Is anyone else's 2 1/2 year old doing this?

[mrsmynub]

Our DS#1 takes his naps and goes to bed with no trouble.  BUT - when he is in his crib, he is sometimes awake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours before going to sleep.  He is SO tired, and isn't bothersome as he just talks and sings to himself, but I am worried about it.  I don't think the solution is letting him stay up later as he is SO ready to go to bed.  And sometimes when this happens, he will take a much longer nap the next day.  I don't know if it's because it's so light out, but I am wondering if anyone else is going through this?

[lilmonkey]

How long is his nap?  I know that at 2.5 yo dd was taking about 1 hr to fall asleep at night.  What I did was cut back on her nap from 2 hrs to 1.5 hrs.  I jsut made sure that there is at least 4 hrs before bed.  If you think that it's light out do you have black out blinds or something?  It's tough at this age as they can reason with you that since there's light it's not bedtime. 

[mrsmynub]

He never tries to get out of going to bed, just the opposite.  When we tell him that stories are over, he is fine with it.  Maybe you're right, maybe I should ilmit his nap time.  But I find that hard because it's a vicious cycle of him needing the sleep because the night before he only had 9 hours of sleep.

He just fell asleep about 15 minutes ago,  I will see how long he sleeps, and if it's longer than 1 1/2 hours, then I will wake him up.

[lilmonkey]

It really is finding the right balance between day and night sleep.  If they sleep too much during the day then they will not be as tired to go to sleep at the usual time.  I remember having to really watch for dd's tired cues (which is basically crankiness) in the late afternoon to gauge bedtime until she got used to the new routine.  Also at that age she only need about 12-12.5 hrs of sleep.  At first I like the break in the afternoon and didn't mind dd staying up later in the evening.  But I soon found that she needed at least 11 hrs of sleep at night to be pleasant during the day so I decided to limit her nap. 

Try limiting his nap by 10-15 min and see how he is.  If it helps with him going to sleep faster at night then you know how long he should nap without compromising anything.

Good luck.

PS  Funny isn't it.  We spend the first yr trying to lenghten the naps but in the following years we are limiting it.  LOL