Sleep issues and tantrums 19m old

[Kittiewhite89]

Hi

I'm having 2 issues with my 19 month old daughter.

Her routine is as follows:
8:30 - 9am - wake up
9:15 ish - breakfast
11am - snack
1am - lunch
2pm - 4pm - nap (put her down at 1:45ish)
Snack when she wakes from nap
6pm - dinner
8pm - milk
8:30pm - bed

The first issue is with her afternoon nap. For the past 2 weeks she has had an almighty tantrum after every single nap without fail, and she literally screams at me for 40 minutes. I can't stop the tantrum with food, distraction, cuddles, ignoring her etc, nothing works it just has to run its course. It's much worse than her "I want my own way" standard tantrum.
This happens if I wake her or if she wakes herself. She has between 1:30 and 2 hours of sleep each nap and to be fair she goes down for the nap fine most of the time.

The second problem is her bedtime. I put her down after our usual routine (which hasn't changed) of quiet playtime, brushing teeth, pyjamas on in her low lit bedroom with a light and sound projector on and put her to bed.
She takes sometimes almost 2 hours to go to sleep and she just whinges, rolls around the cot, constantly throws her two comfort toys out (which she won't actually sleep without) and cries. I've tried ignoring her, going in and picking her toys up without saying anything, putting her to bed earlier/later and going in and telling her it's bedtime and re-arranging her if that makes sense.

She's always tired After her nap and so whingey lately, I don't know what to do to help her.

Would really appreciate if anyone had any ideas, feeling really down with a constantly tired and angry toddler xx

I would put her nap earlier.

I can't put it any earlier or it will run into her lunch. She literally goes down 15/20 mins after eating

May be of no help but my toddler has virtually the same routine except all an hour earlier I.e. Wakes at 7am, bed at 7pm with all other 'events' the same as yours in between.

Sometimes DS is unbearably grumpy after nap and can also take a couple of hours to settle into sleep, not crying admittedly but very definitely awake and vocal.

Up until around 16 months he was much easier to handle, rarely grumpy and got to sleep more easily and slept better. I'm just (naively?) putting this down to him getting older, needing less sleep at nap time, possibly more food at mealtimes (he is really keen to get back to toys/play with older DS than stay in his high chair and finish his dinner).

I'm trying to cut down his nap time by half an hour or so and encouraging him to eat more at mealtimes. When this is successful, we do get better behaviour. Hard to do every day though as he doesn't always want to play ball. I think starting to change his routine a little in line with the above could be the way to go for us.

You could possibly be right and it's just an age thing! It just seems a bit of a drastic change and it's hard to know what to try. Isla is the same and your son - anything and everything is more important than food, unless it's something I'm snacking on then she just really has to share haha. I might try cutting the nap shorter as you've suggested as I don't really have room to move it around. Good luck, hope it works for you!

Well have lunch earlier ?

Her afternoon nap does seem too late for her to be able to sleep well at bedtime...could you try giving her a bigger snack at 11 that could suffice as lunch, get her down for 11.30-12 and give her until 2.30? Then there is a bigger window in the afternoon to come around and it might reset her body clock a bit?
I have 3 dcs- my youngest is 2- if he sleeps anything past 3.30, he takes forever to go to sleep in the evening so if I know we've missed the window of opportunity (anything past 12.30 for him to go down) then I just keep him going, whatever it takes, then early tea, bath at 6 and in bed for 6.30...he still can muck around in bed settling down til about 7 but he's happy to be in bed.
Perhaps it worth a week of trying to see if it makes a difference to how she behaves when she wakes after her nap?