Toddler still wide awake - please help, I can't cope

[shattered001]

My toddler (aged 26 months) has turned into a terrible sleeper. He's in his cot now and is wide awake, calling out for DH, chatting away and asking to watch TV. Then occasionally he calls out for some random toy and gets really upset when we don't hand it to him.

He used to be a fairly decent sleeper and was good at settling himself, but a few months ago he started getting very upset when we left the room for his nap and at night. Since that point, either me or DH has sat with him in the room whilst he falls asleep to reassure him.

The issue is that he just DOESN'T sleep - he went into his room at 8.30pm tonight and is still awake and very lively now. DH has been up there with him pretending to be asleep on the bed for the last 1.5 hours.

I'm so exhausted and feel like I just can't go on like this, with no evenings with DH whatsoever.

His routine is something like this:

8am wake
2pm nap
3.30pm wake
8.30pm bed

We did try dropping his nap but that made it worse - he still wouldn't sleep until very late but was screaming and crying for ages, I guess from overtiredness.

How can we stop having to sit with him until he falls asleep, and how can we try to get him to sleep earlier? Any advice would be gratefully received.

Agree with pp saying get up early, no nap, main meal at lunch time, light, easily digested tea at about 5pm, start gentle winding down by 6pm before he goes into overdrive. No excitement or over stimulation after 5pm. I would also add in lots of time outdoors, walking, playing, climbing. Find some relaxation/spa type music to play quietly while you settle him down. Leave it on low while he goes to sleep.
Nursery and day care are absolute nightmares for encouraging children to sleep all afternoon. My heart used to sink when I got to the CM only to see my child sound asleep on the sofa. Lovely and peaceful for CM, long, exhausting evening for me having worked all day with no break in order to finish at school time.

i’d just try a day without the nap but an extremely early bedtime day 6pm. I found if I put mine to bed nearer to 7pm they’d be an overtired wreck and struggle to settle. 6pm bedtime & they’d sleep all night til 7 or 8am.

We started off with just the occasional no nap day then gradually increased the no nap days over a period of months. If they were tired they’d have a nap, similar to your current routine of nap 2-3.30/4pm and they would go down happily at 8-8.30. Not having a nap every day made them that but more tired for it & bedtime on the days they did. Both DC were still napping 1 day a week before they started school!

Try wake 7am, lunch 11:30, nap 12-1, bed 7:30.

Cut the nap to 30 mins over the next couple of months.

Make sure he's running around burning plenty of energy in the day.

Nap is too late. Try napping around 12pm waking by 2pm.

Definitely try dropping the nap and bringing wake-up time earlier. But if you try that and either it doesn't work or it doesn't help, I am a massive advocate of doing whatever makes life easiest. Would he go down if you drove him around in the car (it works for quite a lot of toddlers and you can fit it round a shopping trip if you know it will work)? Would he go down if you snuggled him into your bed and watched something all together (DD watched hours of Masterchef, purely because it's inoffensive and didn't rot my brain ...).

I know that the purists will talk about sleep hygiene, but there's a time and a place for compromise, and I would say a relentlessly unsleeping toddler is it.

I have a 2yr and 4 month old for comparison. Weve had a horrendous time sleepwise with her too. But definitely that nap is way too late for wake up. 2pm at the very latest or you are never getting them to sleep. My dd had a 40 mins nap this evening at 5pm and we are still awake.

This is my 3rd dc so I've been through nap dropping etc before. We don't give a nap at all when she is at home. So she wakes at 7/7.30, might have a chill on the couch for 30 mins around 1.30pm and then bed for 7.30/8. In creche they give her 30 mins from 12.30-1pm as when she got the full 2 hours she was bouncing off walls with energy at 10pm. If you want an earlier bed time you have to adjust your whole routine. Wake at 7am, if nap is needed give 1 hour max 12.30-1.30pm and back up to bed 7.30pm. Your ds sounds exactly like my DD.

