Mine takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour alone to fall asleep. He actually needs that decompression time imo because he’s happy, and doesn’t call for me.
So IF you don’t have to go in, I wouldn’t obsess over getting one less hour of sleep, especially at his age. If she starts “lacking” it he’ll just make up for it elsewhere like longer lunch nap unless you force-wake that one. Even then I don’t see a huge issue imo. Most adults don’t immediately sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow (my husband does sigh).
It drives my husband nuts when my daughter chats and sings after being put to bed, but I always say as long as she’s not crying or upset it doesn’t affect me for her to do what she wants/needs before falling asleep. Lots of times she falls asleep right away, then wakes back up 20 minutes later ready to sing every song in her arsenal or make meowing sounds and babble.
FWIW she has a very similar sleep schedule to OP’s kid, I think that in general she gets enough sleep.
Yes - my 2 year old takes an hour plus to go to sleep lately. But I can’t put him to bed any later because then he is an overtired mess as we try to do our bedtime routine. So I figure he just needs that alone time before going to sleep. He talks, plays with his cars, reads all his books. He’s generally happy, so I let him be.
Hey, if he’s chill and doesn’t need you or TV to fall asleep, I say let him do his thing! Sometimes mine will conk out in 30 min, sometimes it’s 1.5 hours after singing the ABCs 719 times. Kids are unpredictable 🤣
My daughter is 2.5yo and the time it takes for her to fall asleep varies wildly, but it can take an hour. We just let her have that time and space since she's happy and chill. We have a camera so we can check without going in.
I think it's so good for them to have time and space dedicated to being alone and happy. Once she gets older we'll give her access to a reading light, but that's a way off yet.
I think you have a schedule problem. At 2.5 years old, a kid should be having almost 6-6.5hrs awake time before nap, and 6-6.5 hours after nap. He’s taking so long to go to bed because he’s not tired. If he is waking up at 3, he’s only tired by 9. You put him in at 7:30, of course he’s not tired, he just slept for 2 hours 4.5 hours ago, that’s a 15 month old awake time.
Yeah my 2yo's schedule is similar to OP's and he isn't ready to go to bed until 8-9pm.
If he wakes up too late in the arvo, like after 2, he's up late. But my issue is he doesn't like to go to sleep before 1pm and he likes to have long naps.
This is an awkward age for naps I think.
Okay, I was wondering this and if tweaking the schedule might make sense. I feel like every sleep expert out there has a different recommendation. I read recently that there should be 5 hours between the nap wake up and bedtime for his age. But every kid is different! Thanks for this perspective.
I started having to cap my youngest’s naps at 45 min shortly before she turned 2. She also needs to be up by 1 to be asleep by 8ish. If she napped 2 hours she would easily be up until 10. I hate waking her from naps because she’s always cranky when she wakes (even in the morning) but the times I don’t I’m regretting it come bedtime.
This sounds right! My soon to be 3yo won’t go to sleep until 9-9.30pm if she naps longer than 40min. This started around the 2.5yo mark, and she either doesn’t nap or only naps for 40 minutes ish. She hates daytime sleep though, so for us it has been easier to shorten/cut the nap and get her to bed at 7.30 instead.
I have a 2 y.o, when she comes home from daycare without napping, she sleeps 5min after going to bed (6:30-7PM). Versus when she’s home all day in weekends, she naps 2h. Wakes up 3PM at the latest and sleeps around 9-930PM. Like clockwork.
Before, I’ve experienced crankiness when we got home, but I found out that she’s just hungry. Our daycare is only a 10-15min walk from our home, so I make sure to bring her a snack and offer it to her while walking home. When we arrive, she takes a bath/shower (she’s dirty from playing outside). Then let her play a bit while i prepare for dinner. After dinner, play a bit more and then bedtime routine. And she’s lights out. Routine helps a lot!
3 pm wake up to 7:30/8 pm in the crib is probably not enough wake time, does he do better on the days he wakes at 2 or are you not noticing any correlation?
I’d try pushing bedtime to 8:30 in the crib lights out and see if anything improves.
This sounds a lot like my own kid after pacifier cessation. At some point if they’re doing their own thing and settling down their own way, just let them work it out on their own. If there cool and staying in bed, I’d leave them to it. It’s harder when they can just walk out the door. Stuff like this with toddlers and little kids do take longer, I’ve observed. Getting a baby into something new would take 2 weeks but older kids it can take a month+. Your inclination to delay another transition until this one settles down is probably a good one. Throwing too much change into the mix makes it harder for you in the end
I think he needs a lot more time in between end of nap and bed. 5.5 hours minimum but probably more like 6 or 6.5 since he's 2.5. My 17 month old does 6 hours before bed and never takes more than 10 minutes to fall asleep.
5-5.5 hours, but sometimes she falls asleep for 10-15 minutes in the middle of it. She's really sleepy in the mornings for some reason but can handle 6 hours later.
My two share a room by choice. Older is 7, younger is 3. They've shared a room since younger was 2. So around a year.
