taking a long time to fall asleep at night

[slightlyconfused85]

My dd is 19.5 months. 4 or 5 nights out of 7 she is going to bed at 7pm as she is tired and grumpy by then. She is then taking sometimes up to an hour to fall asleep. Sometimes we go in and remind her to go to sleep and she says yes, waves goodbye and then carries on nattering.
She is a fairly early riser and she still wakes up early even if she drops off late, so I'm keen for her to be asleep closer to 7.

She only naps 1,5 hours in the day (I often wake her) and is up by 2.30pm roughly so I don't think she's getting too much sleep for her age in the day. I'm wondering if it is time to cut her nap further, or try and push it earlier in the day? If I wake her up mid sleep cycle she is inconsolably grumpy for hours afterwards so I fear this option but interested to hear if it worked for anyone else?

Can you move the nap earlier? My DD had to be up by 1.30 in order to be ready for bed at 7pm. Plus at that age she only needed 1 hour nap. We also used acupressure and baby massage to get DD into really snoozy state ready to drop off easily. Otherwise she'd take up to 2 hours to fall asleep - after we used these techniques it only took a few minutes for her to fall asleep - anyway, may be worth a go -here's what you do -mydaughterwontsleep.com/2013/12/27/the-sleep-inducing-power-of-acupressure/ good luck!

Thanks Caroline. I had her up by 2pm today, she was definitely tired usual time but is still awake being noisy now. I find it really stressful tbh will try the acupressure and having her up by 1.30. I wonder if it is the lighter evenings but her curtains are pretty dark...even tempted to cut her nap altogether but pretty sure she would end up asleep at 4.

I would cut the nap. Mine started like this and then started waking in the night which was hell. It took me a while to work out I needed to drop his nap because it seemed early but it is right for him. We cut out the nap and he went to bed at six and slept 12 hours. Now, I give him a nap when he needs it, which is roughly every few days.

Popalina thanks. How old was he when you cut it out?

Popalina thanks. How old was he when you cut it out?

DS has gone through phases of this... He's now 2 and 2 months... He still has a nap most days (if he doesn't he settles immediately but we then have a disturbed night as he is overtired) he has a leak proof cup of of water that he takes to bed with him and other than that I just leave him to it. I also find it very stressful, but if he's not crying, then I've learnt just to leave him be!

He was about 22 months and i really didn't believe it would work and you read about kids not dropping naps until much later but I was 8 months pregnant, exhausted and panicking about being up with toddler and newborn.

On a no nap day he goes to sleep at 6.15 and sleeps until 5.45 or 6.15. On a nap day, I give him an hour and he is awake by 1pm, he goes to sleep about 7/7.30 or even 8pm and sleeps 11 hours.

He fell asleep in the buggy today at 2 pm...I was busy so he had 45 mins kip and didn't settle until 8.30pm.

I give him a nap when he seems to need one, ie, he gets excessively whiny or rubs his eyes a lot. It seems to be every few days. He would sleep every day given the choice but have a late bedtime and probably start waking at night again after a while!

It has been hard to come to terms with it, especially as all of his 'friends' nap, but they also go to nursery so are exhausted from that or have loads of days out. We have what I would call a medium paced lifestyle, not too exhausting but not sitting down all day either. Not sure if that makes a difference. When he starts preschool I reckon he will need naps more often.

Hope that helps!

My dd dropped get daytime nap at 20mo :o she still naps sometimes in the car but most days she doesn't nap

Err , that was supposed to be a shocked face, not a massive grin!I certainly wasn't grinning when she dropped the nap!!

I have been trying a few different things with DD but she has still been taking up to an hour to fall asleep and then getting OT and waking up even earlier than normal... Yesterday I bit the bullet and had her up after 1 hour of napping and was up by 1.45. She then went to sleep within 5 minutes just before 7 and slept until 6.45. I have tried the same again today so fingers crossed. I hate losing nap time but if it's going to work then I'll have to persist...

I think some children need time to decompress before they fall asleep. My DD (19 months) is certainly like that. Her bedtime is 7pm and she sometimes chatters for an hour before falling asleep. I was a little worried about it, so did some reading and found this (having read a lot of this ladies blog since having DD - the relevant section here is at the bottom of the page). I did as she suggests and tried moving bedtime to 8pm temporarily and DD still chattered for an hour! So I guess she just needs some time to unwind in bed. We have a very soothing evening routine of bath, books and milk which we've done for months and most nights we pop her in bed and she looks ready to drop off, but starts chattering after about 5 minutes of quiet.

I would be hesitant about dropping her nap too. It never occured to me to do this with DD as I know she would be a disaster without a nap, she has only just dropped her morning nap. Recently we went on a little holiday and it happened that DD didn't nap due to her being rather nosey various activities and we didn't manage to get her to bed until 9:30pm... and she chattered until 10:30pm! She'd been up for 14.5 hours! So I now no longer feel any guilt or anxiety about the chattering!

If she's happy and does eventually fall asleep OK is it really a problem?

Just to add we use blackout curtains + blackout blinds underneath ( why don't blackout curtains actually black out on their own???) This stops DD waking earlier than about 7:30am, she often usually sleeps until 8:30/9 am!

Hi yellow, dd is a real chatterer and I wouldn't mind but to be honest she wakes up early whatever I do, including black out etc so it would be better for her sleep total if she was asleep closer to 7. She has never woken at 7.30 in her life

Sorry, I re read you op after I posted and realised you had said she wakes super early if she goes to sleep later

Hope you get it sorted.