2 year old nap time?

[Daisysimply]

I feel like I’ve posted so many things on here in regards to my daughter’s sleep but I’ve always struggled with getting her into a routine. She’s now nearly 2 and we’re struggling with getting nap and bedtime right. She is fighting her nap at mid day/ 1ish but instead is falling asleep around 4/5ish regardless of what tome she wakes up in the morning unless she wakes up really early (before 7). This then means she won’t go to bed till really late and the cycle continues. I’m just at my wits end and don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like no matter how hard I try, no routine seems to stick and something always seems to get in the way of it. Just looking for any advice on what to do really and a bit of a rant I suppose.

It's a rough time! DS is 2.5 and we mostly have given up with naps.

Not really advice but anything after 2ish means no nap that day. We always offer one but 9/10 times he refuses it.
It can then be a bit of a battle but he stays up and just goes to bed early around 6/6.30.

I would say keep offering it but you can't force it around this age.

We have been known to give DS 2 baths in one day to get him to stay up to 6.30...

Oh we have quiet time if he doesn't want a nap. We sit down and read books or similar instead

Both mine dropped naps at 18 months, so you are probably approaching that stage.
Have a quiet time after lunch. Curl up on the sofa with some stories, quiet music or a bit of gentle TV.

What time are you aiming to have be bedtime and wake up time, and how long a nap? If you've always struggled with her sleep, is she fairly low sleep needs overall, and therefore never fits any of the patterns in the books/on the websites?

My two are both low sleep needs, at at around 2, normal for them would have been 9-10 hours overnight and 1-1.5 hours nap. They also both liked a long first wake window, so even getting up at 6-6.30, nap at home was generally closer to 2 pm than 12 pm.

They also both started dropping the nap a bit over 2, both largely not napping by 2.5 – in some ways, dropping it is a relief, because they're properly tired at bedtime again and it makes your days more flexible, although of course you don't get that break in the day.