Naps & sleep: should I be concerned?

[DameFlatYouLent]

Before I start, this is in no way a stealth boast, and neither am I complaining because I know I've got it pretty good at the moment (believe me, I haven't always).

DS, who's 20m, generally sleeps 7pm-ish til 7am-ish (sometimes stays awake til up to 8.30pm dossing around in his cot, and sometimes wakes at 6am-ish) at night. He wakes in the morning looking pretty tired. In the day when at home, he usually sleeps 10.30am til I wake him at around 2pm. Then, by 6pm he's looking shattered.

He doesn't get this much sleep when at the childminder twice a week, and generally sleeps badly the night after he's been with her. He usually sleeps 90mins at hers, max 2hrs. This is because of her schedule, fitting in around other children.

He seems to need a lot of sleep - and it's interesting that he sleeps better at night when he's had up to 3.5hrs sleep in the day. I'm wondering if this is at the top end of normal, or if there might be something wrong with him that's making him so tired?

If he's suddenly sleeping a lot more than normal then it may be down to teething or illness. But if he's always been this way (i.e. likes a lot of sleep) and was perhaps later than some to switch to 1 nap then it sounds like he has higher than average sleep needs & I would just say enjoy it!!!!

If you start to find you get a lot of bedtime resistance, or his wakeup time gets consistently earlier (which tbh I am amazed it hasn't based on my own experience with my DS ) then you can always consider making some tweaks. Otherwise leave well alone!

Just for comparison's sake, at 20months my DS was doing

Up: 7.15am
Nap: 1.15-3pm (I had to wake him)
Bed: 8pm

I can't let my DS nap early in the day or we get early waking (even a 1pm nap is now causing early waking) and I have to limit his daytime nap or he isn't tired enough for bed, so you can see you definitely have a sleeper on your hands!

Thank you for replying, omama. It's interesting how different they all are, isn't it? That's a good tip to look out for early waking/resistance to bedtime, I'll keep my eyes peeled. So you don't think it's an "abnormal" amount of sleep he needs?

And yes, I love nap time! Obviously I do really constructive things during that time like MNing. There are days when I wish we could get more done, because he gets really cranky with shorter naps, and his nighttime sleep really suffers, but then I remember how lucky I am! It's just such a contrast from the first year of his life when he was a terrible nap refuser and used to wake every 90mins, more or less, at night. Making up for it now?!