2.5 YO naps well but takes forever to fall asleep at BT

[katie4998]

I'm hoping some of you can give me some advice or reassurance regarding my toddler's sleep issue. I've tried researching it online & haven't been able to find anything like what we're dealing with. I may be overthinking this (as I'm known to do!), but wondered if anyone else has experienced this:

As mentioned in the subject, my 2.5 year old is perfectly happy to take an early afternoon nap (usually around 1pm or 1:30pm). We read a book, she goes into her crib & I sing for less than 10 minutes & she's asleep. She'll sleep for about an hour. Great...except that BT is then a frustrating, lengthy ordeal. We follow the same routine every night, starting at about 8pm - PJs, brush teeth, read 2 or 3 books & into crib. We sing for about 15 minutes and leave the room (usually turning on some quiet lullaby-ish music that is on a timer & lasts 15 minutes). She then proceeds to play/talk/sing to herself...if we let her go until she finally passes out, it usually goes on for about 2 hours, sometimes more. So, she's not falling asleep until 10 or 10:30. Sometimes after the first 30 or 45 minutes, one of us goes in & sits near her bed silently, and she'll sometimes fall asleep, but we've been trying different tactics to figure out what works (ie: letting her fall asleep on her own without any intervention from us).

So far, what we've discovered is that if she doesn't get a nap at all, and we start the bedtime routine 30 minutes earlier (at 7:30), she's asleep by 8:15 & sleeps straight through until 8:15 or 8:30 (which is also her usual wake-up time for the days when she doesn't fall asleep until 10:30 the night before).

Right now we're trying an alternating nap schedule (nap one day, no nap the next) to see if it helps. Based on the fact that she's not fighting her nap on the days she does get one, I feel like she's not ready to give up the nap, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part?

Anyone have any suggestions? Or have you dealt with this type of issue?

[HenaV]

No btdt but if the alternate NNDs are working I'd persevere. You could then consider 2 NNDs followed by a nap day and keep going until they are completely gone?

Hena

[Khadija]

Your situation is actually a lot similar to my own.

DD would nap easily in the afternoon but then she started falling asleep later and later. Almost 2 hours after BT. The problem with DD was she couldn't handle the full 12 hours awake. And then would have loooong NW. So i have now made her naps later and cut them to only 40mins. But if the alternative naps are working my advice would be to stick with it...and see how it goes.

Also i don't know if I've read it wrong but does she have different WU times in the morning? According to BT? It really helped with my daughter if WU time, nap time and BT was exactly the same time everyday. Regardless of how long it took her to fall asleep etc.

[jenn1975]

Our son has been doing this for several months. He's 3 in September. He naps easily for the most part but now BT has become 9-9:30. For now it works for us, so I'm keeping the nap. When he starts resisting the nap or times get any later, we will cut it out. He has NNDs here and there and an EBT.

He was doing the same, taking ages to fall asleep at BT after a nap, so I pushed his nap and BT later and now he's asleep in about 20 min.

So ATM its,
WU 8-8:15
Nap 2:15 (for an hour to an hour and a half)
BT 9:15-9:30 (asleep)

I actually am enjoying it for now.