Toddler suddenly taking ages to fall asleep at night

[MayMi]

Hi,

For some unknown reason, recently my 19 month old DD is taking absolutely ages to fall asleep at night. Literally at least an hour each night, at worst she once took 2.5 hours to fall asleep. This doesn't seem to be affected by her nap during the day, but she did recently change from wanting a morning nap to an afternoon nap. I don't let her nap beyond 4pm though.

She is definitely tired and isn't playing, but she'll just roll around endlessly. We've had a bedtime routine since she was a newborn that's always worked well (bath then bed, with a bedtime song). I've tried cuddling her, playing sleepy music, patting her etc but nothing seems to work and I don't know what else to try.

I'm not sure if it's just a sleep regression related to her current development - learning to climb, improve balance, more words etc.

Please let me know what you think may work.

Just to note, we are co-sleeping as we cannot buy a cot for her that's appropriate for her age group in the country where we live. If I get up and leave her in the bed, she's likely to just follow me out.

Last nap likely too late/ need to implement a change for a while to see the effects- I’d say awake by 2pm latest

I don't think taking an hour to go to sleep is very long, I've always taken ages. When I was a child and put to bed early I was often still awake when I heard parents coming up after 11pm. Basically I did not need to go to bed so early. I imagine that is the same for your child, op.

Keep her up with you a bit longer after you've bathed and put into pjs. She can sit on the floor and play with toys or cuddle up to you until she naturally falls asleep, at which time you can take her up and put her to bed. I did that with mine (who also co-slept), and it worked well. It was pleasant and cosy too.

Same thing happened with my 17 month old recently.
We have moved bedtime back a bit and it seems to have worked.
She just didn't seem tired at her old bedtime anymore and she was rolling around all over the shop.
Now she (mostly) moved a bit to find a comfy spot but falls asleep pretty quickly.

4pm seems too late for a nap, I'd make it 12-2pm and see if that helps.

It depends what time your putting her to bed and I’d probably say Co sleeping is making it slightly difficult my 18 month old has dinner a little play 1-1 time then a bath and then 20/30 minutes more with daddy then bed between 7-8pm. Her 1 nap does need to end around 2:30/3 though for this to work xxp

4pm is likely to late to wake up from her nap
She may seem tired but probably not enough to sleep

Mine is only a couple of months older and I have to cap her nap at 13.30, otherwise she takes ages to get to sleep at night. She only gets a max off 75 minutes too.

How recently has she started to do this? Both of mine have been doing it for the last week or so, but it's because their bedrooms are suddenly too warm.

Where we live we've had colds nights for so long that there's been no gradually getting to used to warmer weather, the temperature has increased very suddenly.

Put them in bed last night with no pyjamas, and only a really thin sheet and they were both asleep within minutes.