WWYD - nap or early night?

[BertieBotts]

For the last few weeks, DS (19mo) has not been having his usual sleep at 11am ish. Nothing I tried was getting him to sleep! That was his only sleep of the day, so he is now getting tired at about 3pm and usually falling asleep around then. The problem with this is that by the time he wakes up, he then doesn't want to go to bed until 10 or 11pm.

I have tried waking him up after about an hour and he is very groggy for ages, it's hard to wake him (I have to move room or take him outside and then keep moving him from place to place to stop him dropping off again) and after all that it doesn't make any difference, he still stays up until 10-11 at night! The only time that he can sleep and it won't affect his bedtime is if he falls asleep e.g. in the car and I wake him up as soon as we get to where we are going. I don't drive though so it's only occasionally that he travels in a car.

So I have two choices really, try and keep him awake all day (then he goes to sleep beautifully easily at 6) or let him sleep and put up with the late bedtime.

Unless anyone has any other suggestions? I don't want to do controlled crying.

Will he not sleep after lunch ie 1230/1ish - 3ish?

No way would I have a child of 19 months up until 10pm. I presume you've tried moving the nap back by half an hour each day to try to get him down at 12.30/1pm rather than 11 (no wonder he is not tired yet) or 3 (obviously too late for him to go down at a reasonable time).

Also how about moving his bedtime back to 6.30 rather than 6? 6 is quite early.

Yes I have tried getting him to nap around lunchtime, it doesn't work, he occasionally falls asleep at 2ish but again he is then up until 11 even if I wake him up.

I haven't tried moving it by half a hour each day but he is very difficult to get to sleep if he is not tired, I end up spending hours trying to get him to nap and by the time he falls asleep it's even later.

When he had a nap at 11 he used to go to sleep at 7pm but it's when he doesn't nap that he goes to bed at 6, because he really is exhausted by this point (but any earlier, and he just wakes up around 8ish!)

LadyintheRadiator, I thought it was a phase but it's been about 5 or 6 weeks now!

There's no point in trying to get him to sleep if he's not tired.

How about putting him down for a rests (not a sleep) after his lunch?

I do this with DD (2)- she has her lunch then we go upstairs, wash the hands, brush the teeth, change the nappy, have ONE story, I put on her tape and she stays in her cot "reading" her books and playing with her teddies for 30-45 minutes.

Some days she is tired enough to go to sleep and she does, most days she just has a little rest, but she is quite refreshed afterwards. It might help him get through until the evening without being a basket case.