22 mo struggling to fall asleep

[Madallie]

My dd is 22 months old. She has self settled since about 4 mo but is currently struggling with getting to sleep at night time. She goes off fine for her nap.

At the moment he rough routine is:
6.15 am - wake
12-1.30 - nap
6.45 -

She used to go to sleep within about 10-15mins but now she is not falling asleep until 7.30 or 7.45. She really struggles to get off. This just happened all of a sudden. Does it sound like I should start putting her to bed later? I'm so wary of making her OT and M aware that taking ages to fall asleep can be a sign of this.

I'm just not sure what to do and hate to hear her struggling to get to sleep. Dc2 is due in feb so kind of want to try and get things sorted. Any ideas would be greatly received.

Thanks in advance.

I could of written this thread about 4 months ago about DS1! Except our DS2 was 6 months old!! We had similar issues when we moved him to a bed.

Things we did:

Cut nap to one hour. At 2.5 he now only naps 3/4 times a week.

Push the bedtime later until they start settling within 10/15 mins as before, then slowly bring it forward again.

The hv advised us to keep a note of:

Waking time
Start of bedtime routine
Put to bed
Fell to sleep
Any night wakening
Get up time

This helped to see DSs natural pattern.

A nightlight on a timer also helps, don't bother with gro clock or similar, just use a normal lamp and get a plug timer

HTH
He now goes down at 7 and wakes around 7.

Thanks that is really helpful. I'll try a few things that you've mentioned. Hopefully things will be better by the time dc2 comes.

No problem hope you get it sorted before new one arrives! It's hard work!

One other thing, we used to bath DS1 for around 15/20 mins but now it's 5. HV recommended this as it gives them a second wind.

I also do no tv after dinner

If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

I should add that over the last week dd has gradually been waking earlier too. It seems to be about 5.30 or 5.40. I'm not sure whether she she is just needing less sleep and whether I should either be cutting her nap down (which isn't that long anyway) or putting her to bed later at 7.30/8pm? She is consistently only having 10.5 hrs sleep at night. Maybe this is just how much she needs now.

Is it possible for sleep needs to drop quickly like this? She dosen't seem overly tired in the day or anything. I'm just finding 5.30 so hard and being pregnant is not making it easy.