22 month old taking ages to get to sleep at night - reduce naptime?

[Asleeponasunbeam]

A few months after finally having two children who sleep well at night, DS is finding bedtime difficult again. He takes up to an hour to settle in his cot.

Bedtime is 7pm or a bit earlier. They have to be up at 7 at the latest, but he's often awake at 6 or 6.30.

He has one daytime nap and if we get him into his cot (rather than being in the car) it's up to two hours. Should we be reducing this to 1 hour?

Later bedtime isn't really an option, due to the early mornings (and my need for child-free evenings for teaching work!) Thanks.

At that age, we reduced my daughters nap to 1 hour and made sure she was up by 1pm (so napped from 12-1pm). She always needed 6 hours to tire herself out before bedtime. Anyway, it worked for us, so maybe an option. Good luck

At 26 mths I stopped the nap altogether, because otherwise dd was awake till all hours.

What is his bedtime like, do you have to stay with him?

DD went through a phase at a similar age where we would put her down at seven and at ten to eight she would still be chattering to herself in her cot. However she was perfectly happy to lie there alone til she drifted off.

Now, six months later, she goes down at seven and falls asleep immediatley plus has 2.5hr naps.

They go through so many phases!

I hope this is just a phase with mine too. She takes over 30mins to get to sleep, kicking her cot. Shes 23m its only been a few weeks like this

He doesn't need anyone with him, but calls us if his mischief has caused him problems - like throwing his favourite toy out of his cot or something.

His nanny only let him have an hour long today and we went swimming before tea. He's still wide awake and chatting away. The nap was a bit late though - 1-2pm, so we'll try for 12-1 tomorrow.

I had enjoyed my brief period of (almost) predictable daytime naps though!