Drop the nap and move to 6/6.30pm bedtime. Mine dropped her nap before she was two as otherwise she was exactly like this. Now if she falls asleep in the car etc she won’t sleep till after 10pm so I just keep her up with us and we all go to bed at the same time

Our DS was a horrendous sleeper from birth until around 2, which is when I just couldn't take it anymore and contacted a sleep therapist.
She suggested that we brought bedtime from 8pm to 6, sticking to the same routine every night - dinner 5pm bath 5.30pm bedtime story 6pm (same one each night until settled into a routine) with lights dimmed. Keeping everything the same each night where possible until the routine was established. After we had done it for a while and things started to settle we were able to drop the baths down to every other night.
Wake up time was about 6.30am and naps around an hour no more. (Our DS has just turned 3 and finally goes to sleep fine on an evening).
I really empathise - it is so so difficult to go through hours and hours of it every night. It won't be forever. Feel free to drop me a message if you would like the sleep therapist's details. I felt like she really saved us. Good luck 😴

That nap is far too late & probably too long. My 27 month old does still need a nap but we do a 45 minute nap between 11am-12pm depending on when she woke up. Often, 6am so we do 11/11.30 but sometimes more like 7am, then tends to be a midday nap.

Any longer than 45 minutes & she just will not go to sleep at night. We do an hour at nursery as we found she was exhausted with a shorter nap there but at home, strictly 45 mins. Always awake by 1pm at the latest.

Deffo adjust that nap & you’ll be doing much better!

That's a late start to the day and a late nap! Personally I'd drop the naps at 2 with that behaviour. Also wake him earlier. If he is napping just do 40 mins max.

It does sound like your son is not tired enough to go to sleep. My son was the same though, until he dropped his nap completely. Once he did - I’d take him to bed at 6pm and watch for sleepy clues. Funnily enough, when he was jumping around it meant he was ready for bed, if she was yawning - too late, he’s already overtired 🙈 Maybe if you want to keep him napping still try to wake him at 6am and then shorten the nap to 45min, aiming for bed time around 7.30?

2 options:

1 wake up earlier (8 is quite late for a 2yr old) and a 1hr nap
or
no nap but an hour of tv quiet time

I meant to add to my earlier post op a sentence around exercise and fresh air. Is he getting enough? DS used literally to be exercised like a Labrador puppy to get an 8 hour sleep out of him. An hour in the park and he often walked there and home - about 3/4 of a mile round trip.

Thank you so much for the advice, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

So today I woke him early at 7.30am (meaning he only had 9 hours overnight as he fell asleep at around 10.30pm).

He then slept in his buggy from 2.10pm-3pm.

It’s now 9.15pm and he’s clearly very tired but is still awake.

What am I missing here?!

Perhaps (from what everyone has said) the nap was still too late?

His nap is too late.
Ideally 12 o'clock your wanting to the nap to start. Cut to an hour.
Or go without a nap, which I think you need to do now.
Cutting the nap out completely changed our whole night.
First 2/3 days were hard but honestly it makes such a difference to bedtime.

Anyway, he’s finally asleep now - at least it’s an improvement on yesterday!

Yes that's still a late nap. When DD napped, it was from about 12-2. It will also take a few days to shift his sleeping pattern - an early wake-up one day won't necessarily mean an early bed that night. You will have to persevere.

DD dropped her nap entirely just before she turned 2 so that's an option too!

With regards to cutting the nap completely, I’m just surprised that we might need to do this so soon - as everyone I know with kids has kept the nap until at least the age of 3.

Thanks - I will wake him early again tomorrow morning and see what happens.

Surely dropping naps at this age isn't recommended?? My 29 mo naps from 1-3.30pm every day, goes to bed at 8 and gets up at 7...

There is no one size fits all OP but I definitely wouldn't be dropping the nap yet, maybe just bring it forward earlier so he's more tired at bedtime. Good luck.

If mine napped at that time for that length he wouldn’t realistically have been in bed ready to sleep before about 10pm.

You can:
Try and bring it forward
Also try and shorten it
Cut it out but this made it worse for us, he would wake in the middle of the night treating the night sleep like a long nap and be wide awake
Accept he won’t be ready for bed until later in the evening (this was what we did - it was a shite phase!)
Eventually he will drop it and you’ll have a gloriously peaceful evening back

You don't need to drop the nap completely you just need it earlier in the day and cap it at an hour (or maybe even less) somewhere around 12-1 would be ideal. Wake him up at 7-7:30 again tomorrow, have an early lunch and try all the tricks you know starting at 11:30 to get him to nap then. Go outdoors in the morning and wear him out at a park etc.

my friends kids all cut their naps at around 20months- my eldest stopped napping at 3.5- every kid is diff. Defo an earlier nap needed.
if you can get out in the morning to a park or even just the garden to burn the morning energy, we do:

6.30-7am wake
7.30am breakfast
10am go out- snack when out
11.30am nap- helps if driving back from somewhere or in the buggy to get them a little calm/ drowsy
12.30-1pm wake and lunch
8pm bed- though she probably talks to herself for a good 30mins after I lay her down.