19 month old doesn’t want to nap anymore - please help

[dreamerkr]

Hey guys. My 19 month old DS doesn’t want to nap anymore. I try for hours but he just won’t sleep. He sits up and starts laughing or gets off the bed and starts playing. He wakes up at 9am and goes to sleep at 9pm which is quite late but he just won’t before this. 12 hours is far too long for a young toddler to be awake, right?! I try to make him nap, literally for 2 hours I try but he just won’t. I’ve been trying to make him sleep for the last hour and a half, he just got off the bed and is playing around the room now. My head’s hurting, I feel like the only time that I actually properly rest during the day is when he’s asleep and now he doesn’t even want to sleep. He does sleep quite well at night even though he still wakes up twice to feed but goes back to sleep straight away. Any advice? How can I make him sleep? Is this normal?

Eventually we take him into the car and he sleeps for a maximum of 40 mins in there.

He probably doesn't need feeding in the night now, no wonder you are exhausted. He's also outgrown the need for a nap so I would give up on that. Personally I would make 7pm bedtime so at least you have an evening.

My daughter (same age) has being going through this for about 2 months now - she wont nap for a week but then suddenly will start napping again, then will stop and start.

I think its just a natural phase, if she doesnt want to nap i dont make her, i just put her to bed an hour earlier.

Don't force it - theres no need to stress yourself out.

Sorry, I think 40 mins napping in a car was about all my DC would do at that age. At least you can park up and rest/read etc. while the DC naps, even if you aren't getting sleep. Some of them stop needing a nap earlier than others.

Both mine stopped day time naps about that age but went to bed 6.30-7

And as pp says, a 19 mo waking up twice in the night for feeding/snacking is not common and you must be utterly exhausted from that. Maybe try and stop that and you would not need the DS to sleep so much in the day? I have no easy solution other than ignoring the crying (sorry again).

Afraid it's time to drop the nap if he won't go down and resists it. Start an earlier bedtime instead so you get an evening. It might be that he goes from a nap every day, to a nap every other so you might get a nap a few times a week.

Also it sounds like trying to make your DS nap is making you very stressed and miserable, as well as taking up a big chunk of your day, so just stop and remove the stressful event from your life. Change or accept.
Also as a pp says, put the by now very tired DS to bed at 6.30pm and have a restful evening.

My DD was the same age when she dropped naps all together. Sorry for that piece of info there!

Thank you so much guys!

My dd stopped napping at your son’s age. She woke up at 7:30am and went to bed at 10pm.

Needing to feed twice during the night seems unusual at this age. I have friends who've done it but they coslept and BF so weren't really aware of feeds taking place. Mine didn't need a night feed after five months.

Mine would sometimes not nap at this age. It depended bow active she'd been during the day - she dropped
naps at nursery at about this age (3 days a week) but kept them the other four days as nursery was tiring plus the toddler groups we did on other days. Nursery napped them early - at about midday, which was too early for DD. We did about 2pm at home which worked a lot better.

But we introduced a groclock at 18 months for both morning wake up and nap time. So she was always put down for a nap in her cot but it was up to her if she slept. I didn't spend ages trying to get her to sleep, just gave her a couple of board books and a soft toy or two for in the cot and she'd either sleep or play (sometimes play for a bit, then sleep).

From 2.5 she dropped to 2-3 naps a week, then 1-2 by about 3 years. Finally stopped napping altogether at 4 years old. We retained the 'quiet time' throughout so she always had the opportunity to nap if she wanted to - this also helped her to practice independent play.

I don’t think he really needs to feed during the night, it’s more like he needs to feed to sleep 😫 usually he still only falls asleep when I feed him as we still cosleep. It’s getting less but yes it is tiring when he will only go back to sleep if I feed him. Any other method to get him to sleep without feeding, which is not letting him cry?

He doesn’t even properly feed during the night, more like he suckles for a minute or so and falls back asleep.

If you can lose the feed to sleep that may well help the naps too - as he can then get himself to sleep without needing you there.

There's no need to feed to sleep and also no need for the only alternative to be crying. I avoided doing it from birth where possible which probably helped (separated the feeds from sleep) but you can just pat and reassure instead of feeding. Or offer water if it's night and they might be thirsty? We got ours a Tommee Tippee no-spill sports bottle around this age and left it in the cot with her as that meant she could help herself to a drink in the night without disturbing us.

Is the co-sleeping so you can get him to sleep and feed him in the night without getting up? I am not sure you will continue benefit long-term from this. I can only suggest what worked for us: a bath-book-bed routine, DC in own room, and not fed during night (started by ignoring crying at bedtime, but did not ignore later crying in case of illness and dirty nappies etc).