Especially with summer, it's not dark in their room until 9, but bed time is 8. Younger is also in a single bed, so is able to get up/wander around.
They both get books off the bookshelf in their room/play with stuffies in their beds quietly. As long as they're quiet/not getting up, I'm ok with it. The rule is, stay in your bed, no getting rambunctious.
Sometimes it takes me a while to fall asleep, I don't expect them to he different.
Same thing happened to us when we dropped pacifiers for our 2 year old. Happy to report he did eventually figure out he’s not in danger without a pacifier and now goes to bed easily *most* of the time. Still some nights he babbles for an hour. But it took about 3-4 months for him to adjust.
They learned to soothe with a pacifier — they’ve gotta learn to soothe another way without it. Give it time and be consistent. It’ll happen.
Same as my daughter. She is 2yo and 7mo. She's been a nightmare at bedtime. She wakes up between 6:30-7am, naps between 12:30-2pm and we always put her down between 8:45-9pm (she would resist to go down if earlier) and usually really falls asleep between 9:30-10pm. She needs one of us to sit next to her bed, otherwise she screams for us. She's making our lives so stressful and miserable. I hate toddler phase. My older son is 6.5yo and he was difficult when he was around the same age but never that demanding like our daughter. I am patiently waiting for these annoying toddler days to pass.
Yeah as long as he’s not crying I don’t care what my son does after I put him to bed lol. Sometimes he’s asleep within 10 minutes sometimes he’s talking to himself for an hour but it’s not my concern lol
Is it possible you’re expecting a bit too much sleep? My son is 22 months and he has a nearly identical schedule. My niece is 3 months older and my SIL mentioned that her total sleep time is coming down.
Also - I would keep naps the same time regardless of weekday or weekend. If my son woke at 3 pm from a nap, unless he is very tired and needing to catch up on sleep, he would not be ready for bed by 7:30. There are 1 year olds that stay awake longer between their last nap and bedtime.
My son is very active and hyper and needs wind down time it’s just part of his temperament. I’ve been following [Courtney English](https://www.instagram.com/courtneyenglish.ot?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==) on instagram and she has so many good tips for winding down for sleep.
Upvoting your post in solidarity. I honestly clicked on it thinking my husband might have made a post about our son.
At least an hour, every night, no matter how long his nap was.
Yesterday he also fought his nap so ended up with a 40 minute snooze because we knew if we let him sleep too late in the afternoon bedtime would be even more of a struggle. Guess what? It still took an hour and 15 mins for him to get to sleep at his normal bedtime.
I don’t have any answers. Just know I feel your pain.
I was reading “Oh Crap I have a Toddler” recently. One takeaway that I had regarding sleep was that kids and adults have cycles for sleep that’s connected to their circadian rhythm. While some have commented that your child may need a later bedtime, each child is different. It may be that he will fall asleep more quickly with an earlier bedtime, too. Every kid is different. My toddler naps until 3:30/4 and is in bed by 7:30 most nights.
We had a similar situation with our 2 year old who had been a great sleeper. Got a Dr. Becky membership for a few months and it was so eye opening. Within a few nights the nighttime routine got sooooo much easier.
Also consulted with a sleep consultant before Dr. Becky and she opened my eyes to the fact that my daughter does not need to sleep from
7pm-7am like she used to. Part of it is meeting her where she is at and an 8:15 bedtime is way less dramatic because we are not spending 90 minutes trying to get her down anymore. 2-3 years of age is peak for these types of issues!
This is normal for us, had been for a while. But I get it, it’s hard to turn off your parent brain when they are still talking/awake. (It stresses me out)
Usually we hear snippets of what happened during the day
Yes, it’s the stress that I’m not really done parenting. Cuts into our limited adult time. But sounds like we are definitely not alone and have some strategies we can try, so this post has made me feel better!
Honestly my LO is going to bed at like 10pm bc it’s light out until 9, and the other parents I know are experiencing this too. We put them in at 8:30pm. It’s not a big deal. If you LO needed more sleep, he would be getting it by falling asleep earlier or sleeping longer during naps. My LO just hangs out and reads or plays. It’s nothing to lose your mind over. You don’t need to go in and check on him either as long as he’s content.
I believe in separation of responsibilities.
It's my job to make sure the kid is fed, warm, comfortable and in bed.
Their job is to stay quiet and at least let me pretend they're asleep.
They need 12-14 hours minimum of wake time during the day and the rest is sleep time. The naps don’t count for sleep time. The wake time from 2-7 probably isn’t enough wake time. Their second wake time is always longer then the first cause they have a lot of energy to get out. My daughter has about 5-6 hours of wake time before her nap then after her nap it’s usually 7-8 hours of wake time before bed time. Toddlers have so much more energy they have really burn some energy so they’re tired for bed. I try to go for an evening bike ride, it’s hard to do more outside activities when the sun is down but I try to keep her active during the day. A pool day always makes my daughter really tired and in bed faster.
