26 months fighting bedtime, how long is your DC nap??

[Sandrine1982]

Hi folks. I used to be addicted to this section, the whole first year of my DD's sleep was horrendous and almost broke me. I know all the theories and I've read everything.
But since then she started sleeping through and we've had a much better time. There have been ups and downs of course... and We're going through a rough patch again.

She is a very energetic child and she never needed more than 11.5 hours sleep in 24 hours. Whatever we do, that's her amount.

Since the 4th month sleep regression we worked hard to teach her to self sooth (gently) and sleep on her own. She's been wonderful. But now at age 2, her new independence is killing us. She talks so much, she comes out of her bed at least 6 times .. we put her to bed at 8 ... she falls asleep at 10pm. We used to just put her in her cot and she would be asleep within 15 minutes. I know this is all normal and good ... but is there anything we can do to make our lives easier??

I know we should cut nap time. But oh my god she's so active that as soon as she's asleep for her nap, I'm in bed too (knackered 40 year old mama!!!) and sometimes I just can't bring myself to wake her. We never do longer than 2h nap tho. But

Sorry hit sent too early. So to cut long story short..., what do we do? Is this a phase? Will she go back to going to bed easily? Or not? Is this it? Do we have to drop a nap?

I'm afraid short naps are not good. She needs at least 2x 40min cycles otherwise she wakes up an arsehole . In that case maybe no nap would be a better idea, but I don't think she would survive past 4pm...

Dc4 is 2.5 and doesn’t nap. I may let him doze for 10 minutes on the drive home from somewhere but that’s it. He goes to bed at 7-7.30pm and after a story climbs into bed and falls asleep. Doesn’t sleep through though, is a little restless but think it’s growing pains, his brother was exactly the same.

At that age my dtwins were still napping considerably, 2.5/3 hours each afternoon.

Thanks. We don't drive much and I worry if we drop the nap she would fall asleep around 4pm, which is not good.

Current routine is:

6:30 wake up
9 nursery
12:30 nap
2.30 wake up
20:30 bedtime

At that age mine didn’t nap, I replaced the nap with a tv break under a blanket in the sofa. That gave me a break in my day too and meant they had some quiet time. This meant they were tired enough to fall asleep fairly easily with a 7pm bedtime so was worth the trade off.
Yes they would sometimes snatch a 10 minute sleep in the car but not enough to effect bedtime.

Can you reduce the nap? None of mine napped after 12-18 months so sounds like the nap needs to reduce or go. (In my opinion)
Dc4 took a few weeks to adjust to dropping his nap, was very grumpy and the witching hour at 4pm wasn’t fun. I moved bedtime to about 6.30 for those few weeks when he didn’t have a power nap in the car.

He is a little monster when he wakes up from those. He dropped it reliably at about 18 months.

With mine I never had a set bedtime. If you want to keep the nap just leave her up later at night.

My twins are almost exactly the same age as your little one. Girl twin still naps most days but we have reduced the length of this nap to improve bedtime. Boy twin is a bit more hit and miss with his nap, and bedtime is definitely easier on the days he does nap. What we have noticed is that they seem to balance their sleep over a few days - boy twin in particular might go two days without a nap and then will nap on day 3. Could you try every other day nap and see how that works?

Thanks all :)

My DD is nearly 3. She still needs a nap in the day but if she has more than 45-60 mins then nights are rubbish! Maybe try shortening the nap rather than cutting?

My eldest napped til 3 but youngest dropped at 2.5. I'd definitely be reducing and topping up with TV time.

My DS is 28 months and still has at least 2 hours in the afternoon. He needs his nap and TV will not keep him up, he'll just go to sleep on the sofa if I did that.

Just try and push bedtime back a bit.