Just sort of "checking" what is going on with other LOs this age. DD is 25 months old and for the past few weeks has not been settling to sleep at night until about 9pm despite the time being put into bed (I've tried from 7 to 8:30). At first it was stalling and all sorts of delay tactics. Lots of mom coming back in and carrying on and on and on. I tried earlier, thinking OT. I tried later, thinking, sheesh MAYBE UT. But she seemed to be stuck at settling near 9pm. The only nights in the past few weeks that she has gone to bed any earlier than 8:30 have been the two days she missed her nap. One day I did it intentionally to try to reset her body clock to an earlier bedtime. The other was yesterday when we had a town-wide festival and I let her skip and put her to bed a little before 8 and she was OUT in five mins. due to being exhausted, obviously.
To combat the stalling, I've devised a sticker incentive plan. She gets one sticker to hold and play with when she lays down nicely in her crib. She's not allowed to stall, fuss, whine, argue, etc. or she won't get the sticker. She has been laying so nicely and been back to her usual self babbling away until she falls asleep. But even still.....it's taking her til about 9pm to fall asleep. Once I had her in bed at 7:30 and she was asleep around 8:30 but that is still an hour to settle!
She takes a nap everyday. Somewhere between 1.5 to 2 hours. Without a nap she is a disaster. I've also tried different nap lengths to see if it changes anything....but an hour, hour an a half and two hour nap all yield a similar 9pm falling asleep time.
Then the poor girl is up at 6:30! or 7 the latest! Seems as though the short night leads to her needing a longer nap and the nap is leading to a shorter night and I feel like I'm back at the stupid 2:1 again except at the 1:none!!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNOW she is not ready to drop her nap but will this change?