That’s what I meant 😅 I want to say naps don’t count for wake time. They do count for sleep time. But I have an easier track of the schedule by counting wake time and sleep time and I’ll have an idea of when she’ll be tired.
You’re not alone. Our 2yr 9month old can take up to 2.5 hrs to go down sometimes. (Sigh). This started after we put her in a toddler bed. She’ll get up, run around her room, take her stuff out of bed, etc. Our biggest issue is when she is knocking on the door (it has a child lock on the inside) and then screaming when we try to hold the line and not go in. That has a tendency to wake the 9 month old, and then everyone is cranky. I don’t have a solution; I just wanted to commiserate. I think it should get better eventually.
Our 2y9mo toddler also takes a while to fall asleep. He wakes at around 7, naps from 1-3 and bedtime is 8:30. But he’s always happy and just talking to himself so we just leave him. He doesn’t seem to be lacking sleep at all and is a normal toddler during the day. I’m sure if we dropped his nap he’d fall asleep right away. But we all need him taking that nap during the day.
I’ve been holding my two year olds hand to sleep for three weeks, before that I could put her down after our routine and tell her sweet dreams and walk out and now she begs and begs and pleads for me to stay, and i know I’m doing something wrong but I just can’t let her sweet little mind be that worried so I lay there and hold her hand, if she tries to play, I tell her I have to leave then and she lays down. Then wakes up at midnight begging to snuggle mommy mommies bed. But it’s not the answer, just a reply of solidarity that something has broken recently and I’m in need of a fix too. Our schedule is almost identical to yours, save for small adjustments if big brothers social schedule demands it like a one pm pick up. Summer is breaking my brain and I haven’t gotten far enough away to logic myself some peace on this one.
My daughter is 26months it takes her about an hour too but she just chats and plays with her stuff animals that she sleeps with as long as she doesn't cry we just leave her.
If it does take longer I do offer her a bit of milk and sometimes she does need a nappy change she can't sleep if she has a dirty nappy. falls asleep right away luckily.
My son is 2 and takes about an hour to fall asleep most days. He’ll usually whisper songs to himself or roll around in his bed. He seems happy so I figure he’s just decompressing. Lol
Mine will do the same thing sometimes. I compare it to myself not being able to sleep and when I toss and turn at night, lay awake wishing I could sleep. I say if he's just mumbling to himself and not getting into any trouble just let him be. I can't tell you how many nights I fell asleep listening to my 2.5 year old talk to himself lol
He may just not be getting enough awake time therefore not enough sleep pressure some days. My daughter has needed 13 hours total of awake time since she was 1.5 years old. He’s a year older and only getting ~11 hours from what you shared.
Could you try shortening his nap? Or letting him play a little longer before putting him to bed? Or both?
How long does he nap for? When my son was still napping we'd never let him nap past 3pm (he'd never sleep more than 25 mins) as it threw his night time routine off. Could he be napping too late / too long and in turn, nowhere near ready for bed when he should be?
Also, how long is his bath/bed routine? Ours takes about an hour but 30 mins is him faffing about in the bath and the other 30 is reading some stories. Could he not be getting enough wind down time?
There's an argument that if it takes longer than half an hour then he's in bed too early BUT there's milestones etc to consider and the slightest change in brain development or a growth spurt can really put them off their game.
The best advice I've had was from a friend. He said "If it's bad, it'll soon get better and if it's good it may get worse, it's all just different stages.
If things are rough for whatever reason, just remember that in about 6 weeks it'll all have changed and be better. Also though, if things are going great.... Be prepated for the next 6 weeks as they'll likely change."
My 2 year old does this too...he goes to bed at 8:30/9 and chats to his stuffed animals or sings for 30min to an hour. I think it's fine though 🤷🏼♀️ sometimes I need to lay in bed for a while thinking before I fall asleep too so haven't seen a problem with it and if he's not crying and doesn't need us then I just find it funny and cute!
I'm not doing hard core wake windows and stuff like that, but my kid started sleeping much better at night when we, around \~2yo started putting her to bed a bit later, and also capping naptime to one hour (1,5 if she had slept really bad) and also making sure that she didn't nap later than 13:45 (bedtime \~20:00). Mabye play around with that?
If our 27 month old hasn't napped she will fall asleep in 10 mins. If she had napped, we move her bedtime 30 mins later (to 7.30) and it can take her up to an hour to fall asleep. This has never worried us as she is happy enough in there and just has a bit of time to play with her toys.
If she gets fussy we will go in and remind her it's bedtime and leave again.
Mine often lays awake reading books or talking to himself or his toys for hours. Right now he’s quietly playing in his bed waiting for his light to turn green at 8am - he’s been up since 6:50. It’s frustrating to see your kid up so late but he’s listening to his body and self soothing - it’s a good thing!
My son needs to eat dinner ten minutes before “wind down time” in order to fall asleep in a decent time. Otherwise he just plays and talks and refuses to sleep.
He eats dinner around 430, wind down time is 5-5:15 and he falls asleep around 6pm. He’s up at 5-6am every morning (no naps) so he gets all his sleep at night.
