2 yo taking 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep for BOTH nap and bedtime!!

[Momma Amy]

Emily has been so good about going down for nap and bedtime for sooo long now.  However for the past two months she has been taking a really long time to fall asleep for her nap.  Now it has also progessed to bedtime!  I don't know what to do!! Soon she will need to share her room with her little sister and I can't have her up playing for an hour and a half and keep her little sister up too!  Please help with any suggestions!  I think maybe I didn't nip it when I should have.  When it was just the naps, I would just let her play and that til she fell asleep usually an hour and a half later. 

Our typical schedule is:
6:30am wake up (she wakes up somewhere in this range 6-7)
8:30 breakfast (she has milk & we cuddle for a little bit when she first wakes up, then I nurse her sister, shower, get both girls dressed and then we have breakfast)
10:30 snack
12:15 lunch
12:45 wind down with milk, a little cuddling, to bed by
1:00 nap
let her sleep no later than 4:00
5:30 supper
6:45 bath (usually lasts anywhere from 15-20+ minutes), milk, brush teeth, say good night to dad & sister, go to bed, read book, say prayers,
7:30 I'm out and she used to fall asleep within 15 minutes. 
Tonight its 9:30 and I still hear her in her room.  She doesn't ever cry when we leave, so she's not scared.  She just is like too wound up to settle down and go to sleep. 

I think when it originally started with her naps she was so excited to explore her room (having recently been moved from her crib to a bed) that she had a tough time settling.  Now???  I'm so exasperated!

[Layla]

Hi there

I think the problem here is the timing of the nap. The av A time is 5.5hrs so I would bring the nap up to 12-12.30 (the latest) and don't let her sleep past 2.30pm. If she is napping till 4pm then there is no way she will go down at 7ish. Try bringing the nap up (btw, she might take a while for a couple of days still but in a few days should accept the new nap time). Still, if she falls asleep as late as 1.30, wake her up (no later than 3pm) and then aim for bedtime of 7ish.

She is taking a long time falling asleep at naptime cause I believe she is overtired by 1pm. She should be in her cot sooner....

hth & let me know how you go
Layla

[imsmum]

My dd is 30 months, and it has always taken her a good 1/2 hour to settle--singing, chattering etc-- regardless of bedtime unless she is absolutely exhausted!  So for some kids I think it's a necessary part of their own wind down routine.

My dd has a similar wakeup time but actually goes down for her nap a bit later--at her age she is just not ready before then but still needs her nap.  She was napping a maximum of 1.5 hours--lately it's been a bit longer but the longer nap may be interfering with her night sleep since she's been waking so maybe such a long/late nap for your lo is also interfering with her settling at night.

I would try moving the nap a bit earlier to see if she'll go for it, but even if she doesn't I agree with Layla and would wake her no later than 3.  Hopefully she will get past the excitement of being able to get out of her big girl bed soon.  Can you build a little explore time into your wind down specially before naps? Make the winddown a bit longer so that there is maybe storytime in her room where she can go get her own book off the shelf or animal or something, but then once you've had your milk and cuddles she has to stay in bed.   HTH

[Carmela's Mom]

I 100% agree.  My daughter, at 3, still can't nap at 1:00 or she doesn't nap!  So I put her down at 12:30 and it is MUCH better!  We do lunch at noon, nap after. As for bedtime, i still don't have that figured out!

[Momma Amy]

So just to make sure I'm doing it ok, after a wind down time I put her in bed and she has to stay in bed - as in she can be sitting up playing with her stuffies but not out of bed exploring her room.  Is that ok do you think?  Or do you think she should be laying down the whole time?

[Carmela's Mom]

With my daughter, I put her in at 12:30.  Take her out at 2:30.  her rules are "no jumping on the bed, no kicking the wall (she used to kick my son's wall) and she has to talk quietly.  Usually she follows 1 & 2 but 3 gets out of hand

[mattandcindy]

I am going through a similar problem but I have had to come to an entirely different solution. (Which I know you are not going to like).
Abigail started having trouble falling asleep at naptime and then it progressed to bedtime. Well, we tried earlier naps and later naps. The
naptime didn't matter, she would take 1+ hours to fall asleep and then do it again at bedtime.
This past weekend I tried no naps. Yes, I said NO nap. She was definitely tired by the end of the day but she fell asleep within seconds of us putting her down at 7:15pm both nights and was OUT the entire night.
Yesterday and today I tried limiting her nap to 1 hr but we are back to the 1+ hours to fall asleep at night.
I have just come to the conclusion that she wants to drop her nap. It is VERY sad for me but I feel like I have the option:
1)I skip the nap and have an easy bedtime
2)I give her the nap and have a more difficult bedtime.
Either is okay with me, just depends on our day.

Just another possible solution....

[Layla]

  Cindy... given up naps.... my dd would die without a nap and she's the same age as your lo.... different babies, I guess 

I would try the earlier nap time for a week and see how it goes before you give up on naps altogether.

[Beata]

Oooh, glad I found this post...we are dealing with the same thing. When I can get dd physically wore out in the mornings, naps are easy, but not otherwise. And out problem is that at bedtime when I get her to be by 7:30 she goes down fast, but then wakes before 7 am. If bedtime is later it takes forever to fall asleep. I am thinking at this age the core issue is that the lo's need need sleep in general, but I guess it's up to us to figure out what works for the los. Another issue is that I'm a bit advocate of not waking a sleeping baby/child.  Soo I will keep lurking and seeing what works for you all. Please keep posting!

Beata

[Layla]

Beata, what time is the nap?

[Momma Amy]

Well things seem to be going a bit better for us.  Some of it is that I've just come to understand that Emily needs an hour wind down time at this stage in her life.  How that will work when the girls need to share a room I'm not too sure, we'll have to deal with that when we come to it.  I have moved Emily's nap up to 12:30 (as in bed by 12:30) so that she can be asleep by 1:30 and get an hour and a half nap before I wake her up by 3 (no later than 3:30).  I've had to wake her up every day so far which I'm not too fond of but I'm going to try it this way for a week-week and a half to see how it goes.  Then she's in bed by 7:30 and asleep by 8:30.  She now understands that she HAS to stay in her bed.  So she quietly plays with her bears, tucks them in a few times, talks to them, sings to them, its pretty cute!

[Beata]

  I'm glad thing are going well. Emily sounds like a doll 

Cate naps at between 12:30-1 until about 2-3.