Desperate for help!!!

[NavyBerry]

Please someone help me. My DD wont' sleep. Smth is seriously wrong with her bedtime routine and I don't know what to do.
So she is almost 4yo sometimes goes to nursery sometimes not.
When not she wakes up at 8 am, at about 2 pm after lunch I try to get her to nap. Can take over an hour for her to fall asleep and when she wakes up at 5-5:30pm she is rested but won't go to sleep until 10-11pm. Imagine!
When she is at nursery, she wakes up at 7am, the official nap starts at 1pm (for 2h) but she won't fall asleep until it is already time for them to wake up (3 pm). So when she is picked up at 6 pm she is tired but hyperactive and again won't fall asleep until 10 pm. So altogether this set up is even worse.
We are not in England. I envy every mum that manages to send her children to bed at 7pm. Gosh! How do I do that??? What is the secret?

We don't have gadgets, no tv, active walks twice a day. No sugar before bedtime. Still to no avail.

Why is she still having a nap? She surely doesn't need that at all

Just stop the naps, I would, give her a gro-clock and tell her not to get out of bed until the right time in the morning

Here in the UK i don’t think we would expect an almost 4 year old to nap at all. So general advice would be to drop the nap.

And then to have a consistent wind down routine that happens every night. I have a baby gate on DS’s door (younger though, almost 3) and after 3, always 3, books, I close it and that’s that. Tbf I don’t know once they are too old for a baby gate though!

Your child does not need a nap at that age. Drop the nap they will then be asleep by 7/7:30 every night.,

You also need to tell the nursery your child no longer needs a nap and it's interfering with their sleep. Most children stop napping before or just after turning 3

Ok I see, so we might be quite different. Here at the nursery the sleep is compulsory, so children nap until they are 6 (they start school at 7). For her not to sleep there I will need to pick her up after lunch at 12:30. A bit tricky.
Could you please give me a sample of your child's routine at this age? My DD is 3y8m.

@NavyBerry

Ok I see, so we might be quite different. Here at the nursery the sleep is compulsory, so children nap until they are 6 (they start school at 7). For her not to sleep there I will need to pick her up after lunch at 12:30. A bit tricky. Could you please give me a sample of your child's routine at this age? My DD is 3y8m.

sleep cannot be made compulsory!

Let them have their quiet time at nursery - I have lived in countries where this happened, although few of the children at this age actually went to sleep, they just rested.

And cut out the nap at home

At what age do children usually drop their naps?

I feel I'm missing smth. E.g. in September she is due to start her gymnastics classes. They will start at 6pm twice a week for an hour. If she doesn't sleep it is too late for her. But at the same she won't nap. How to make it work?

Mine dropped naps at 18 months

@NavyBerry

Ok I see, so we might be quite different. Here at the nursery the sleep is compulsory, so children nap until they are 6 (they start school at 7). For her not to sleep there I will need to pick her up after lunch at 12:30. A bit tricky. Could you please give me a sample of your child's routine at this age? My DD is 3y8m.

I'm sure most people's routines won't include a nap at that age, so I'm not sure what value anybody else's routine will be to you, it's almost guaranteed to be the reason why her sleep is the way it is.

Can't get my head around sleep being compulsory until aged 6....

Yes, stop the naps.
Our nursery played ‘sleeping lions’ in the afternoon, for some quiet time. There were no compulsory naps though.

Mine stopped napping at 2.5 years old.

Oh and does early bedtime work during summer with very late sunsets? Don't your children protest? What time would be appropriate for a 4yo to go to bed? 8 too late?

My daughter dropped her nap around 2 and a half. A four year old doesn't need a nap. That's crazy. At 4 I would do bed time around 730 or 8.

Which country are you in @NavyBerry?

Your DD will likely nap better at nursery if she doesn't have them at home.

She likely needs 12 hours sleep per day so 8-8 will be perfect or 10-8 if she had a nap at nursery.

Your DD does not need a nap in the day. She needs a very regular routine. My DD at 4 was in bed at 6 and woke at 8 the next day.

My son is nearly 4 and he hasn't napped for a while now. He goes to bed at 7:30pm and he doesn't wake until 6:30am - 7am. I've never negotiated bedtime with him though, he's in bed at 7:30pm. I check on him and sometimes he's looking at books in his bed or toys at 8pm but he's in bed.

@LapinR0se we are in Russia atm. Such routine at nursery is a normal set up for pretty much any post-soviet country. School is started at the age of 7 and if a child goes to nursery they are expected to sleep from 1pm till 3 pm. All would be good but it leaves me with bedtime battles every day...

She is in bed now (8 pm), no nap today. Just finishing reading a book... Wish me luck! I see she is ready to jump out and practise her gymnastics...

How would you feel about waking her at 6 or 7am instead of letting her sleep until 8am.

You need to think through what you prefer, her getting up early or staying up late. On the days she has naps she won't need to sleep until 10pm

My daughter is a similar age. We start the bedtime routine at 7pm and she is usually in bed by 7.30pm. Sometimes she falls asleep quickly, other times she chats and plays in her bed until later. Usually she wakes at 7.30am, but currently she is sleeping until 8.15am. Great on the weekends but tricky when I have to wake her up for nursery. She dropped her nap about 2 and a half years old, and gets no quiet time at nursery. If she does nep in the afternoon she is a nightmare in the evenings and doesn't fall asleep until 10pm.

It’s the same with nurseries here in Switzerland. They “encourage” children to nap until age 5. In the end I had to get a letter from her paediatrician saying that the nap was overly detrimental to her quality of nighttime sleep. They then allowed her to stay up and do quiet activities while the others napped.

My 4 year old wakes up about 7 am, doesn’t nap and goes to bed around 7.30pm. If he napped during the day he wouldn’t sleep till about 10pm. I do give him quiet time in the afternoon for an hour or so. He watches tv and cuddles up.

So it took her an hour to fall asleep. She would complain and be fussy in bed. Let's say I stick to the same bed time every day with no naps. Do I have some hope it will take her less time to fall asleep eventually?

I don't mind waking up earlier. I'd just rather not waste hours getting her to sleep.