s time for the nap to go. You will need to bring bedtime earlier, ideally the length of nap time plus 30 mins to allow for this to take longer due to tiredness.

We haven’t had any life or routine changes

also have a baby DS!

Erm........

Thanks all, we’ve dropped the nap but I’m giving her ‘quiet time’ in her room instead where she plays for half an hour, that’s worked ok so far! She did fall asleep today but I only gave her 30 mins, so hopefully I don’t pay for that later!!

Behaviour is atrocious, but we’re doing an earlier bedtime and that is a blessing on those no-nap days! Good to have all your perspectives, so thank you, at least I know I’m not alone!

@Boobiliboobiliboo the baby DS has just turned 1, she’s plenty used to him by now!

Good luck OP, currently going through this with my 18month old (yep, dropping all naps already!! 😥) I do remember from past experience with my 3.5yo that vileness without the nap is not necessarily a sign they need it, they do adjust quite quickly and if they aren't tired at bedtime it's likely your answer. Presumably your DD is starting school soon anyway so nap has to be phased out anyway? We still do 'quiet time' for both of them after lunch, either tv goes on for half an hour or we do puzzles or something, the down time seems to help.

Hi just wanted to share that my just gone 4 yr old was like this too at night time but the cause was it being too bright outside at bedtime. (Naps have been dropped by her since she was 2!) so I put bin bags on the windows and extra dark material as well as her curtains and it worked! She is falling asleep much quicker in a near pitch black room now! I will put up proper blackout blinds when I get the chance but the bin bags are working well!