yakkety yak - my toddler won't stop talking and go to sleep!!

[babydriver]

For the last few weeks, DS (2.3) has gone to bed at his usual time (8pm) but just won't stop talking & singing... He seems perfectly happy burbling away to himself, but goes on till half nine at night or later sometimes. Any tips? Or is this just another one of those phases?

Does he still have a nap in the day?

Cut out that nap! We've had this...except dd likes company when she is trilling "Bobby-BUILDER, can he FIX it?" and giving herself a round of applause. She is the same age and driving us nuts.

It was Bob the Builder for us too last night!!

I'm not sure I can face losing the daytime nap (yes, he does still have one, as he's quite grumpy late afternoon if he doesn't get one), but if that's the only way to go...

You know you have to...seriously, if they can manage to stay up and singing until 9.30pm then they have entered that annoying zone where they are crochety in the late afternoon but need to cut out the nap.
With ds, this period only lasted a few weeks. We are steeling ourselves to do the same to dd.

how long is the nap? Maybe you don't need to cut it out...just reduce it? I remember doing this with DS1 so he had one hour which was enough to keep him going but not enough to stop him going to bed. Saying that he has only just stopped his nap when he was 3 3/4!

My dd (21mo) had a phase of doing this, I cut her nap from 2hrs to 90 mins and also get her up earlier in the morning (she had started sleeping in til about 8/8.30am).

Still takes her about 20 mins to go to sleep but it's a huge improvement.

DD used to do this. She goes to bed at 6.30-7pm and used to mess about in her room talking to her toys, singing etc often for up to a couple of hours. We just ignored her and let her get on with it. She is now 3.8 and for a good few months now is asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

dd2 did this at 2 - we dropped her nap and she started looking at books to go to sleep, she still does that now at 3.3. I have to go in and remove T'he Giant Jam Sandwich' or 'Winnie's New Computer' from her face after she has dropped off.

Thanks for your thoughts. I may try reducing the nap first of all (currently he has between 60-90mins) and see what happens - maybe he can get away with a catnap (god knows what I will do tho!!). Have tried getting him to bed sooner but somehow it never seems to happen but maybe I will just have to try harder.