18 month old wake times too long

[SessySeren]

Can anyone please help ! Our daughter is refusing sleep at bedtimes. She will happily go for a nap around 5 hours after she wakes up. But at bedtime she will go 9 hours before even attempting to settle down. She will run around and around not even sitting down for hours.

We've tried dropping a nap and she can barely last 6-7 hours. Tried cutting her nap times down and that hasn't changed anything. Any advice will help!

So what time does she nap, how long for, and what time does she go to bed and wake up?

My 16mo wakes about half 7, naps 12-2, goes to sleep about 8 fairly easily. 9 hours would be far too long for her to be awake in one go, and she'd be very overtired which would make it harder to go to sleep.

She usually gets up at 8 and has a nap at 1 for about an hour and half. She used to go bed around around 9 but has been taking longer and longer to get to sleep at night and now shes going to bed at almost 12 if she still has a nap at 1. But because she's been going to bed so late she gets up later or is miserable if we try get her up early.

Have you tried an earlier bedtime? 9 seems really late, she may well already be overtired at that point and so can't settle. I'd go for a 7:30 bedtime if you can if she's waking at 2:30pm from nap

Is she in a cot?

My DD dropped all naps at 18 months which fixed bedtime.

My DS who is 19 months currently has a 40 Min nap at 11ish (only goes down in the pram though) and I wake him after 40 mins otherwise it'll impact bedrime (7-7:30) At nursery they let him sleep 1-2 and this always means he's up for ages in the evening.

If say bring the nap earlier and cut it shorter

@4amWitchingHour shes never go down earlier than 9 but then again she has never slept longer than 11 hours so that goes with her wake time.

@1940s shes Co sleeping at the moment but not by choice. Hasn't slept in her cot a full night since 6 months (screaming till we took into bed with us) , we then put her a toddler bed for a while to see if that helped and she did well but started waking up in the night again after a few weeks.

What does her bedtime routine look like?

My DC is a similar age and also a bad sleeper. He’s just super inconsiderate with nap times and still wakes up about twice a night. Honestly the most helpful thing for me was to give up worrying about what he was supposed to do and let him sleep when he wants (we do have a loose bedtime routine to encourage him to go to sleep) and just do things that help us get enough sleep ourselves.

@Cannotgarden I'll try adjusting her nap then, thanks Is there any best way to wake her up, she gets really grumpy if she doesn't wake herself up.

@Thatwentbadly were not too strict with our bed time routines but it's mainly just bath then changed and cuddles in bed whilst singing to her. We sometimes have to give her a second bath once we get to around 9 hours wake time as it's the only way to settle her back down.

@Babyiskickingmyribs that's great to hear. I feel really guilty not having her on a strict routine especially letting her sleep in a bit later just so we can get a bit more sleep.

I would move her waking up time earlier by a few minutes each day. When I need to wake up babies and toddlers, I go into the room, open the curtains, hum to myself, do things like put clothes away, just so there's a bit of noise and movement in the room which gently rouses them, rather than physically touching them or calling their name.

I’m having similar issues with my 20 months old but she is spending an hour bf to sleep. The things which seem to help are having a set wake up time and nap time - deviating from this can be necessary but upsets that and the following days sleep. I’ve also started to make sure her day night nap is with the curtain open and no white noise - I’m not sure if this is making a difference. The biggest difference for us is physical activity outside in the afternoon. Some once said to me toddlers are like labradors, they need at least 2 long walk a day. I think agree with them.

I'd really try and get her back in a cot. I don't think she's 'mature' enough to deal with inevitable night wakings / delay in getting to sleep by cosleeping or in a toddler bed.
Her routine needs to be absolute rock solid too

I only ever wake up my son if I need to take him to the childminder’s place and start work. On weekends I hope he sleeps in an extra hour! Even our childminder can’t get our kid to nap consistently. She follows a pretty strict daily routine with him because has multiple babies to deal with and she finds that about once a week that he doesn’t nap or hardly naps. A strict routine is helpful is it works for you and your child. We aim for a general rhythm (so meal times are approximately the same each day, bedtime is sometime between 8:30pm and 9:30pm depending on whether he’s looking sleepy or still trying to climb the walls.

At 18m I stopped putting DS down for a nap and just let him sleep in the buggy. This gave him a 45 min nap (1 sleep cycle) and an earlier bedtime (7:30 vs 8:30) he got up at 6:30 no matter what.

@NannyR I'll try that then I will definitely try just making some noise instead then as I am guilty of trying to stroke her to wake her up

@Thatwentbadly will try to be more organised with her sleep then. I do close her blackout blinds so will keep try keeping them open and she does seem to do better with sleep when she's been playing outside a lot so will try to up that as well. Think she will enjoy that too as she loves running around more than sitting and playing with her toys.

@Babyiskickingmyribs might try to organise hers meals better as we don't really follow a set time for food and will try look out for signs of sleepiness as well as I think I do try and put her too bed earlier than she's ready and this makes hers stay up longer than if I had I waited a bit.

I’m not saying I have the answers. I’m reading everyone else’s suggestions as much as you!

@Thatwentbadly hope you find something that works for you!