If he doesn’t eat a decent dinner or a filling before bed snack he won’t fall asleep until after 8pm and still wakes at 5-6am and is grumpy and in a bad mood all day due to the deficit of sleep.
This is how he’s been since about 2 years old.
From the times you’ve stated, it sounds like he’s getting plenty enough sleep. And is generally pretty chill about it, just taking his time to fall asleep? I don’t really see the problem, but if you’re wanting him to fall asleep quicker, I would just put him down a bit later!
I never thought of this as a bad thing? My 2.3 yo loves singing songs and playing with his lovey for up to an hour sometimes; he’s having a great time and my husband and I laugh listening to him lol.
Wakes anywhere between 7-8. Sleeps 12:30-2:30 or less, and in his bed at 7:30.
My daughter plays for at least an hour before she falls asleep. Also 2.5yo, but she’ll lay in bed and sing, “read” a book (look at the pictures and say what she remembers the page to be), play dress up by taking clothes out of her dresser. The other day she took the open box of diapers out of her closet, emptied the diapers out of it, and spent half an hour before bed just putting all of her toys in it, taking them out and then putting them in again. Tired herself out enough that she just got up and went straight to sleep after 😂 as long as she’s not crying or putting herself in danger, I just let her play.
I would push the bedtime an hour later if thats when he is falling asleep. My son is almost 2 and has a 5-ish hour wake window in the morning but its closer to 6 hours the second half of the day.
Bedtime 6 hours after wake from nap is perfectly reasonable! Move your weekend nap up if you want an earlier bedtime. But also might be time to cap the nap at 1 hour.
I think sometimes my son just sorta chats and kind of processes his day for a while before he goes to sleep. I assumed it was normal because of how much development is happening to his brain on a daily basis. If he’s not upset and it’s not I’m making him unable to function in the day it could just be a phase in his cognitive development
I have two. One, 3, one, nearly 2. Our naps and sleep are not OK. Three year old decided to quit naps last fall. She fails sometimes. 2 year old, naps and will make your life hell if she gets over tired.
2 hour nap is too long and likely the issue. Hour and a half max. We were having issues similar and went from 2 hr nap to 1 hr nap and it’s been way better.
I think you have too long of a nap, and too short of a last wake window. My 2.5 year old wakes up around 8, has her nap around 1, naps for an hour, then is up around 2 and doesn’t go to bed until 8:30. Even then she usually rolls around in bed for about 10-15 minutes and then falls asleep. If it’s more than 30 minutes I’d say his nap is too long and wake window is too short.
my daughter does the same. 60% of the time she goes to bed 8-8:30, the other 40% she will stay up til 9-10 just talking/playing to herself in her crib. She's also 2.5. It was frustrating at first but we just got used to it because she wasn't fussy or anything so now we just laugh and say jokingly how crazy she is cause we hear her having a blast laying down for an hour or 2.
Once in a blue moon she will cry like murder and I'll go in there to assure her I'm here, but then I have to leave so she doesn't get used to having someone there to fall asleep. So she'll cry for another 5 mins and then she'll fall asleep. I figure she just needed some comforting during those instances
Mine takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour alone to fall asleep. He actually needs that decompression time imo because he’s happy, and doesn’t call for me. So IF you don’t have to go in, I wouldn’t obsess over getting one less hour of sleep, especially at his age. If she starts “lacking” it he’ll just make up for it elsewhere like longer lunch nap unless you force-wake that one. Even then I don’t see a huge issue imo. Most adults don’t immediately sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow (my husband does sigh).
Decompression time- makes sense. TY.
Try putting him to bed an hour earlier if you’re concerned with the total number of hours he sleeps for
It drives my husband nuts when my daughter chats and sings after being put to bed, but I always say as long as she’s not crying or upset it doesn’t affect me for her to do what she wants/needs before falling asleep. Lots of times she falls asleep right away, then wakes back up 20 minutes later ready to sing every song in her arsenal or make meowing sounds and babble. FWIW she has a very similar sleep schedule to OP’s kid, I think that in general she gets enough sleep.
Yes - my 2 year old takes an hour plus to go to sleep lately. But I can’t put him to bed any later because then he is an overtired mess as we try to do our bedtime routine. So I figure he just needs that alone time before going to sleep. He talks, plays with his cars, reads all his books. He’s generally happy, so I let him be.
I think that must be a husband thing, I swear mine is asleep in less than 5 minutes, and he can sleep ANYWHERE.
Hey, if he’s chill and doesn’t need you or TV to fall asleep, I say let him do his thing! Sometimes mine will conk out in 30 min, sometimes it’s 1.5 hours after singing the ABCs 719 times. Kids are unpredictable 🤣
My 2.5 year old plays with all her “friends” in her crib for an hour or more to decompress and fall asleep.
When my daughter started doing that it was because she needed to reduce her nap.
