Why won't my 22 month old go to sleep earlier

[Learningtodraw]

I'm feeling really frustrated. My boy is 2 mid July and for the last month, maybe longer, he has been refusing to go sleep before 8pm, it's often closer to 9pm. He just doesn't seem tired enough before then.

Wakeup is 7-7.30, sometimes 8.30 on the weekends, although over the next 2 weeks I'm off work so will be getting him up at 7,30am each day and seeing if that makes a difference. He has one nap a day (dropped down to one nap shortly after he turned 1) and it can vary between 30 minutes and 2 hours, and the length or timing of it makes no difference to when he decides to sleep in the evening.

Bedtime routine starts at 7pm and is the same each day. I'd guess that he gets between 10 and 11 hours sleep at night about on average about an hour nap each day.

He's only just starting to talk so can't tell me what the issue is, but I get the impression he just isn't ready to go to sleep much before 8.30pm.

Can anyone tell why this is happening or give me advice about what to do about it. I'm at my wits end and I feel like crying. It's really really hard and me and my partner just want our evenings back.

To add - we moved him from a cot to a bed last week and he's much happier in the bed. If we try and leave him in his room to get on with it he gets really upset but is fine when we are there, although we aren't allowed to lie on the floor and we keep getting books thrust at us to read.

It sounds like he's getting the right amount of sleep overall. NHS has a good table showing how much they should have in total: www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Childrenssleep/Pages/howmuchsleep.aspx

My 19mo old recently moved her bedtime from about 7pm to about 8pm with no prior warning! The upside is she now wakes the next morning between 6:30am and 7am instead of between 5:30am and 6am. On balance I think I prefer losing a bit of my evening and getting the extra hour's sleep in the morning!

Unless you're the sort of parent who moves their child's sleep times (and I've never understood how that works - we've always let ours sleep when she wants. We just know the signs she's tired and when she is tired put her down) I don't know what you can do. Trying to get ours to sleep when she's not ready just gets her (and me!) v frustrated.

I do sympathise with losing your evening though. We've gone through phases of me having to go to bed ten minutes after her every night and it's really annoying!

I thought about moving sleeptimes by starting bedtimes 15 minutes earlier but hes' having none of it. Like you, we've always just put him down when he's tired. He won't let me put him down for a nap so when he's with me he just goes to sleep in the pushchair.

perhaps we should just give up and not bother starting bedtime until 7.30/7.45 and just suck it up until he drops a nap.

My little one is nearly 26 months old he is in a single bed due to being so tall for his age been in a bed for 6 months he loved the bed he sometimes acts up won't lie down until we sit either read one book kiss cuddle straight after bath at 7pm, usually asleep between 8-8.30pm sometimes fights it if overtired and won't sleep until after 9pm, we have got him to fall asleep on his own cuddling teddys can take him more than an hour sometimes, we don't go in as he will just want to play so he has learned once he's in bed it's to go to sleep on his own, took few months but he has got use to it now, up between 7am-7.40am, naps for one hour between 12pm-1.30pm, and washed and in bed for 7-7.30pm every night mostly,my partner can't stay in room too long with him as he just wants to play and won't sleep, kiss and cuddle and walk out, few crying tempers for a week but now he has settled great to sleep

I'd try keeping the nap short and early in the afternoon. It can be from this age that longer/late naps affect sleepiness at bedtime. Dropping my 2 yr old's nap, or keeping it short if he really needs one, dramatically improved his bedtime