What am I doing wrong? Toddler routine!

[Meme1313]

So I have DC1 (18 months) and DC2 (3 months). I feel like I'm being cheated. DC1 wakes up at 7am and somehow sleeps at 10pm. He has always been an awful sleeper but also seems quite happy without the sleep! He does get overtired but this isn't often considering he doesn't get so much sleep. I keep seeing routines where baby wakes at 7am and sleeps at 7pm. I am jealous. What am I doing wrong, here is my routine:

7am wake up
8am breakfast/bath
9.00 ready for the day, some cleaning together.
10-2 toddler class/shopping/walk/gardening
1-2.00 - lunch, sometimes this is on the go
3.00 nap
4.30ish wake up
5.00 I cook and DP comes home
6.00 we all eat
7.00 we go out for the evening/watch TV/go crazy with the kids
9.00 in bed, (PJ's, milk, teeth, books)
10.00 asleep

Originally we didn't used to go out in the evening but DS1 never slept when we started his bed time routine at 7pm so I gave up and decided to go out.

His first nap is also way later than I want it to be but I always offer it earlier and he just refuses.

I'm thinking maybe I should do bath time before bed. I usually do a bath in the morning but might not now. Not sure. Part of me just thinks he doesn't need the sleep. He never slept much as a baby and in some ways this is an improvement. Maybe he is dropping his nap?

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think I'm going to tweak the first nap time and make the evening more relaxing.

I really hope DS2 starts liking his car seat more because I think a drive through tim Hortons would really cheer me up. It isn't easy with the 2. I might just need to keep this late bed time as it also means DP can put him to bed instead of me doing it. I don't even know what I want anymore. I think I've tried hundreds of things in the past 2 months and I'm just trying to see if there is anything else I can do to cure the sleep deprivation but I don't think there is.

I think I'm going to knock off now. Thanks everyone.

Ours soon was/is very similar and we could easily get lots of opinions that his nap was the wrong time/too long, we should wake him earlier/etc.
Some children are different and what worked for us is to delegate more to him, to reduce the stress on us.
Or way is based on a separation of responsibility and autonomy/boundaries, so we decide the boundaries (sleep happens in his room, he stays in his room between certain times) and he decides when to sleep within that, and how much sleep or other activities he wants to do.

So in practical terms we kept a routine, at that age was something like 8am wake up (blackout curtain), nap was something like 3-5pm, then bedtime routine was 8-9pm with story at 9pm.
The key thing though was at 3pm and 9pm the only rule is he has to stay in his room, we have a floor mattress, and he has a load of books, potty, and a music player (yoto player), basically any quiet toys that are non stimulating.
We can see from the baby monitor sometimes he skips nap nowadays (3.5 years old) and sometimes he is still reading at 11pm, sometimes he falls asleep immediately. But he can make his own decision about sleep, and we get our evening back. And there's no sleep battle. Win win.
Before 2 years old we had terrible struggle getting him to sleep, and he was overtired all the time, it was just a rotten time all round. And all the advice online about sleep was useless and just made us feel like we were bad parents ("put down drowsy but awake" was the most frustrating one when he was a baby - no chance!)

Good luck!

Nap is too late at 3-4.30 and is very likely contributing to the late bedtime. Also nap is too long.

I agree with PPs, nap is too late. I have to keep my 9 month old from 3pm onwards to get a 6:45/7pm bedtime so it’s no surprise your little one is going to bed so late.

I would shift waking for the day, nap time and bedtime earlier by 15 mins every few days and make it a gradual process. Then you need to consistently do it for a couple of weeks before noticing a real difference.

I know his nap is late but there is no way I am able to shift that. He won't sleep before that, even if I am driving in the car or he is in the push chair on one of these sunny days. I've decided to just keep things how they are and to just go with the flow and his cues. Plus I just read that there is an 18 month regression and I think he is going through that. I did accidentally sleep train him when DC2 was born and he slept well for about a month. Now he is climbing out of his bed, opening the door and finding me. For the past few days he has been napping for 30 mins only and is still sleeping at 10 so I think this is a phase where he is becoming more independent.

Def a very late nap!

What has worked for us is get up 7/7.30 for breakfast, washed and dressed and out the door by 8:45 for exercise. Lunch at 11.30, nap for 12. The afternoon we then play in the garden etc, dinner at 5.30, bath for 6.30, bed by 7.15.

Again, some need less sleep than others. We adjusted the above as DD was falling asleep closer to 8.30pm As that started creeping up towards 9 and sometimes 10pm we started reducing her nap down to an hour, and then half an hour, and then she dropped it entirely at 2.5.

If it works better for you wake him up earlier, you're up at 5am anyway. That would move everything forward a couple of hours, but won't guarantee any extra sleep. It depends whether you need the quiet morning or the quiet evening more.

I'd definitely do bath at bedtime, but only if it works with your schedule.