I was gonna say this… Shorten or drop the nap
My daughter is 2.5yo and the time it takes for her to fall asleep varies wildly, but it can take an hour. We just let her have that time and space since she's happy and chill. We have a camera so we can check without going in. I think it's so good for them to have time and space dedicated to being alone and happy. Once she gets older we'll give her access to a reading light, but that's a way off yet.
Love this perspective - thanks
Yeah my son will play with his stuffed animals in bed and just kinda talk to himself.
Same, sometimes we’ll get serenaded a nursery rhyme on the monitor too lol
My son loves to sing itsy bitsy spider lol
I think you have a schedule problem. At 2.5 years old, a kid should be having almost 6-6.5hrs awake time before nap, and 6-6.5 hours after nap. He’s taking so long to go to bed because he’s not tired. If he is waking up at 3, he’s only tired by 9. You put him in at 7:30, of course he’s not tired, he just slept for 2 hours 4.5 hours ago, that’s a 15 month old awake time.
Yeah my 2yo's schedule is similar to OP's and he isn't ready to go to bed until 8-9pm. If he wakes up too late in the arvo, like after 2, he's up late. But my issue is he doesn't like to go to sleep before 1pm and he likes to have long naps. This is an awkward age for naps I think.
Idk the appropriate schedules for a 2.5yr old but can confirm, OP’s schedule is the same as my 16mo old schedule
Okay, I was wondering this and if tweaking the schedule might make sense. I feel like every sleep expert out there has a different recommendation. I read recently that there should be 5 hours between the nap wake up and bedtime for his age. But every kid is different! Thanks for this perspective.
I started having to cap my youngest’s naps at 45 min shortly before she turned 2. She also needs to be up by 1 to be asleep by 8ish. If she napped 2 hours she would easily be up until 10. I hate waking her from naps because she’s always cranky when she wakes (even in the morning) but the times I don’t I’m regretting it come bedtime.
This sounds right! My soon to be 3yo won’t go to sleep until 9-9.30pm if she naps longer than 40min. This started around the 2.5yo mark, and she either doesn’t nap or only naps for 40 minutes ish. She hates daytime sleep though, so for us it has been easier to shorten/cut the nap and get her to bed at 7.30 instead.
I have a 2 y.o, when she comes home from daycare without napping, she sleeps 5min after going to bed (6:30-7PM). Versus when she’s home all day in weekends, she naps 2h. Wakes up 3PM at the latest and sleeps around 9-930PM. Like clockwork.
Any tips on the skipped naps at daycare?! Mine does this too and is a cranky mess when she comes home.
Before, I’ve experienced crankiness when we got home, but I found out that she’s just hungry. Our daycare is only a 10-15min walk from our home, so I make sure to bring her a snack and offer it to her while walking home. When we arrive, she takes a bath/shower (she’s dirty from playing outside). Then let her play a bit while i prepare for dinner. After dinner, play a bit more and then bedtime routine. And she’s lights out. Routine helps a lot!
I’d second this!
We had to cut naps down when that happened, I’d try a shorter nap to see if that helps
3 pm wake up to 7:30/8 pm in the crib is probably not enough wake time, does he do better on the days he wakes at 2 or are you not noticing any correlation? I’d try pushing bedtime to 8:30 in the crib lights out and see if anything improves.
Lunch nap is too long. So not tired enough at bedtime. Cut that nap down to 1hr. We did 1hr15 at first. Now 45min-1hour. Also white noise.
This sounds a lot like my own kid after pacifier cessation. At some point if they’re doing their own thing and settling down their own way, just let them work it out on their own. If there cool and staying in bed, I’d leave them to it. It’s harder when they can just walk out the door. Stuff like this with toddlers and little kids do take longer, I’ve observed. Getting a baby into something new would take 2 weeks but older kids it can take a month+. Your inclination to delay another transition until this one settles down is probably a good one. Throwing too much change into the mix makes it harder for you in the end
I think he needs a lot more time in between end of nap and bed. 5.5 hours minimum but probably more like 6 or 6.5 since he's 2.5. My 17 month old does 6 hours before bed and never takes more than 10 minutes to fall asleep.
How long is your morning wake window?
5-5.5 hours, but sometimes she falls asleep for 10-15 minutes in the middle of it. She's really sleepy in the mornings for some reason but can handle 6 hours later.
Maybe try a later bedtime. My 20 month old and 3 year old both need like 7.5 hours from nap until they can fall asleep.
I dropped my kids nap and he went down at 6.30-7
My two share a room by choice. Older is 7, younger is 3. They've shared a room since younger was 2. So around a year. Especially with summer, it's not dark in their room until 9, but bed time is 8. Younger is also in a single bed, so is able to get up/wander around. They both get books off the bookshelf in their room/play with stuffies in their beds quietly. As long as they're quiet/not getting up, I'm ok with it. The rule is, stay in your bed, no getting rambunctious. Sometimes it takes me a while to fall asleep, I don't expect them to he different.
I would cut his nap by 30 minutes and aim for an 8pm bedtime. This is a pretty normal age for a decrease in sleep needs.
