2.5 yo NW and Dropping the Nap

[theu.s.lees]

(I feel like I'm all over the sleep boards between my two girls! LOL)!

DD1 is struggling in the sleeping department. She is semi kicking the nap, except she's not. She says, "I'm tired" and will walk upstairs and put herself down for a nap many days. That was fine until her BT was suffering where she'd come back out of her room over and over again dragging BT on forever. Or she's NW where she comes downstairs and asks for milk or water. If I do no nap, somedays she's okay and will just go to bed early. Other days, she's a nightmare fighting with her brother extra because she's so tired. On top of it, I tried capping her nap so that she's only sleeping 45min - 1 hr and that helps preserve BT. Except she's a BEAR when I wake her. Her day is like this

WU - 7:30
S - 1:30/2 (though sometimes it's 12:30 or 1, but then for 45-1hr, any longer and we pay for it)
BT - 7:45/8pm

Thank you!

[Haribo2012]

Hi there 1-0 is the pits lol!!

We used to do max 20 min nap and then DS would wake ok any longer and awful mood all afternoon and if NND EBT, some only need an 11/11-5 hour day on nap dropping so might be worth bringing BT earlier.
There will be some OT on nap dropping its normal but won't last too long once they adjust, my DS will happily sit on the couch with a couple of TV programmes and chill then is raring to go again!
Fwiw I think some of it around this age is developmental as well because often whatever we did we still had NW but then they just stopped.
I don't really let DS (3.1yrs) nap now it's not worth the BT faff!

[jessmum46]

I second the shorter nap, DD was hideous to wake from a longer nap as she'd hit deep sleep and didn't want to get up, but after 20 mins was ok.  Or is she can't cope on such a short nap do the longer one, but have food and some TV time or similar ready to go for distraction.  When we got to dropping the nap quite regularly we stuck to 7pm bedtime on nap days and 6.30pm on no nap days regardless of WU time and that seemed to settle out fairly well after a few weeks x

[theu.s.lees]

Thanks. I will try 20 min nap. So sad to lose her nap. She's my busiest child for sure!
Are you waking in the morning at this stage?

[jessmum46]

I never did from the point we were on one nap onwards x