How do I help my toddler sleep later? SOS

[Lollypops19]

Please I hope someone can help me, or at least offer some advice I’ve not already thought of because I’m truly at breaking point.

My almost 21 month old son has always had sleep challenges ever since we hit the 4 month sleep regression. Everything to fighting every nap, needing vigorously rocked, multiple night wakes, early rises, split nights, you name it we’ve had it.

Thankfully we have been able to get past most of those things with persistence, routine and meticulously planning his schedule.

He is currently waking anywhere between 4am and 5 regardless of the time he goes to bed. I’ve tried later bed, earlier bed, adhered to strict wake windows, longer day sleep, shorter day sleep, white noise/no white noise, we’ve even bought a nest to control his room temp, he has a black out blind, he’s well fed before bed, he doesn’t get milk when he wakes, we also don’t get him out of his room so we keep the environment the same, he can self settle, we give him magnesium. He has a solid bedtime routine.

He is currently on 1 nap a day which, when at home, he sleeps usually anywhere between 1.5-2.5 hrs. Our sticking point is nursery…he’s there 4 days a week and he will either fight his nap which means he either goes down really late (he’s always been a FOMO baby), he goes down but sleeps an hr or lately he’s been refusing to nap at all and we’ve had to get him in the car to have a sleep then put him back. We have zero control over his sleep for those 4 days. Nursery have strict sleep policies that I can’t seem to change no matter how much I plead with them.

A lot of people are saying to me well perhaps he just doesn’t need the sleep and he’s a low sleep needs kid. But I know my child and he’s chronically overtired and exhausted. He’s not functioning on the sleep he’s getting, which is showing clearly in his behaviour at home. On the ODD occasion that he treats me to a 6am wake, he’s like a different child. So happy and content and much better equipped to deal with his emotions.

I also solo parent for 6 months of the year as my husband works away, and so I’m dealing with it alone for half of the time. Im
emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted and have no idea what else to do - other than just accept it?

I wouldn’t mind so much if he was a happy content little boy when he wakes up at 4am but he’s miserable. Then by 7am he’s truly exhausted and wants to sleep. Which I tried going with the flow on and it just made things worst.

Does anyone have any advice at all that I haven’t thought of?? I’m so broken and tired and I just wish I could help him get the sleep he needs to thrive! I feel I’m failing him by not making this better for him.

thanks for reading if you have got this far! 🤍

Both mine stopped napping at 18 months. One had fought against it for a couple of months, the other had been having 3hr naps and then one day said I don't want a nap anymore and that was it.
The one who had been fighting the naps for a couple of months, still woke at 5-5.30 every morning - they came into our bedroom for an hour of TV whilst we dozed.
The one who dropped 3hr naps overnight continued to sleep through the night until 7.30.
I don't think you can make a child sleep if they don't need it - despite being grumpy during the day. The transition period is pretty rough.
I'd look to drop the nap and aim for a slightly earlier bedtime for a while.

What time does he go to bed?

To be honest, I don't think you've got any hope of changing this if he's at nursery 4 days a week and they won't help.

My son stopped sleeping at nursery at around 20 months, he was just too interested in everything going on, so he wouldn't go down. He did quiet time with a staff member instead, a couple of them snuggled up with books, and sometimes he'd doze. Often he wouldn't, so we'd do an earlier bedtime when he got home.

Unfortunately your bedtime routine isn't going to be a big enough change to counter them letting him sleep whenever he likes... have you got other nursery options? Could he sleep in with you, do you get better sleep then?

I will say that we had a few months of 4am starts a couple of times, but that's developmental, and it's just one of those things you have to push through. We're generally bed between 7:30 - 8:30pm now, and wakes between 6 - 7am. He slept through last night so was up and full of beans at 6am. On the nights he doesn't, he runs through and gets into our bed, and sleeps there, so I'm not absolutely ruined for work.

We also tried a lot of that bedtime stuff, and it made next to no difference for my son. If he was awake, keeping him in his room was pointless, it was better to give him half an hour to play it off downstairs and then try bedtime again. He never cared for white noise or not, it made no difference. His room temperature didn't bother him, as long as he wasn't cold, he slept just as well with the blind open as the blind closed, and magnesium doesn't do anything unless they have a deficiency. I don't think any of those things are going to make an impact here - it's all about balancing his sleep needs with when he's actually sleeping x

Can you break down his current routine on a nursery and non nursery day? Specifically what time are the naps, when is dinner, what time does he go to bed?

Also, this isn’t a feasible solution for most so don’t take it as ‘advice’ per se but we had similar with DS around that age and what fixed it was long haul travel. Basically tear up the routine, forget whatever their body clock is telling them, have a holiday on a totally different schedule and then start completely from scratch when you get home. Totally anecdotal but we know a lot of expat families and we aren’t the only ones in our circle to say it works…