EWs and BT battles now a problem with BBB

[kellyincali]

DS is 23 months old and has been in a BBB for a month now. He's been an independent sleeper since I found the BW when he was 3 months old and while he is picky about sleeping conditions, he has rarely had any sleep problems. Until now.

He used to go to bed at 7pm and then stay in bed until 6:30 or 7am. Sometimes he'd wake up at 4:30ish and yell a little, but he would always resettle and sleep until a more reasonable hour. His afternoon nap was consistently from 1pm to 3pm (and still is...usually). No problem. Ever since we introduced the BBB he's been fighting BT like nobody's business. It's a good night if he's asleep by 8:30pm. And now he wakes up at 4:30am and is ready to get up! Unfortunately, he's cranky all day because he's exhausted, but I have no idea how to get him to sleep longer in the morning and/or stop fighting BT at night. Any ideas/threads I should take a look at?

Caveats: DH refuses to use a gate on his room or put a childlock on the doorknob to keep him inside.

TIA!

[*Becky*]

Have you tired capping his nap a little? By 23 months we were down to max 1.5 hours.
After a 2 hour nap DS would have been able to do 5.5 hours A time and some would handle 6 easily so I would try capping it.

[kellyincali]

I haven't tried capping it at 1.5, but I do cap it at 2 hours. Since he sleeps so little at night, his naps have been on the longer side. So when I cap his nap, should I move his bed time earlier? Or put him down at the same time hoping he'll sleep in later?

[*Becky*]

it is a tricky one and I would suspect there is some UT casing OT yk? Does he have a gro clock? I would def introduce one of these to at least keep him in his room until get up time. I think if this only started when he moved to a BBB he is more than likely very OT. Have you tried an earlier nap and bedtime?

[kellyincali]

A gro clock? I had to Google this to see what it is. That looks pretty nifty to me. Would an almost 2 year old understand it? I suppose I'd just have to be strict about when he gets up and when he goes to bed, right? Have you used one before Becky? How did you introduce it?

I did cap his nap yesterday, BTW, and he went down an awful lot easier at night. He was up again at 5AM, but that's better than 4:30! Of course, we haven't been in our usual routine since Thanksgiving was on Thursday and, thus, he more exhausted than ever. I'll still work on it though.