Hi all. I know there's a thread going about toddlers and napping, but I hope you don't mind that I started a new one, as this is slightly different and I didn't want to derail. Sorry, this might be long.
I'm just wondering about what to do about dropping naps, and also about nursery's role in this, in a way. For context, my 2.4 year old has always been a dreadful sleeper. She just doesn't seem to need the same amount of sleep as other children - she is a machine. Anyway, very occasional sleeping through the night recently has coincided with her dropping her naps, or really, really reducing them - no more than 30-40 minutes, or nothing, and she goes to sleep happily by 7.45pm and often (not always) sleeps till 6.30am.
This only happens at weekends however. During the week at nursery, they are all put down for a nap at noon until 2. Even if they don't sleep, they have to lie down on a mat and be very quiet, while sleepy lullabies play - unsurprisingly, she drops off every day. I've asked them to reduce her naps to no more than 45 minutes if possible, but no matter how little (or how much) she sleeps there, bedtime is a circus. Usually takes around 2.5 hours, and she needs one of us to be in the room with her until she drops off. They are not willing to keep her awake: in fact, because she has difficulty being quiet during this time and disturbs other happily napping toddlers, they actively help her to drop off by sitting near her and rubbing her back. These nights, even after going to sleep at 9.30/10, she often wakes during the night two or three times, and is up by 6am without fail.
Here's the thing though - it's not that she isn't tired. She is clearly tired - right from the start, her eyes are drooping, she is nodding off. She just fights it so hard: constantly fidgeting, rubbing her hands and feet off the cot bed bars, trying to hold hands but then playing with our fingers etc. So I can't 100% say that she needs to drop her nap. But all I do know is that when she doesn't nap at weekends, she's so tired by bedtime that she cannot fight the sleep.
A lot of this I know is our own fault - she's always been a difficult sleeper, and has always resisted any kind of sleep training (to be fair, we probably didn't try hard enough). So she's always had help to fall asleep - rocking at first, shush-patting, and now hand-holding. If we leave the room she becomes hysterical. Does anyone have any advice as to how to proceed from here? I'm 25 weeks pregnant and finding the thoughts of this with a newborn very stressful.
Her routine is: bath at 7ish, dressed, stories, cuddles, into bed by 7.45 at the latest. We've tried both earlier and later bedtimes, which made no difference to the 2.5 hour bedtime circus. She's in a cot bed, so just gets out and come to the door if we leave her to it.