28 month old still needs nap but won't go down at night

[MamaF]

Hi all,

As the subject suggests, our 28 month old son is struggling to go down at night but he goes down for his nap without a problem and would sometimes sleep longer than two hours if we let him. We have tried moving his nap from 12.30/1 to closer to 12pm but this makes no difference. We also tried capping at 1.5 hours for a few days and that made no difference either. From what I've read here, it sounds like we may be stuck with a later bedtime for a while until he's ready to start pushing the nap later/shorter? He's screaming/'needing' things from 7 until 8-8.30pm at present.

I should add that we recently tried moving him from a family daycare centre with only 4 kids per day to a much larger centre which he didn't like. This is when the nighttime struggles started, along with a lot of night waking so I don't know whether this is all nap-related or separation anxiety.

We have the gro-clock and he usually wakes around 6am, though we've noticed that even on its lowest setting, the blue light is very bright in his room at night. Could this be messing with him? Any thoughts would be such a help! Thank you

[creations]

I think there is a way to turn the blue light off on the clock isn't there? sorry I don't have one but remembered reading about this as the blue light was effecting some LOs sleep.

If he willing goes down for an earlier nap I think I'd probably stick with it earlier just so that you have longer A before BT and possibly less resistance.

If his mood is okay after capping the nap this is also something you could continue with, the BT resistance might not resolve immediately though and often at this age you need to stick with a routine tweak for much longer to see the results.

I'd probably start the BT routine later, it can feel much calmer if you try a later BT (say 8pm rather than 7pm) with less resistance rather than the earlier BT with lots of resistance.  If there is a lot of fussing he could take himself past his ideal window of sleep too making BT later than it would if he was nice and calm.

Did you switch back to the daycare he did better at or is he still as the one he doesn't like?

[Buntybear]

It could be that day sleep is robbing his night sleep and he is ready to drop some of his nap now? Yes many LOs could have nice long naps in the day but then you get the resistance at BT or NWs and so you may need to start to cap the nap?

[MamaF]

Thanks so much for your replies! Yes, he is back at family daycare now (the smaller one) though he has exhibited signs of separation anxiety there too (he won't let the carer out of his sight, cries when I leave) and he hasn't had any of this behaviour since he settled in there early last year. So I think the daycare change has definitely unsettled him. But I didn't realise it can take a lot longer for a change in routine to kick in so we will stick with the 12pm nap for now and cap it and see how we go! I think you're also right Creations that he is going past his window at BT, so a consistently later bedtime will be the next thing we try if this doesn't work. And thanks for the tip re: the clock, I'll take a look!