Cut out nap?

[wifey6]

My DS is 22 months & up until we went on holiday was able to have a 2 hour early afternoon nap & still have his milk at 7-7:30 & fall asleep by 8-8:30. Whilst on holiday & the week since we have been home, he has been napping as normal but not falling asleep til much later & not seeming at all tired when I sit with him for his milk. I've tried pushing milk time on but he still is in bed faffing around for hours!!!
Should I try & stop this nap all together? Although I find if he is over-tired me doesn't sleep as well. Really don't know what to do...
An advice would be greatly recieved...

You could try waking him after an hour first and see if that helps

I'll be interested in the answers too! Not sure if my 21 month old is needing to drop his nap or not he didn't go to sleep till just after nine tonight! Will be great to find out what others are doing! Thanks wifey

Have tried waking him after an hour...& he screams the house down for ages...& gets very upset. The 1.5- 2 hours has always worked well...I found without naps he would wake a lot during the night. So I might try cutting the nap out tomorrow & keep him very occupied & see what happens. Selfishly I will miss that time to myself... as he can sometimes wake from 5:30am-6am & be on the good all day

if you wake him after an hour he will be in the middle of a sleep cycle, they are about 40 mins long so i would wake him after an hour and 20mins as that is the end of 2 sleep cycles, see if that works.

5madthings....thank you. I never knew about the sleep cycle timings etc.
I will try that before I cut the nap out completely. Don't get me wrong...I love spending time with him...but am going through a difficult time so am physically & emotionally drained...so I want to tackle this nap/sleep issue before it gets any worse.

i would try waking him after 1hr 20mins and then if he still doesnt seem ready for bed in the evenings wake him after 40mins then he has had one sleep cycle and should be ok to get to bedtime and be tired, as you say he cant make it through the whole day wihtout a nap.

i think its angeldog who is a poster on here who knows all about sleep cycles etc, she has posted lots about it and its not nice to be woken at the wrong point in a sleep cycle, there are various stages of light and deep sleep etc, but you generally naturally are in a light sleep stage after 40mins hence why its ok to be woken then :)

Thank you for your help...especially with the vital sleep cycle info. I'm sure the holiday threw his sleeping routine a bit..but I still tied to keep to routine as far as napping & bedtimes etc. but I will be trying your advice. Thank you

My dd, 18months is going through the same thing just now. This also started after coming back from holiday, up til late (9pm bedtime for 2 weeks) I think that didnt really help...but we had a great time tho.

Since coming back from holiday its taking her 1hr30mins-2hrs to get to sleep(9:30pm/10pm) and she won't let me leave the room (separation anxiety...) I can see she's sleepy but she just can't seen to shut her eyes and let go/relax.

Reducing her nap time to 1hr didn't seen to do much...

She just looks like she can't shut her brain off!

aichi....that's what it seems like doesn't it...like they just can't shut off..
We kept to similar milk/bedtime routine while on holiday but it would take him a few hours to fall sleep still.
I'm hoping today to may be reduce his nap time- or try & see if he will nap earlier. But he has got in to such a routine...it could be very difficult.
I even do the supernanny techniques of not talking the third time I go in...but it's still the fact he can be awake til 10pm!!

wifey what time does he take his nap? I've been through similar lately with my DS (21 months). Before all went wonky he was waking at 7am, napping 12.30-2.30, bedtime was 7.30 & he wasn't going to sleep until after 8 & was waking at 6am. I was sure I needed to cut his nap right down or maybe even drop it altogether, but after having tried the shorter nap I could see he was still shattered. What has fixed it for us though is to push the nap later so he is always awake 6hrs before his nap. Any less & we get bedtime antics. We have also trimmed the nap, but only by 15mins. So his routine now looks like:

Up: 7.15am
Nap: 1.15-3pm
BT: 8pm

omama....my DS sleep is very much like your LOs.
Up- 6:30am/7am
Nap- 1pm-1:30pm until 2:30pm-3pm
Bed- 7:30pm

It's worked for the last 4+ months but since holiday has gone AWOL!
Yesterday we were super-busy so were out & about all morning/afternoon so didn't get home til 2pm. DS then started playing outside, with DH & showed no signs of tiring until about 4:30 (no chance of a nap at that time). I ended up giving him his milk about 5:45pm as he was so exhausted & he fell asleep in my arms. He did wake up hour later crying with wind (which he gets on/off). But went back off til 6am!! I really found it a long day as he was grizzly from 4:30pm til bed time - but ultimately he slept pretty well so I'm grateful for that.