2.5 year sleep regression

[Mandy.kamal]

Is this a thing? My daughter is a few weeks shy of 2.5 and she’s been having terrible bedtime issues for about a month now. We were:

Up: 6:30
Nap: 1:00-3:00
Bedtime: 7:30

Give or take to all that.

Now she’s only sleeping 9-10 hours at night and bedtime is a battle nightly. It seemed to hit suddenly so I’m thinking regression over anything else. I’m tried capping her nap, EBT, new nightlight, bedtime chart, changing temp in her room.

This morning was a 5:00am wake up happy and chatty. She will be wrecked for a nap by 1:00 and will sleep until 3:00. Then bedtime will be 7:30/8:00 with her falling asleep closer to 9:00pm.

Just a messy and long day. Anyone else have/had this?

She never refuses a nap because her nights have gotten so short. It’s just taking her a long time to fall asleep at night with lots of fussing and stalling and I can’t get her nights to strech longer

[creations]

Is this a thing?

Yes it is a thing.
We had sleep disturbance every half birthday but it would be probably a month or a few weeks running up to it and then beyond too. Actually only this year we seem to have skipped it but I think that's because he is 7 years old and the stages of equilibrium and disequilibrium spread much further when they are this age (although he has just recently decided he can ignore his morning lights which is his cue he's allowed up).

Lots of kids are dropping their nap at this age though so it can be that too, it's likely that continuing a 2hr nap is impacting on nights and then because she's tired you let her have another 2hr nap.  It could help to reduce the nap time quite significantly, perhaps do it in stages of 15 min per day moving the nap later but ending it at the same time?
Mine didn't do well with a capped nap to be honest but most LOs seem to do well with it.  Mine was doing 2hr nap at 2.5yo and a month later dropped his nap cold turkey, gone, just like that.  Nights went longer.

During our half birthday regressions I generally shifted my DS's BT much later so we just didn't have the hour long battle at BT, he needed the sleep we all knew that but it was pointless going through the battle. Once he was through the regression I shifted BT back to normal and his nights lengthened again.

[Mandy.kamal]

Oh you are a lovely woman. Thank you, thank you.

I’ll ride it out just a bit because I feel in my gut it’s a regression and not needing a nap drop. Even when she was UT before, she would happily lay and chat. Now it’s her panicking and stalling and potty and milk and snack, etc.

My gut isn’t always right though!!

My son starts kindergarten August 1 so everything is going to be completely messed up for awhile and her naps will only be 45 mins to an hour because I’ll havw to get him from school.

I was worrying about the extremely long 13+ hour days but right now the later bedtime is at least letting her wake up past 5:30am...

[creations]

I’ll ride it out just a bit because I feel in my gut it’s a regression and not needing a nap drop.

Good attitude, sometimes they just need the extra attention rather than the routine changing. You'll probably work out if/when it does need changing though and you have that change coming up in a few weeks anyway.

stalling and potty and milk and snack,

I hear you!
Just as a bit of a side note. If there is a chance of a growth spurt I always offered an extra snack after dinner and before bath time for my DS, this way we mostly avoided the "I'm hungry" at BT.  There were a couple of times we had to come back downstairs for bread and butter though, he was clearly ravenous (again!) and I felt quite sorry for him.  He kind of knew we were just standing in the kitchen with the sole focus to eat and go back upstairs, no play, no chit chat, just food.

[Mandy.kamal]

So it’s normal for it to last a month or so?

I always want to do right by my kids and fear I’m doing something wrong when times like this pop up. Like in this case, if all she needs is a major nap capping and im thinking it’s just a regression and making her UT/OT because I’m reading her wrong, I’d feel terrible.

Starting tomorrow I’ll cap her nap at 1.5hrs or even 1hr 15mins to give her 2 full 45 min sleep cycles. I’ll still do the later, relaxed bedtime for now because that seems to ease the stress on us both at the moment. And just see how things go for the next couple weeks...

You’ve eased my mind. I’m so grateful.

[creations]

So it’s normal for it to last a month or so?

My DS's half birthday sleep disturbance does yes.  it's runs up to and past his half birthday (and also his birthday).

You can only do what you can do, don't feel terrible about it, you're trying your best which is all any of us can do.  It's very hard to know if it's purely regression or if it's nap dropping.

her 2 full 45 min sleep cycles

Most LOs sleep cycles have increased by 1yo (ish) to closer to the length of an adult cycle.  Have you observed her for cycle length and transitions?  It could be 1hr for a cycle length for example.  Some are fine if capped at a certain point, lighter sleep, which may be shorter than a full cycle.

[Mandy.kamal]

Execellent advice on the sleep cycles. I watch for her to stir in the monitor and wake her before she falls back asleep but I’ve never tracked it to see how long her cycles are.

I’ll do that today! She didn’t fight bedtime when I did a much later and relaxed wind down. She did a 10 hour night so was up at 6:40am. Much better than 5:00! Just looong days!

I’ll cap her nap to 1.5hrs and keep an eye on sleep cycles for the next couple days

[creations]

She did a 10 hour night

Not too bad considering.

At his worst mine was doing less than 9hrs, or 9hrs just about.  I did try nap capping but for him it didn't help, just got worse, so we did 2hr nap and 9 ish hr night, 11hr total.  When he dropped the nap he did all the sleep at night, it increased over time too so instead of 11hr over night I ended up with 12hr overnight. I couldn't believe it, he'd never done nights that long before. It lasted a good couple of years too.  So you have my sympathy for the long days but in all likely hood you will get shorter days in the not too distant future and can enjoy some Y time   It took me a bit of getting used to, I missed him when he went to bed so early!!

[Mandy.kamal]

I capped her nap today and bedtime was still late so capping may not be helping here either! I’ll stick with it and see. Much less stalling though! Just happy chatting now in her crib. Bedtime was still 8:45 by the time she fell asleep.

Yes....you nailed it with the missing them once they do finally sleep 11/12 hours and in bed early!

[Mandy.kamal]

If she went from super easy falling asleep at bedtime to a complete nightmare over a couple weeks then that’s a decent sign it’s the regression right??

It’s gotten bad with bedtime and she’s only napping 1.5 hours. It’s taking her an hour to fall asleep and I hate ending the day on such a low note with all the tears and frustration

[creations]

You could try really early BT to see if you can catch her before she gets OT and into that stalling and upset stage.
Or if it's still in the realm of "reasonable" BT even though it's late, put her to bed late to avoid some of the resistance.
It's hard to say which is the answer.  Putting to bed late helped me because it reduced the 1hr long frustration.
Taking a cup of tea and a book to my room (next to DS's) also helped as I just settled in and knew I was going to put in the time to keep calling back to him.