Losing the will to live - 19 month old refusing bedtime

[Puffinpeter1]

Hi,

My 19 month old DS isn’t going to sleep at night until around 10pm! It’s so frustrating as it means I get no evening at all.

He has one nap a day, has done since about 15 months. On three mornings a week I pick him up from nursery at 1pm, he then naps at home for an hour so is waking latest 2:30pm (I’ve had to start capping the nap at an hour otherwise bedtime would be even later!) On non-nursery says he sleeps earlier, more like 12:30-1:30.

We then have our afternoon, tea at 5:30pm, bath at 7pm, into bed for stories at 7:30pm and lights out 8pm. He just will not go to sleep until 10pm!!!

He sits up to chat, walks around etc. I’ve tried the method of laying him back down and saying it’s bedtime now every time he gets up, but he just gets more and more furious to the point where he’s screaming and then there’s no chance he’s going to go to sleep.

He’s waking around 7:30-8am. Obviously on nursery days I can’t bring his nap any earlier because of my work. He also absolutely refuses to nap at nursery if they try him earlier.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? 19months seems wayyyy to early to drop and nap, and he needs it as otherwise he’s falling asleep whilst playing at 4pm!

Just putting out there that I 100% will not do cry it out. I’d rather just not have an evening.

Thank you.

If he's falling asleep at 4 when playing is he overtired by 730

Can he nap at 4 ?

At the same age mine started to drop his naps I'm afraid. But it wasn't everyday - the solution that worked for us was that he'd nap on his nursery days and didn't nap on his days at home.
Your other option is to accept that he naps and then sleeps later, and you do bedtime later, which means you get no evening but also no battle with him. It won't last forever. Eventually he will drop the nap and bedtime will likely then come earlier.

Try and cap the nap shorter? Say 30 mins and see how that impacts bedtime?

When bedtime is affected it's time to drop the nap!
My DS wouldn't go to bed till 10 either, dropped the nap, first couple of days are hard but bedtimes became so much easier!!

Distraction is key for dropping a nap, when you see him starting to flag, get him outside, bubbles, whatever helps.

Mine had dropped naps a long time before this age - you are obviously putting him to bed far too early, and he isn't ready to sleep

Drop the nap, and see if he can be distracted enough to get to about 6pm then just do early bedtimes for a bit til he gets used to not napping.

Hi everyone,

thank for your replies. He’s just had 40 minutes and woken up at 2pm, so I’ll see how bedtime goes tonight!! Fingers crossed. If not I’ll try a day with no nap at all.

@midgemadgemodge he’d fall asleep at 4pm if he had no nap at all before then. I can’t let him nap at 4 as he’d be up probably until midnight.

I maybe need to accept he doesn’t need much sleep! It’s just strange because my nearly 3 year old still has 1.5 hours in the afternoon and still goes to sleep at 8pm with no problems. But I guess all kids are different.

At that age he's more likely to be overtired than undertired with that little sleep, he's only getting 10.5 hours in a day. Average amount needed for his age is around 13 hours so he's well under. Overtiredness also results in difficulty settling. I'd get him up at 7.30, nap around 12.30 for 2 hours then bed around 7.30. There are some babies who need less sleep but they aren't the norm and if he's drifting off around 4pm he's clearly tired.

He’d only drift off at 4pm if he didn’t have a nap earlier in the day.

It hasn’t worked tonight with a 40 minute nap this afternoon, he’s still wide awake and wanting to play. Making me want to cry as I just want some down time.

Should I try letting him nap as long as he likes during the day? I can’t get him to sleep any earlier than 13:30 on nursery days because of my working hours. But on non nursery days I can try it. Just so nervous it’ll result in him being up until past midnight!

He'd be in the minority not needing more sleep than he's currently getting. Struggling to settle at bedtime is a classic sign of overtiredness. It's hard to know for definite but I would try and increase his overall sleep, although not being able to put him down for a nap until 1.30 is really not ideal. Could he stay at nursery a bit longer and nap there 12.30-2.30? Just doing one day of it might not help, you might need to persist for a few weeks to see if it's helping.

At that age mine needed around 7 hours between waking from nap and bedtime, so with a 2.30 wake up I would be expecting a 9.30/10pm bedtime.

Now at 24 months it’s more like 8-9 hours between nap and bedtime, and that’s only if he hasn’t had any longer than 30mins. So to combat this I get up early with him so the whole day is earlier, but I appreciate you can’t do this with nursery/work schedule.

Solidarity for tonight though as DS slept for 5 mins in car at 6pm tonight. We’ve got a long time yet until he’ll be ready for sleep!

I think7.30 is too late, mine needed to be in bEd at 6.30 at that age, he’s probably overtired.

That’s quite a late morning start. If he sleeps 10pm-8am with a 1 hour nap, that’s 11h total sleep which is within the average range for his age. I personally wouldn’t drop the nap at 19 months. I’d get him up earlier if you want to get him to bed earlier. You may find he naps at nursery this way as well.