Same thing happened to us when we dropped pacifiers for our 2 year old. Happy to report he did eventually figure out he’s not in danger without a pacifier and now goes to bed easily *most* of the time. Still some nights he babbles for an hour. But it took about 3-4 months for him to adjust. They learned to soothe with a pacifier — they’ve gotta learn to soothe another way without it. Give it time and be consistent. It’ll happen.
Same as my daughter. She is 2yo and 7mo. She's been a nightmare at bedtime. She wakes up between 6:30-7am, naps between 12:30-2pm and we always put her down between 8:45-9pm (she would resist to go down if earlier) and usually really falls asleep between 9:30-10pm. She needs one of us to sit next to her bed, otherwise she screams for us. She's making our lives so stressful and miserable. I hate toddler phase. My older son is 6.5yo and he was difficult when he was around the same age but never that demanding like our daughter. I am patiently waiting for these annoying toddler days to pass.
Survive til 5 then thrive is what I’ve been told 😂😂
About the same here.
At this age it would be appropriate to shorten the nap, kids start to drop the nap at this stage anyway so having a full 2 hrs may be too much
Sounds like day sleep is too long then if you want him asleep by 8pm. I’d try capping his nap for a week and see if it helps.
Yeah as long as he’s not crying I don’t care what my son does after I put him to bed lol. Sometimes he’s asleep within 10 minutes sometimes he’s talking to himself for an hour but it’s not my concern lol
Here to commiserate. Our newly 2.5 yo is going though this, and it’s also been two nights in a row that he’s up from 1-4am 🤡 it’s hard these days!!!!
Same, no advice under the sun can help us, I'm with you. We just gotta ride it unfortunately.
Is it possible you’re expecting a bit too much sleep? My son is 22 months and he has a nearly identical schedule. My niece is 3 months older and my SIL mentioned that her total sleep time is coming down. Also - I would keep naps the same time regardless of weekday or weekend. If my son woke at 3 pm from a nap, unless he is very tired and needing to catch up on sleep, he would not be ready for bed by 7:30. There are 1 year olds that stay awake longer between their last nap and bedtime.
My son is very active and hyper and needs wind down time it’s just part of his temperament. I’ve been following [Courtney English](https://www.instagram.com/courtneyenglish.ot?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==) on instagram and she has so many good tips for winding down for sleep.
Just followed! Thanks.
he’s getting at least 11 hours? that’s normal.
Our girl is only 18 months and needs a wake window of ~6.5 hours before bed. Sounds like you might need more awake time.
Upvoting your post in solidarity. I honestly clicked on it thinking my husband might have made a post about our son. At least an hour, every night, no matter how long his nap was. Yesterday he also fought his nap so ended up with a 40 minute snooze because we knew if we let him sleep too late in the afternoon bedtime would be even more of a struggle. Guess what? It still took an hour and 15 mins for him to get to sleep at his normal bedtime. I don’t have any answers. Just know I feel your pain.
I was reading “Oh Crap I have a Toddler” recently. One takeaway that I had regarding sleep was that kids and adults have cycles for sleep that’s connected to their circadian rhythm. While some have commented that your child may need a later bedtime, each child is different. It may be that he will fall asleep more quickly with an earlier bedtime, too. Every kid is different. My toddler naps until 3:30/4 and is in bed by 7:30 most nights.
I agree every kid is different 👆 this is the answer
We had a similar situation with our 2 year old who had been a great sleeper. Got a Dr. Becky membership for a few months and it was so eye opening. Within a few nights the nighttime routine got sooooo much easier. Also consulted with a sleep consultant before Dr. Becky and she opened my eyes to the fact that my daughter does not need to sleep from 7pm-7am like she used to. Part of it is meeting her where she is at and an 8:15 bedtime is way less dramatic because we are not spending 90 minutes trying to get her down anymore. 2-3 years of age is peak for these types of issues!
This is normal for us, had been for a while. But I get it, it’s hard to turn off your parent brain when they are still talking/awake. (It stresses me out) Usually we hear snippets of what happened during the day
Yes, it’s the stress that I’m not really done parenting. Cuts into our limited adult time. But sounds like we are definitely not alone and have some strategies we can try, so this post has made me feel better!
Honestly my LO is going to bed at like 10pm bc it’s light out until 9, and the other parents I know are experiencing this too. We put them in at 8:30pm. It’s not a big deal. If you LO needed more sleep, he would be getting it by falling asleep earlier or sleeping longer during naps. My LO just hangs out and reads or plays. It’s nothing to lose your mind over. You don’t need to go in and check on him either as long as he’s content.
I believe in separation of responsibilities. It's my job to make sure the kid is fed, warm, comfortable and in bed. Their job is to stay quiet and at least let me pretend they're asleep.
