Toddler sleep…help!

[Danskekat]

My 2.5 year old, who traditionally has been an out like a light at 7.30pm sleeper, can now take a good 1.5 hours to go to sleep. He stays awake chatting and singing and getting in and out of bed before finally falling asleep. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, was it a phase? What did you do to help your toddler return to better sleep? Many thanks in advance for your thoughts.

By way of background, (I) he sleeps in his own room in a bed. He is in bed by 7.30pm, awake at around 6.00am and has a short nap of 1 hour after lunch on a non-nursery day. On a nursery day a nap can be up to 2 hours. He has no problem falling asleep when napping, and (ii) he has dinner at 5.00pm/5.30pk, and a bottle of milk after his bath before bed.

Mine is also 2.5 & wakes about 6am. Goes to bed about 7pm.
He went through a similar phase to yours just before he turned 2. Cutting his nap down really helped. Maybe try max 45 minute nap? Ours dropped his nap completely shortly after turning 2 (completely on his own).
I still try to give him a bit of chill time after lunch just for a bit of rest time - we usually cuddle up on the couch and read some books.

1 hr is a long nap for this age, so if he's sometimes getting 2 hrs then that's your problem. Mine would also happily nap forever and be a right pain at bedtime and is younger than yours.

We've had some no nap days and he's mostly OK but has to go to bed earlier and is quite emotional by bedtime. But then he just sleeps for longer at night. It was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be without a nap.

It’s probably the nap. If he’s going to struggle to drop it completely then I would cap it to 30 minutes.

I agree about the nap. Cap it or switch it to 'quiet time' (reduce light & sedate activity).

Thank you all. Yes, we thought it was probably the nap… Have a great Monday.