Two-year-old suddenly wide awake at bedtime, overtired or undertired?

[Sl33pdeprivedmum]

Can someone please help to identify if my son is overtired or undertired?

My son turned 2 at the beginning of the month. For the last few weeks he's gone from going to bed at ~7.20pm and happily getting himself off to sleep before 8pm, to being WIDE awake at bedtime.
He now needs rocking to sleep for 45mins+ (at this point he's happy, just staring at whoever's rocking him). I can tell he must be ready to sleep as his eyes keep trying to close & he's forcing them back open.

A little snapshot of this weeks sleep.
I get him up at 6.30am each day ready for nursery, some days I have to wake him, some days he's already awake.

monday - 1hr nap (1-2pm)
bed - 8.45pm
Up - 6.30am

Tuesday - no nap (surprisingly not that grumpy considering!)
bed - ~7.30pm
Up - 6.30am

Wednesday- 1hr nap
bed - 8.30pm
Up - 6.30am

Thursday- 45min nap
bed - 9.15pm
Up - 6.30am

friday- 45min nap
bed - 8.40pm
awake - ~2pm, from then would wake super easily & would only sleep on me (only upset if I tried to put him down, otherwise happy).
Up - 6am

Bed time routine is pretty consistent each day (dinner, play, maybe a bath, books & milk then bed). I've tried to add more energy burning play in this week, but it's clearly not helped 😂 & he spends the majority of the day outside both at nursery and at home.

It could be his bedtime routine, is it the same every day?

Drop the nap and bring bedtime forward if needed. Sounds like they are happy enough so not likely to be overtired.

@Pugglywuggly this was my thinking 😭. My almost 4 year old only dropped his nap last week, it seems so young for my second to drop his 😂

My eldest was still having 2.5 hour long naps and asleep by 7pm at 3.5yo. My youngest was done and dusted with naps at 17 months. I actually cried.

@Pugglywuggly must be a second child thing 😂. he's always been low sleep needs - I should have known.
Did you go cold turkey with the naps, or cut them shorter over a couple of weeks?

Remember human sleep patterns change as the days lengthen.

My 2 year old dropped her nap on the first day of covid lockdown. I was heartbroken 😂 it sounds like your little one doesn’t need a nap anymore as 9pm for a bedtime is super late.
My 2 year old did start wanting more contact at bedtime at the age too, so I’d get into bed with her for her story and sing to her until she fell asleep. Her favourites were Silent Night and Wheels on the Bus 😂

What time is his naps? My 2 year old became like this, I thought maybe she needed to drop her nap but that made it worse, instead I moved the nap forward, so now she wakes at 6-6:30, nap 10:30-11:30 and then bed 7. Bedtime any later she gets overtired, naps later in the day and she won’t go to bed at 7 and then wakes all night

@incognito1991 he naps ~1-2pm. I can't change that though as he's at nursery & that's what works for them around lunch etc. (I think they do start trying to get him to sleep at about 12.30)

No, we just went cold turkey. For my oldest that meant a 5.30pm bedtime (ridiculous I know, we called him the sloth boy 😂) but for my youngest we only brought it forwards about twenty mins and she was fine.

Yeah my 2.5 yo has dropped their nap. Bedtime was 9pm if she napped. Awful

I’d cut the nap. Mine is 18 months and we’ve been capping the nap for a few months with a plan to shorten and stop it soon. Annoying but I’d rather have a long night out of her!