Tell me your 2 year olds schedule

[Mommabear20]

My DD has just turned 2. For the last month or so she's been letting awake for a good hour to an hour and a half on a night, whereas she has always fallen asleep within 20 minutes before. I've tried shortening her afternoon nap but that's not had any affect on her falling asleep at night 🤦‍♀️ at the moment this is her daily routine:

7am: wake up, breakfast, dressed, teeth and hair.
9.30am: snack (fruit)
11.30am: lunch (usually a picnic style lunch)
12.30pm: down for a nap in her cot upstairs
3pm: wake up and a snack (either fruit or belvita type biscuit)
5.30pm dinner (hot meal)
6.15pm: bath
6.30pm: milk and a biscuit (she doesn't get pudding so has a biscuit with her milk)
7pm: story and bed. (Usually isn't falling asleep till between 8.30-9pm. She does sleep right through though).

I'm thinking her nap is now too long, but I have to wake her up at 3pm and she'll be cranky for a good hour afterwards so feel like she does need the sleep 🤷‍♀️

That is a long nap.
Could you bring nap time to start at 12?

I think it’s the nap. It’s quite long! I know you said you tried shortening it but my LO (just turned 3) dropped their afternoon nap at just over 2. We had a few weeks of battles with shortening naps and not settling at bed time. It was definitely a rough month or so after we dropped it because we were very much in the ‘a nap means you won’t sleep but omg you need to nap’ phase so we started doing ‘quiet time’ for an hour where we’d just read books, watch CBeebies and chill for a bit!

7:30/8 awake
8/8:30 breakfast (cereal/toast/fruit and water)
1030/11 snack of crackers or fruit or hummus and cucumber
1300 lunch
No naps
1500 ish snack
1830 dinner
1930 bath teeth
2000 bed and normally quickly falls asleep and sleeps through (being a pain tonight as nursery keeps forgetting no naps and let's her have a big one)

Can you just put her to bed a little later for the summer? It’s probably the light and noise still going on at 6:30/7, it really doesn’t feel like ‘bedtime’ at that time for a few months now so I just push it back a bit 🤷🏻‍♀️

How long did you try shortening it for? I used a sleep consultant for my two year old and they said you have to maintain the change for a couple of weeks for it to have the effect. It does sound to me like the nap is too long and your little one isn’t tired enough at bedtime.

wake 6.45/7 (sometimes later)
nap 12-1.15
stories 7.40
into cot 8
asleep 8.15

My DS schedule:

7:30 wake up, breakfast, wash and teeth

9:30/10:00 snacks

11:30 nap 1hr

13:00 lunch

15:30 snacks

17:30 tea

18:30 bedtime bath

19:30 bedtime, sleeps through

Either shorten the nap, or make bedtime later. Or a bit of both!

Well if I were you I'd just accept she going to bed a bit later. She sleeps through and has a good nap so it's a good routine for her. A bit annoying for you because you get less of an evening but I'd just go with it.

That’s a huge nap at 2. Id say it’s both too much day sleep and ending too late in the day. 2 year old DS seems to need about 12.5h sleep in 24 (average for this age is 11-14), but his nap is reducing by the day. Our day is something like:

Wake 7am with breakfast shortly after
Snack 9:30am
Lunch 12:30pm
Nap 1:15/1:30pm until 2:45pm at latest (always wake him)
Small snack 3pm
Tea 6pm
Bedtime at 7:50pm and asleep by 8pm

Id trim your nap right down (1.5h total maybe) and see if you can add an hour onto your night, so bedtime becomes more like 7:30 or 8pm.

Wakes around 7 - 7:30, breakfast at 8am
Lunch at 11:30

Nap at 12
Wakes around 2 followed by milk and a snack
Dinner at 5pm
Bed between 6 - 6.30, asleep by 7.

Mine is:

7-7.30 wake, breakfast etc
10am snack (fruit)
11.30am lunch (crudities / pitta/ houmous etc or eggs)
12-12.30 down for nap (usually around 12.15)
2.30ish wake
3.30pm ish afternoon snack (homemade oat muffin - no sugar, or rice cakes & fruit etc)
6pm hot dinner
7pm bath
7.15pm milk, water, brush teeth
7.30pm into bed

Usually falls asleep straight away, and sleeps through 🙏🙏

In the morning and afternoon we try to wear DC out with walks, trips out etc

Ds2 turned 2 last week, he can change his naps - yesterdays was 2.5 hours, today none.

wake - 7:30
nursery 8:15-5:15
dinner (porridge if he hasn’t napped) 6pm
bath 7pm
into bed 7:30
asleep between 8-8:30
Mostly sleeps though so 11is hours at night and anything from 0-2.5 during the day - mostly is 1 hr 12:30-1:30

DD has a very similar routine including the long nap (which can be a pain when I have to do the school run!)

I would do the nap at 12 and reduce the length .

7.30 and breakfast
10.30 Snack
12 Lunch
1-2 quiet time no nap
3 snack
5 dinner
6.39 bath and bedtime routine
7.30 bed

What activity do you do in the afternoon? If my LO falls asleep during quiet time I make sure we have a very active afternoon walking or dancing.

My son turned 2 in March but for a while his routine is:
Wake 730-8am
Breakfast 8am
Playtime/activity 9am
Naptime 1130-1pm
Lunch 1pm
PM activity go out etc
Little snack/milk 3pm
Dinner 530-6pm
Bedtime 7pm

He falls asleep normally within 10mins

I would definitely cut nap time down and do 1 1/2 hrs and see how she goes.

7am wake
12-1.30pm nap - I wake him up if he looks like he’s gonna go over two hours/ 2pm
7-7.30pm bed

My suggestion would be shorten the nap, maybe by an hour. Some children drop the nap shortly after 2, my eldest napped til she was nearly 3, but my youngest is 2 and a few months and has dropped the nap entirely, we had a few weeks where she was falling asleep at dinner time but powered through and she now goes all day then is ready for bed at 6.30/7 and sleeps all the way through.

7am - wake/breakfast
9.30am - snack
11.30/12 - lunch
no nap
3/3.30 - snack
5pm - dinner
6pm - bath/teeth
7pm - stories/bed

7pm bed would be way too early for my DS (nearly 23 months). I put him into bed about 7.45, it might take him 10 to 30 minutes to fall asleep. He naps 1.5-2hrs. But they are all different, just go with it.

6am wake
7am breakfast
11.30 lunch
12.30-2 nap (always wake her)
4.30 dinner
6 bath and stories
6.30 bed, normally asleep by 7

I don't really see anything wrong with your LOs schedule OP. My toddler is 2.5 and is very active, and has almost three hours of nap time! Then sleeps through the night 8.30pm to 7am. I don't see any merit to waking them up in the afternoon, sleep is good for their growth and development.

7-8 wake up
8 - milk
8:30 - breakfast
11-12 nap
12/1 lunch
5:30/6 dinner
7 - bath
7:45 story & bed

I offer snacks through out the day, and sometimes nap will be as late as 13:30.

I would definitely shorten the nap.

My 2 year old can sometimes manage the whole day without a nap & then goes straight to sleep around 7.

In the days that she does nap, I give her 30 minutes and wake her up. She had an hour and a half nap the other day and didn't get to sleep until 9pm.

I would shorted the nap to an hour maybe and see how that goes!

An outdoor walk, kicking a ball or swimming might tire her out more.