2 1/2 year old taking 2+ hours to fall aslee...ADVICE PLEASE

[bdoody11]

This is a new situation for us so I thought I would turn to the wise mamas of MDC.

Within the last week she has started taking over 2 hours to get to sleep. She still naps and she was pretty reliable with her bedtime prior to this most recent episode. You could pretty much count on the fact that she would fall asleep 7 hours after she woke up from her nap. So if she woke up at 2pm she when went to bed at 9pm, etc. Well that is all out the window. She nurses, tosses, turns, talks, sings, tries to walk around, go to her room, come back ours, rock in the rocking chair, etc. My DH and I take turns with her, but she is definitely not ready to go to sleep on her own. If we leave her up there alone she cries. Sadly, this really tires her out, but I don't want to CIO. I've done it when I'm at my wits end, but I really hate it.

She is almost 34 months and I'm thinking of cutting out nap. What do you think? When she doesn't nap she is asleep by 8pm a the latest.

She is just so exhausted. Last night she got 9 hours of sleep and she was clinging to me at school this morning and rubbing her eyes. I feel so bad for her. Of course I'm thinking forward to when the baby comes and this absolutely cannot continue. I'm not really worried about that considering we have a long time to go, but still.

And advice or similar stories would be appreciated.

[Maluhia]

I think that is the age where we slowly removed the nap, first by it being shorter and shorter and then by keeping her awake/busy in that time. It helped the falling asleep

[bdoody11]

Thank you for your reply!

Yes, we have decided the nap had to go. We skipped it on Friday and she was asleep by 7:45pm and slept 12 hours. Yesterday, we let her take a 45 minute nap and she was up until 10:30.

Today was much like Friday and we intend to keep going down this path as long as it makes sense.

I'm 14 weeks pregnant and very hormonal so I've been having a bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around all of this. I definitely was not so confident in my decision a few days ago. Thankfully I have a lot of experienced mamas around me reassuring me that this is the right thing.

[Peony]

I stopped DD2's naps last summer when she was 2.5 because of the same problem. It took a couple months for everything to fall into place. Like if we drove somewhere later in the day then she'd fall asleep and that would push bedtime later. And some days no naps were fine and she was great with it, others days, oh my was she a grump. In the end it was well worth it just be aware that there is a transition period.

[Drummer's Wife]

I agree with skipping her nap and seeing how it goes. It could be a little rough, though, where she is grumpy by late afternoon for a while until she gets used to it.

Or, what about pushing bedtime back an hr or two? Or do you think she'd still take so long to settle down to sleep?

I think as they get older some LO's just seem to need less sleep. My youngest is 32 mos. and doesn't nap most days - yet he will sometimes wake up at 9 am and stay up until 11 pm - he's go, go, go. But then he might sleep in a bit later the next morning. I just follow his lead, as it works for our family.

[SollysMom]

My DS is 26 months and I'm expecting another baby this month, and we have a similar problem. He's never been an easy sleeper, but he used to sleep/nap fairly consistently. Lately he's been taking forever to get to bed, and not going to bed before 11:00 most nights. He'll get around 9 hours at night and often be difficult to get down for his nap, but then once he's asleep he'll nap for 2.5-3.5 hours (which is longer than he used to nap for). I hate to cut out his nap because he seems to really need it - he wouldn't sleep so long if he wasn't tired right? - but nighttime has been such a struggle. We're also struggling because no matter what time he goes to bed (anytime between 9:00/9:30 and 11:00/11:30) he always wakes up sometime around 2:00 AM to nurse. And then if I can unlatch him, he'll keep waking up every hour or so until I just let him sleep latched on.... which can be painful and uncomfortable with me as pregnant as I am. We've tried to nightwean because of the new baby coming, but it's been a huge struggle AND DS's molars are coming in. And by now, I worry that even if we have some nightweaning success, we'd most likely have a huge setback when the baby comes.

I'm tempted to try giving up the nap, because at this point we don't know what else to do.... but the few times he's ever not napped he's been VERY grouchy in the evening and will often fall asleep if we have to drive anywhere or if we nurse in the late afternoon... which makes bedtime even harder of course.

[bdoody11]

Originally Posted by Peony

I stopped DD2's naps last summer when she was 2.5 because of the same problem. It took a couple months for everything to fall into place. Like if we drove somewhere later in the day then she'd fall asleep and that would push bedtime later. And some days no naps were fine and she was great with it, others days, oh my was she a grump. In the end it was well worth it just be aware that there is a transition period.

Yes, we are definitely in the transition period. She does pretty well up until about 4:30pm and then the crabbies come out. I'm also avoiding driving with her in the afternoon.

[Luke's mama]

sollysmom--I am embarrassed to keep posting on this, but have you tried a pacifier for nighttime only when ds wants to be latched on?
Just a thought.