Talking for an hour before naps and night

[kim&savannah]

I'm sure this is pretty normal--I know I've read others asking about it, but I can't remember if there was any advice that might apply.

Savannah has recently started talking for an hour or so after I put her to bed at nap time, and then for a little shorter time at night.  I honestly can't imagine that she isn't tired since she'll yawn and act sleepy until I set her down in her crib.  In fact, I've wondered if she's been overtired because we've had busy days, but I'm trying to put her down in plenty of time. 

This is her day:

6:30 or so wake up
7:30 breakfast
10:00 snack
11:30/12:00 lunch
12:30 stories and wind down
12:45/1:00 bed
2:00 finally asleep
4:00 up, snack
5:30 dinner
6:30 bath, snack
7:15 stories, wind down
7:30 bed

The problem is that her nap is getting late, so it's pushing bedtime later--and typically, if she doesn't fall asleep before 8 (which she hasn't done in 3 nights), then she wakes up earlier--one morning was 5:50, the others have actually not been so bad--just after 6, but I'm wondering if this is a normal transition for kids this age or if I should be putting her down earlier, or later.  I feel a little bad when she's in her crib for over 3 hours every afternoon (I guess I should stop feeling guilty and just enjoy the time since she was a pretty bad napper for the first year and has always been erratic.

~Kim

[sacmommy]

This pretty much describes my dd, and a few others I know on this site! If she's still putting herself to sleep, I would try to go with it as much as possible. Maybe try putting her down just 20 minutes earlier, and see if it's still just an hr to get herself to sleep, then she's going down a bit earlier.

[Carmela's Mom]

Yup it's my DD to a T ... it started around 19-20 months I'd say and we are still going through it.  She'll take a break for a few weeks and then go right back at it.  One thing I did was not push back her bedtime.  I did at first and it backfired, so I still put her in at 7-7:15.  Usually it takes about 1-1.5 hour to go to sleep for her nap.  That STINKS.  I put her in at 12:30 like you and just wait it out and usually by 2:15 the latest she's sleeping.  I wake her at 3:30 to preserve our 7 p.m. bedtime.  Normally she'll fall asleep by 8 p.m. sometimes a few minutes later.  But like you, we just started again with the early wakings ... a few days they were before 6  

I'm going with teh flow and staying consistent for now.  I know she's getting some molars and am hoping that once they are all in, we are back on track.  We'll see!

Keep me posted if you try anything different!  I'd love to know what works for this.

[kim&savannah]

Thanks--that is kind of what I thought.  We'll just keep riding it out and stick to our nap and bedtime schedule as much as possible.  We're having some night wakings I think due to the last eye-tooth (teething has been a total bear for us), so mornings are a bit off schedule anyway (this a.m. she didn't wake up until 7:40 but she was up for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night).  maybe this will sort itself out-- I don't mind if she doesn't fall asleep until 8 so long as she doesn't wake us up at 5:45!   Actually, last night she went down around 7 and was asleep 15 min. later, but she'd only had a 1 hour nap (and woke up grouchy from that, so she was tired).  We'll just have to see.  She's never been very predictable.

~Kim

[Mel55]

I know when my daughter was napping she did the same thing, she'd be in her crib for at least an hour before sleeping--now she doesn't even sleep.  Anyway, I found that the earlier she went to bed, the night waking stopped and she was much more bearable during the day as she'd had a full night's sleep.  I put her down at night at around 6 or 6:30 -- which I know sounds early but it worked.  She'd go to sleep without a cry or a fuss whereas if I put her down at 7:30 or 8 she'd scream for a good 45 minutes before finally going to sleep.  Sometimes them being overtired by just an hour or two can make all the difference.  It worked for me anyway.