24-month-old DS woke up at 10.30am, WWYD with nap?

[Fazerina]

!!

His sleep has become if possible even more erratic since turning 2. Yesterday he woke up at 8a, took a nap 13.30-14.30, started putting him to sleep at 8pm and he finally fell asleep at 9.30pm, woke up at 10pm, DH went in and he was asleep by 10.15pm and woke up again at 11pm, asleep at 11.25pm and then woke up a few times in the night. This morning when we woke up, I thought it might be 9am or or so and nearly had a heart attack when I checked the time!

So what would you do with nap today? He doesn't quite manage without one just yet. We've tried no nap a few times and he just gets so OT it takes 3 hours for him to fall asleep at BT. Should I start aiming for 30min naps now though?

He is still too little to do without a nap... I think you need to work on him not waking so much at night though.

Yes the frequent waking in the evening has been a problem since always really:(.. I think the most he goes without waking in the evening is 2 hours and that's typically when he's had a shorter nap. But you are right, he's too little to not nap at all. He does best I think with 45min-1h, it's just long enough to 'take the edge off' without setting us for a late BT..

Yesterday ended up fine after all: he napped for 35min at 3.30pm and fell asleep at 10pm and today woke up at 9am so not too horrible. Now I've decided to get him up at 8.30am tomorrow and the at 8am on Tuesday to try and reset the routine again.

My 23 month dd can't nap- but has never really been a napper

About a month ago I totally rejigged dinner to 4:30-5:00 (a bummer as wrk both work 9-5) so she now has tea with whoever is looking after her. And now goes to bed At 6:30 Ish. This is after a long wind down routine of about 45 mins- getting pjs on, teeth and books.

Two things mess up early to bed- change in the routine or a day time nap!

Since getting her to bed earlier- we used to have dinner at 6 up to bed for 7 30 Ish she has been sleeping a lot better! So much so I'm gutted dc2 is due soon and sleep will be broken more. She still wakes but isn't up long.

I think the early dinner ha resulted in her eating more so she is less hungry. I think our previous dinner time was just to late and she didn't eat much.

Hth

My DD is 26 months and we put her to bed much earlier as we found 8pm too late. She goes to bed at 7 - plays in her cot with her teddy and seahorse til finally dropping off between 8 and half past. She wakes at 6.30/7 and naps 1-3. Shorter naps make her more likely to wake in the night - this is her best routine. I know it takes her an age to drop off which is a pain but it looks like you have that anyway but at least this is earlier.

I just thought I'd let you know what works for us anyway.

I would definately try a shorter nap

Hi everyone and thanks for the ideas.

Today was again a slightly more normal day, but despite going to bed at 7.30, DS still took 1.5h to finally fall asleep. Nap was 1h at 1.30.

I think I'll definitely try an earlier nap and gradually shorten it. I think if most days I can get him to nap 1-2pm, he should be good and ready for bed at 7.30pm and hopefully asleep by 8pm. I'm starting to think for us the nap is really just about a brief recharge of the batteries and not a full on snooze unfortunately.. I wonder if their sleep cycles at this age have gone over the 45-minute mark..? I think a 45-minute nap would be ideal for us. Or at least I'll experiment a bit to see if it's the length of the nap or the timing to see if it makes any difference to how long it takes him to fall asleep for the night.