2.5 yo sleep routines - share yours please!

[nike]

Yay Sima   Hope that's all it was, just the molars coming through causing her routine to go a bit wonky, as you say.  That would explain the difficulty in going down for bed last week, anyway.  Hopefully, now that you know, things will revert back to normal again pretty quickly. 

[irish3680]

A little late here but at 30 months Ella was doing:

7/7:30: awake
1-3/3:30: nap
7:30/8: bed

She has always been on the high end of sleep needs and done better with a longer am A time and shorter pm one. I hope the molars come in quick and DD goes back to sleeping well!

[Sima]

Thanks Nike and Ella! I really appreciate your input very much!!!
Nike, she is napping well today and slept 11 hours yesteray!!! 
Ella, wow, your lo does sleep really good!!! Thanks for your help!

Anyone else:)

[clazzat]

Milena has always been pretty high sleep needs too - but we have just gone through a major routine shift (via serious OT, EW and not going to sleep at night!).  We have ended up with:

Wake 6.45
Nap 12.30-2.15 (never later than 2.15, sometimes goes down later than 12.30 if we are out)
Bed 7.15

HTH.

[speechie]

Hope things go well for you!

[Sima]

Hi Clazzat:
Thanks for sharing your routine---wow, she is a good sleeper too!!!!  May I ask why she was EW, resisting sleep?? My lo is doing the same thing currently. 

[Sima]

thanks speechie!
OT is quickly being recovered...but resisted bedtime...

Last night had 11 hours of sleep!!
Woke up 6.35
Nap 12.45-2.20!
Put her down 7.30 but kept callign for us till 8?
Confused---I was putting her down at 6 hours which lead to OT---maybe SA???
We'll try again tomorrow..

[alligirl]

Hi there~

Haven't read other posts yet, but just wanted to throw out our experience.  We have a spirited 33 month old whose sleep had become an issue a couple months ago.  He started carrying on and fooling around at bedtime for close to 2 hours (and he shares a room with 2 older brothers, so it was quite disruptive) and he was waking an hour earlier than our normal wake time.  I experimented with his naps and ended up cutting them out.  Now we have a mandatory quiet time in our house from 1pm-2pm.  All the boys go lay in their beds quietly, with the light on, and play with quiet toys, read books or play with their leapsters.  Sometimes, he will fall asleep and take a nap, but that is purely his decision.  The bedtimes got better and he has recently started extending the mornings back to normal.  I remember doing something similar with my oldest ds when he was about 3...I thought he was dropping his naps, so I just made him go have a quiet time in his room.  During those quiet times, he started falling asleep more and more often until he was consistently taking naps again.  I'm hoping that's what's going to happen with our littlest guy now.

As for when they go to bed and when they wake up: in addition to cutting out naps, we pushed bedtime back by about 30 minutes.  Now they are all in bed by 8 with the goal of all them being asleep by 8:30.  Generally the older two are asleep by 8:30, but sometimes our 2.5 year old will stay awake until 9.  Everyone gets up between 7:30 and 8am.

I'm not sure what issues you've been having, but in addition to trying to tweak your lo's routine, I also recommend just riding out the problems.  Sometimes these things work themselves out if you are consistent and patient.

HTH!

[nike]

Wow, alligirl, your 2.5 yo doesn't go to bed til sometimes 9 p.m. even without a day nap??  I remember my oldest boy going through the phase of not napping during the day and I think he was roughly around the same age, 2.5.  He was happy enough to stay in his room but would trash his room, pull everything out of his drawers, and generally have a great party.  I'd leave him there and if he was still awake an hour later, I'd get him up.  We had to do a super early bedtime on no-nap days.  It felt like forever, but I persisted with "quiet" time (at least time alone in his room) and, what do you know, he started napping again!  Bliss.  By then I had DS2 on one nap a day, so I had a couple of hours to myself in the middle of the day.  It didn't seem to interfere with his bedtime, fortunately.  I know a lot of friends of mine have gone through this too, thinking their LOs were dropping their naps, only to have them start napping again, so it must be some sort of developmental thing.  From memory, DS1 held onto his nap for another 6 months or so, finally dropping it around 3.3 years.  DS2 is the sleep champion and I'm almost certain he'll still be napping during the day for a lot longer yet.

Sima, great news on the sleeping returning to normal

[We Three]

My lo is 30 months also....she has always been a GREAT sleeper..(just like her Mom!)

Our day looks like this:

Wake 7:30-8:00

Nap 1:00/1:30 til 3:30

Sleep 9:00

Generally her morning A time is 6 hrs, her after nap A time is more like 5.5

I often think of waking her in the mornings, just to have an earlier nap and therefore an earlier bedtime...but I can never make myself do it!! It *might* be nice to have more time for just dh and me at night, but having more time in the morning is good too!!

So...about 13 hrs total sleep for the day. 

[speechie]

They are always keeping us guessing!  Maybe she's in an inbetween stage- can sometimes do 6 hours, other days only 5...
Still- 11 hours is good night sleep!

[clazzat]

The EW and resisting sleep were definitely OT for her.  We went on holiday and her routine got messed up, so she wasn't sleeping very well.  When we got back, I thought it was OT, but talking to other people made me think that perhaps her sleep needs had gone down and I needed to cut back her nap.  After a few weeks when less sleep wasn't helping, I put her to bed early one evening and she went straight to sleep and slept longer than she had done for weeks - I increased her nap and started putting her down earlier in the evening and we seem to be back on track.  She is sleeping a little less than she used to, but she's still sleeping pretty well.

HTH.  Cx

[Sima]

Okay---need some brainstorming here please

Last night I put her to bed at 5.25 hours after naptime & she resisted bedtime for 1/2 an hour which made Awake time 6 hours.  She just kept calling for us.

Then had:
NW at 4 am and called for me. I gave her some tabs for teething ....just in case and I put her down around 5 and slept till 7.  

She was tired this morning--very clingy and yawning.  About 1 month ago she started  NW every so often (I don't think it is OT though).  She is very attached to me.  Could this be dreams or SA?    

Today she did not resist bedtime when I put her down at 5.5.
This is driving me crazy.........

Anyone with this experience?  

[Sima]

Thanks everyone for your input!!!

My lo is resisting sleep at bedtime..could it be SA.  She is also NW once in a while---not everyday.  She rarely did NW before.
Today woke up at 4am and gave her some teeth tabs and she did go back to sleep at 5.  This morning yawning a lot and clingy.  Is she dreaming or SA big time at night???  But tonight went to bed at 5.5 with no problem......confused!!!

Alligirl--it is seems like this problem I can't figure out and should just ride it out like you said.  The only problem is that she is SO sensitive to OT that if she get too OT she EW big time. 
Clazzat, I think my lo is OT too and also going through some Develop thing..

[Aly Mac]

Sima, Lilly started going through some wonky sleep recently too. At 30 months she was on this routine.

6.30 wake
12-2 nap (no longer than two hours, but most times 1.5hrs
7pm sleep

then naps and bedtime was getting crazy - playing up and taking longer etc etc.  So I made her bedtime 7.30 and was very specific with her about the bedtime routine ie: what was happening - 1 book, read once, music on, light off, lilly tucked in, mummy pat for one lullaby (if she asked), and mummy was going. tooka  few nights but she is great now. It really made a difference that extra time at night and her knowing exactly what's going to happen.