We had this problem. We had to fix it because DC2 was rapidly approaching term and we couldn't be faffing around like that when we had a second baby to deal with. The Starlight Sounds Vtech Polar Bear saved us. Can't guarantee it will work but DS was staying up until 1am and before we got it the only way to get him to sleep was by walking him round and round the town in his pushchair for about an hour then very carefully transferring him into bed upstairs. He just really struggled to switch off at night.

After we got the polar bear, we started taking DS to bed with us and putting the polar bear on and lying quietly with him until he drifted off. Pre-polar bear when we'd try to take him to our bed he just crawled around and played, when we put him in his cot he screamed and we couldn't just leave him there.

A week or two after we bought the polar bear, we also started getting him up an hour earlier which moved his nap to between 2 and 3pm which helped a bit but messed up afternoon activities which was annoying as I wanted to tire him out more before bedtime.

My 19mo only recently went down to 1 nap. But if she wakes later than 1.30pm, she's up until 9 or so, despite being visibly tired. On a good day she sleeps 7.30-7 (1-2 wakes to breastfeed/water depending on weather), plus 1.5-2.5 hour nap, preferably starting well before noon. Nursery days are tricky as she naps much later there.

My first was an absolute nightmare due to feeding aversion issues. Didn't go to sleep until 10ish no matter what we tried. I would take him to bed when getting visibly tired around 7-8, read a story, milk, lights out. Then he would wonder around the (childproof) room looking at books or climbing on me while I pretended to sleep. Usually for several hours. Nothing really solved his sleep. He's 4.5 and sleeps 8-6ish, but still wakes through the night for fortified milk (low weight). I swear the baby is more responsive to the gro clock than he is!

They need less sleep at this age. My 19 months went from sleeping 10-12 hours during a night to 8-9 hours. She is on 1 nap per day, and I never let her sleep after 4 pm to make sure she will be ready for bedtime.

Also, my girl would stay up until 10 if I let her.
I take her up at 7.30- she can walk, and play in her room a little bit. At 8 I put her on my lap in the chair for story time. If she doesn't go with it I just put her in the cot and leave her in the room. She cries for a few minutes- I go in, take her out from the cot and try the storytime again. This will go on until she realises she rather stay calm on me than be put in the cot.
As long as she is calm, she can fall asleep easily- she is usually half asleep on me when I put her back in her cot. Some nights it takes 1 try some nights 10. But she is usually in bed by 8.30.
I know some would find this method strange, but I don't have the time and energy to fight her over sleep time.

Another poster has mentioned this but that's quite a late start to the day, and I think it might be where your issue lies because it throws everything else off. If you can, what about getting him up at 6? Or if that's too early, 6:30? It does sound like your DS is overtired and struggling. I really rate Taking Cara Babies for sleep support https://takingcarababies.com/19-month-old-sleep-schedule

Thanks everyone. We’re going to try going the other way as suggested and getting more sleep in for him.

He woke at 8am. My mum has him today but she’s managed to get him down for a nap at 12:20 and is going to let him have as long as he likes. I’ll then try bedtime 5 hours after he wakes up to make sure he doesn’t get overtired.

Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

I hadn’t realised about them getting overtired, everyone always talks about cutting down their sleep if they won’t go to sleep at bedtime.

Also tomorrow I’ll try waking him up earlier in the morning, collecting from nursery at 12:30 (earliest I can get away from work!) and straight down for a nap

It’s all getting worse 🤦🏻‍♀️ we’ve been trying more sleep which just isn’t working. Long nap yesterday and woke up at 3pm. He didn’t go to sleep until 22:40 last night!!!!!

I just don’t know what to do.

If I wake him at 06:30 am, but he still naps after lunch, is he still likely to go to bed earlier? Is it more about total awake time in the day rather than wake windows between naps?

Someone please help.

My 18 month old is similar, she just doesn't seem to need much sleep 😫

Yesterday she had one 30min nap at 2pm, didn't go down until 11pm despite every method tried from 7.30pm onwards, and was up and bright as a button singing and dancing at 7am.

She's got a full day at nursery today, and will bounce home at 6pm, full of bloody beans.

No idea how she does it, it's madness. I'm frigging knackered, but it's like her blood is pure RedBull!

Solidarity - my 18m old is similar!! Where do they get the energy?!

Waking up at 3pm is far too late.

If you want to keep the naps; wake up early, nap after lunch, I would cut off at 1hr30 or 2hr max.

@Sunshineclouds11

I agree that 3pm is too late, I just have the problem that on the 3 mornings he goes to nursery a week, I can’t collect him until 1pm because of my job. So he’s not falling asleep on those days until 1:30pm.

It’s all a bit of a logistical nightmare and I can’t see a way out of it!

Maybe I just don’t let him nap on nursery days and do a really early bed time. He’s usually knackered afterwards though so will want to sleep.

@Q2C4 I have no idea! Maybe I need to start filling her diet and see what it does for my energy levels! 😂