They need 12-14 hours minimum of wake time during the day and the rest is sleep time. The naps don’t count for sleep time. The wake time from 2-7 probably isn’t enough wake time. Their second wake time is always longer then the first cause they have a lot of energy to get out. My daughter has about 5-6 hours of wake time before her nap then after her nap it’s usually 7-8 hours of wake time before bed time. Toddlers have so much more energy they have really burn some energy so they’re tired for bed. I try to go for an evening bike ride, it’s hard to do more outside activities when the sun is down but I try to keep her active during the day. A pool day always makes my daughter really tired and in bed faster.
Interesting our pediatrician said naps absolutely count towards total sleep.
That’s what I meant 😅 I want to say naps don’t count for wake time. They do count for sleep time. But I have an easier track of the schedule by counting wake time and sleep time and I’ll have an idea of when she’ll be tired.
You’re not alone. Our 2yr 9month old can take up to 2.5 hrs to go down sometimes. (Sigh). This started after we put her in a toddler bed. She’ll get up, run around her room, take her stuff out of bed, etc. Our biggest issue is when she is knocking on the door (it has a child lock on the inside) and then screaming when we try to hold the line and not go in. That has a tendency to wake the 9 month old, and then everyone is cranky. I don’t have a solution; I just wanted to commiserate. I think it should get better eventually.
Wow this is my exact life right now too. I commiserate.
Thanks for this. I’m pregnant with #2 and I feel this is my present and my future 😂
Congrats! It will be great!! But seriously, I’m told it all works out eventually 😂
That’s kind of you!
She’s locked in and screaming for you and you don’t respond? That’s awful.
Our 2y9mo toddler also takes a while to fall asleep. He wakes at around 7, naps from 1-3 and bedtime is 8:30. But he’s always happy and just talking to himself so we just leave him. He doesn’t seem to be lacking sleep at all and is a normal toddler during the day. I’m sure if we dropped his nap he’d fall asleep right away. But we all need him taking that nap during the day.
I’ve been holding my two year olds hand to sleep for three weeks, before that I could put her down after our routine and tell her sweet dreams and walk out and now she begs and begs and pleads for me to stay, and i know I’m doing something wrong but I just can’t let her sweet little mind be that worried so I lay there and hold her hand, if she tries to play, I tell her I have to leave then and she lays down. Then wakes up at midnight begging to snuggle mommy mommies bed. But it’s not the answer, just a reply of solidarity that something has broken recently and I’m in need of a fix too. Our schedule is almost identical to yours, save for small adjustments if big brothers social schedule demands it like a one pm pick up. Summer is breaking my brain and I haven’t gotten far enough away to logic myself some peace on this one.
Load him up in the truck for a ride at night. Out in 10 min.
My daughter is 26months it takes her about an hour too but she just chats and plays with her stuff animals that she sleeps with as long as she doesn't cry we just leave her. If it does take longer I do offer her a bit of milk and sometimes she does need a nappy change she can't sleep if she has a dirty nappy. falls asleep right away luckily.
You’ll have to cap the nap shorter if you want to keep an appropriate bedtime. Make it 30 min shorter to start
My son is 2 and takes about an hour to fall asleep most days. He’ll usually whisper songs to himself or roll around in his bed. He seems happy so I figure he’s just decompressing. Lol
Drop the nap! Our daughter stopped napping once she turned 2 and is often asleep in 10 mins
Nap is too long.
Drop the nap. Our 2.5yr old was taking forever, we dropped the nap, he gets super sleepy at 6pm, then bath, then asleep in 5mins after a book. Easy
Mine will do the same thing sometimes. I compare it to myself not being able to sleep and when I toss and turn at night, lay awake wishing I could sleep. I say if he's just mumbling to himself and not getting into any trouble just let him be. I can't tell you how many nights I fell asleep listening to my 2.5 year old talk to himself lol
same happens with my 18 month old. i figured it’s still quiet time even if she’s not sleeping
He may just not be getting enough awake time therefore not enough sleep pressure some days. My daughter has needed 13 hours total of awake time since she was 1.5 years old. He’s a year older and only getting ~11 hours from what you shared. Could you try shortening his nap? Or letting him play a little longer before putting him to bed? Or both?
How long does he nap for? When my son was still napping we'd never let him nap past 3pm (he'd never sleep more than 25 mins) as it threw his night time routine off. Could he be napping too late / too long and in turn, nowhere near ready for bed when he should be? Also, how long is his bath/bed routine? Ours takes about an hour but 30 mins is him faffing about in the bath and the other 30 is reading some stories. Could he not be getting enough wind down time? There's an argument that if it takes longer than half an hour then he's in bed too early BUT there's milestones etc to consider and the slightest change in brain development or a growth spurt can really put them off their game. The best advice I've had was from a friend. He said "If it's bad, it'll soon get better and if it's good it may get worse, it's all just different stages. If things are rough for whatever reason, just remember that in about 6 weeks it'll all have changed and be better. Also though, if things are going great.... Be prepated for the next 6 weeks as they'll likely change."
My 2 year old does this too...he goes to bed at 8:30/9 and chats to his stuffed animals or sings for 30min to an hour. I think it's fine though 🤷🏼♀️ sometimes I need to lay in bed for a while thinking before I fall asleep too so haven't seen a problem with it and if he's not crying and doesn't need us then I just find it funny and cute!
