Sleep refuser

[bookishbooky]

Please please help! DS 13m is just a sleep refuser. He started nursery a month ago and his sleep has just got worse and worse. Used to do half an hour nap in the , around an hour in the afternoon and 7pm until 5:30am at night.
Now he does max 20 minutes if anything in the morning and max an hour at lunch, and at night 7:30pm until 5am latest. It's awful - he's so tired, and nothing I can do can get him to sleep more - at night time he takes at least half an hour (still put to bed at 7pm) to get to sleep - whether that's leaving him to shout, shhhing him, patting him. And in the morning he won't go back to sleep at all - he just wants to play.

For nap time - if I put him in the cot and leave he screams but if I go back in he wants to p,at, and if I leave him more than a few minutes he alternates between screaming and playing in the cot! I just can't get him to sleep at all. Please please help.

How do nursery get him to sleep and what times are these naps?

If he's sleeping less during the day, get him in bed earlier in the evening, might be overtired.

Starting nursery is a big change - I'm sure things will settle down in time.

DD1 started nursery at a similar age and dropped to one nap then, largely as that was the nursery routine for most children (though they did try to put her down to sleep in the morning).

Maybe there are too many distractions at nursery for a morning nap? I expect he'll fall into a routine of having one longer nap after lunch. To be fair 10 hours of sleep overnight is a decent chunk and many children wake at 5am and want to start the day even if they could probably do with another hour or so. I used to go in and lie down next to the cot and tell DD1 it was still sleepy time and offer to stay with her while she slept some more. Sometimes it worked, others it didn't and I just got up and started the day. With time she started to sleep until 6-6:30, although she wakes naturally at 5 but now tends to go back to sleep,