3 yr old - sleep dilemma

[blossom2]

D is 3 years now. She generally wakes around 7.30-8.00am. Here's the dilemma:

1. if she has no daytime nap - she falls asleep around 6.00pm exhausted but then wakes up 2 hours later and can't get herself to sleep for another 2 hours. we quite stricit and she is not allowed downstairs but can look at books in her room.
2. if she has a daytime nap, it can be up to 2 hours and then its a nightmare to get her to sleep at 7.00pm. its an evening of up & down the stairs until 10.00pm sometimes.
3. if i wake her up early from her daytime nap, she is a nightmare for 1.5 hours (screaming, kicking and generally really miserable), but does go down at 7.30pm fine.

So how do i solve this - which option would you pick??!?!? its doing my head in honesty.

I would personally try for NO daytime nap and see if you can gradually extend bedtime by 10 mins each night to get it to 7pm???
Is there anything that wakes her after two hours??? If you could break that pattern of waking again you would be home and dry.

my 2.5 yr old dd is exactly the same! we solved the prob by only letting her have a 1 hr nap. my dd is grumpy too when she wakes, but i just let her lie on the couch, dont disturb her or talk to her, give her a drink and put the telly on, she just lies quietly watching telly for half an hr, then when she decides to get her crayons out or something, she will say so.

therefore, i get her out of bed, she is tired and grumpy, i just let her come to on her own lying on the couch for a bit

hth

best of luck!

I like your idea nailpolish!! Tried to put it into action today and she refused to sleep. she woke up at 7.30am and had lunch aroud 12.00pm then i tried to get her to have a nap at 12.30pm since she has nursery at 1.30pm. She did NOT nap and fell asleep on the sofa without dinner tonight!!!! I should have woke her up but i'm so exhausted myself that i just can't be botered. I know she's going to wake up in a couple of hours but DH will be home then .....

but this is a 1-off i think - i'm so tired ....

I had this when my dd was 2.5. It is hard but now she is 2 3/4 she is managing to get to bed at night time without her daytime nap. It's just not worth the hassle letting her sleep in the daytime for the agro it causes getting her to sleep in the evening. I make sure she eats at 5pm (so she isn't too tired to eat, also the food perks her energy levels up a bit to make it to bedtime) then she can relax a bit before her bath at 6pm and she is in bed for 6.30pm. Without her daytime nap she usually adds that onto her night time sleep and sleeps till 8am ish (bit either way) Hopefully your daughter will be able to manage this soon.

The other thing I don't make a big deal of at the moment, is too much excersise. I find it harder to get through the day if she is too tired. So if she walks anywhere I don't let her overdo it. When she is a bit older in the summer I will get her out and about a bit more, but we tend to have 1/2 a day in and 1/2 a day at a friends or doing something. I suppose some of your problem could be that she is over stimulated from nursery and is tired because of that. Good luck!!