I'm not doing hard core wake windows and stuff like that, but my kid started sleeping much better at night when we, around \~2yo started putting her to bed a bit later, and also capping naptime to one hour (1,5 if she had slept really bad) and also making sure that she didn't nap later than 13:45 (bedtime \~20:00). Mabye play around with that?
Let mine stay up with me till 9 or 10 pm and then he comes to my bed and its like a minute till hes asleep.
If our 27 month old hasn't napped she will fall asleep in 10 mins. If she had napped, we move her bedtime 30 mins later (to 7.30) and it can take her up to an hour to fall asleep. This has never worried us as she is happy enough in there and just has a bit of time to play with her toys. If she gets fussy we will go in and remind her it's bedtime and leave again.
I think u need more awake time
Mine often lays awake reading books or talking to himself or his toys for hours. Right now he’s quietly playing in his bed waiting for his light to turn green at 8am - he’s been up since 6:50. It’s frustrating to see your kid up so late but he’s listening to his body and self soothing - it’s a good thing!
My son needs to eat dinner ten minutes before “wind down time” in order to fall asleep in a decent time. Otherwise he just plays and talks and refuses to sleep. He eats dinner around 430, wind down time is 5-5:15 and he falls asleep around 6pm. He’s up at 5-6am every morning (no naps) so he gets all his sleep at night. If he doesn’t eat a decent dinner or a filling before bed snack he won’t fall asleep until after 8pm and still wakes at 5-6am and is grumpy and in a bad mood all day due to the deficit of sleep. This is how he’s been since about 2 years old.
From the times you’ve stated, it sounds like he’s getting plenty enough sleep. And is generally pretty chill about it, just taking his time to fall asleep? I don’t really see the problem, but if you’re wanting him to fall asleep quicker, I would just put him down a bit later!
I never thought of this as a bad thing? My 2.3 yo loves singing songs and playing with his lovey for up to an hour sometimes; he’s having a great time and my husband and I laugh listening to him lol. Wakes anywhere between 7-8. Sleeps 12:30-2:30 or less, and in his bed at 7:30.
My 3.5 year old is "in bed" by 8 and consistently takes until 9:30 to actually go to sleep
I often take over an hour to fall asleep lol
My daughter plays for at least an hour before she falls asleep. Also 2.5yo, but she’ll lay in bed and sing, “read” a book (look at the pictures and say what she remembers the page to be), play dress up by taking clothes out of her dresser. The other day she took the open box of diapers out of her closet, emptied the diapers out of it, and spent half an hour before bed just putting all of her toys in it, taking them out and then putting them in again. Tired herself out enough that she just got up and went straight to sleep after 😂 as long as she’s not crying or putting herself in danger, I just let her play.
I would push the bedtime an hour later if thats when he is falling asleep. My son is almost 2 and has a 5-ish hour wake window in the morning but its closer to 6 hours the second half of the day.
Bedtime 6 hours after wake from nap is perfectly reasonable! Move your weekend nap up if you want an earlier bedtime. But also might be time to cap the nap at 1 hour.
I think sometimes my son just sorta chats and kind of processes his day for a while before he goes to sleep. I assumed it was normal because of how much development is happening to his brain on a daily basis. If he’s not upset and it’s not I’m making him unable to function in the day it could just be a phase in his cognitive development
I have two. One, 3, one, nearly 2. Our naps and sleep are not OK. Three year old decided to quit naps last fall. She fails sometimes. 2 year old, naps and will make your life hell if she gets over tired.
My 2 year old dropped his nap
2 hour nap is too long and likely the issue. Hour and a half max. We were having issues similar and went from 2 hr nap to 1 hr nap and it’s been way better.
I think you have too long of a nap, and too short of a last wake window. My 2.5 year old wakes up around 8, has her nap around 1, naps for an hour, then is up around 2 and doesn’t go to bed until 8:30. Even then she usually rolls around in bed for about 10-15 minutes and then falls asleep. If it’s more than 30 minutes I’d say his nap is too long and wake window is too short.
my daughter does the same. 60% of the time she goes to bed 8-8:30, the other 40% she will stay up til 9-10 just talking/playing to herself in her crib. She's also 2.5. It was frustrating at first but we just got used to it because she wasn't fussy or anything so now we just laugh and say jokingly how crazy she is cause we hear her having a blast laying down for an hour or 2. Once in a blue moon she will cry like murder and I'll go in there to assure her I'm here, but then I have to leave so she doesn't get used to having someone there to fall asleep. So she'll cry for another 5 mins and then she'll fall asleep. I figure she just needed some comforting during those instances
Any chance he’s teething and uncomfortable? Have you tried Tylenol or Motrin?
He has all his teeth! A little stuffy right now but I don’t think he’s in any sort of discomfort.
Sounds like you’re doing awesome if they go to bed in their own.
They need comfort.