How long do your DC take to fall asleep

[amy1313]

Just that really. My DD is great at self settling, I put her down awake and leave her to it, but I can see on the monitor that she's rolling around, sitting up, pulling up to kneeling, lying back down again, etc, for ages. She occasionally bables but if I didn't have the monitor I wouldn't really know she's awake most of the time. Yesterday she took an hour and a half to go to sleep. She was never very quick, but was more around 20-30 minutes usually, nowadays seems over an hour most days. Just wondering if this is normal or am I putting her down too early? She does seem tired on an evening. Normally she's in bed around 7 with the aim of asleep by 7:30 but lately it's 8-8:30 when she's falling asleep. She's 15 months.

It might be to do with the time she wakes up from her nap and how soon bedtime is after that. I recently had to shorten my DS nap to make sure he is awake by 2:15 in order to then be tired enough to sleep at 7:30. Ish.
It's great she's not distressed and calling for you, just settling herself.

I've got a 19mo and I'm envious of you being able to leave the room and leave her to it:) I'd LOVE that! So it sounds like you're doing a great job.

Here, I give milk at 7, story at about 7:15, then I say night night and sit next on the floor with my back facing the cot while DC shuffles around babbling, looking at the book, playing with blanket... it's now 8:15 and I'm just now only about to leave now that I can hear snoring.

Don't worry too much, it sounds like your DD is happy and feels secure.

Tonight, with my 2 and a half year old, a million years!

Is she on two naps ?

I’ve got a 15mo DS and we’ve been struggling with bed time for the last couple of weeks. He’s always been a good self settler and hums / babbles himself to sleep (unless teething or poorly). On a good day we can leave him in his bedroom to amuse himself until he falls asleep
but most of the time either myself or DH are in the room as he is in a single bed and likes to look over the sides. However, since the clocks changed it’s been a different story. We’ve gone from 15-20 minutes to over an hour on our worst night. I can’t adjust his nap times as he falls asleep in the car as I’m driving home so I’ve adjusted his bedtime from 7:30pm to 8pm. This seems to have worked 🤞🏻

My DS goes to sleep within a few minutes of going in his cot - usually before I get downstairs again (also self settles).

You could try putting her to bed a bit later but if she’s happy babbling and rolling around then there doesn’t seem to be a problem - maybe she just needs the time to unwind from the day before falling asleep.

Thanks for the replies. Today she had a much earlier nap than usual, 10:30 to 12:15 and she fell asleep quicker tonight so maybe it is to do with the wake window between her nap and bedtime. She is on one nap most days, roughly 12:30/1pm to 2:30/3pm, although this varies quite a lot when she's at nursery, she's not very consistent with her naps when she's there.
Yes I know I'm lucky she doesn't cry out and is just happy falling asleep herself even if it takes a long time. I am just a bit worried she's not getting enough sleep because she's often awake around 5:30am.

She’s having quite a long nap though, so maybe she doesn’t need as much night time sleep as you’d expect.

5.30 wake up isn’t ideal though! If I were you I’d try a later bedtime. You have to do it for about a week though before expecting a change, it’s like jet lag, you have to get used to it.

Yes might try to gradually move her to a later bedtime and see if that helps with the early waking.

At 15 months the ideal is 12.30-2.30 nap (wake at 2.30) then 7pm bedtime

Thanks @LapinR0se . The trouble is we can't to get into a consistent nap routine because I'm at work and DD is at nursery or with her grandma, so I only have control over her naps on the weekend. Nursery do naptime at 1pm so DD often ends up with a late nap when she's there. Grandma likes to do stuff in the morning so often only puts DD down quite late despite best efforts, or she goes out and DD falls asleep in the pram in the morning so she ends up with a short second nap quite late in the day...

soon as their heads hit the pillow

You can be consistent with wake windows even if the time of the naps change. I'd be aiming for about 4.5 hours between waking up from her long nap and bedtime. If she has a short later afternoon nap I'd push bedtime back a lot.

It takes my eldest about an hour of one us lying with her to fall asleep. Longer if we're putting her to bed too early.

My 3 year old used to be able to fall asleep by herself at that age. Now we need to lie with her until she falls asleep groan

I cuddle my 5 year old to sleep and it usually takes her 5 minutes (after loads of books 😬) . I know a lot of people are against that but it is the most effective way for us!

My 21 month year old has NEVER been one to like spending time in her cot. As soon as she's awake she'll be crying to get out (there's the odd occasion she'll sit up and sit quietly or babble for 5 mins max) and we've never been able to put her down completely awake in her cot.

We are still rocking her until she's a bit drowsy and then putting her down and rubbing her back until she's pretty much asleep. The whole process usually takes 5-10 mins max unless she's napped too late so it's not a big deal, but I'm aware we've been doing the same thing since she was a baby and probably need to change it up a bit.