NW, EW, late nights, naps

[Jenifer]

My DD is 34 months old.  She has always been a pretty good sleeper. 

Lately, we have gotten into a vicious cycle of erratic sleep that includes some late nights, NW, EW and nap problems.  I have tried to correct for the problem by adjusting nap / bedtime but I'm not sure what I'm doing is working.

Her routine about 3 months ago was this:
  7:00 - 7:30 am     Wake
  12:30 - 2:30 pm    Nap
  7:45 pm               Bedtime

She started taking a long time to settle down for nap, so I moved that out and then she started it at bedtime so I moved bedtime out a little too (figuring she's almost 3 - needs a little less sleep).  So, her routine the last couple months has been this:
  7:00 - 7:30 am     Wake
  1:00 - 2:30 pm     Nap
  8:00 pm              Bedtime


Well, now we've got all kinds of problems.  She's sometimes awake (and gabbing) until 8:30+ pm and then wakes up early the following morning.  She'll be tired early for nap so I'll put her down a little bit early and then she'll be a bear to get up - tired, miserable, only wanting to be rocked in her chair, having tantrums if I try to get her going.  So, she ends up getting maybe another 30 minutes of "rest" time .. which leads to her not being tired again at bedtime .. which leads to early waking .. which leads to crappy nap ... etc.

So, I feel like I'm in a vicious cycle of trying to correct for the last poor sleep. 

I realize at her age that she only needs about 12 hours.  But it seems like because of the late nights / NW or EW she's getting less at night and then trying to make up for it during the day.

What do I do?  Today, because she was up late and woke up early,  I planned to get her to nap early and wake a little earlier so that she's good and tired for bedtime tonight.  Am I on the right track?

ps: I should mention, my husband thinks because of all this wakefullness at night perhaps we should cut out nap entirely so she sleeps better at night.  (He's so eager to get rid of naps and sees this as the opportunity.)  I told him that would only get us deeper in trouble.   

[meltown]

have you tried letting her nap a bit longer and then do bedtime a the same time.  It sounds to me like it could be either not enough sleep or to much.  if she is super grumpy let hr nap a bit longer tomarrow and then try bed time about the same time and see if it is easier. if this isn't working in a couple days then you may have to move bedtme back just a tad more and see how that works.

[Jenifer]

Problem is the more she naps, the later she goes to bed at night.  I didn't think this was a good idea (add more to day sleep) considering the whole point of all of this is to build up night time sleep and eventually the nap goes away.  ??

[armcan1103]

I don't have advice, but am having similar problems with my almost 33 month old. I have the added problem of her wanting to get in our bed if she wakes up at night or too early in the morning. That is completely new as she has never slept with us. I am hoping to bump this up to get some advice, too!

[meltown]

I understand what you are saying, but if she is OT then she still wont sleep well at night.  but if you feel like this makes things worse then I would just wake your LO early from her nap consistently for a week and then see how that goes.