Following toddler's cues for naps and bedtime testing my strength

[pantrygirl]

Since TG was born, we've been following her cues for her naps and bedtime.
Thankfully she's been pretty routine and enjoyed her naps and bedtime around the same time daily, give or take an hour or two.
Well, since we came back from vacation, where our naps and bedtime were shifted due to flights and traveling, she's taking later and later naps which leads to later bedtimes.
As of today she's napping around 3-4pm and waking up around 5-6pm. Because she wakes up so late, she gets tired around 10-11pm.
This is a bit late for this mommy but I'm trying to be as understanding of her routine as possible. I'm just hoping that she may move back to her 2pm nap & 8pm bedtime.
Anyone have any support or suggestions to help me get through this? Am I being too compliant with her body's schedule? I'm trying to help my almost two year old learn her body's cues about sleep and hunger etc but these late night bedtimes are trying this mommy.
Thanks.

[kalamos23]

Is she getting up later as well? What I have found to help DD reset sometimes (in fact, it's the only things that works) is to just get her up earlier in the morning - this makes her tired for nap earlier leading to an earlier bedtime.

[pantrygirl]

Originally Posted by kalamos23

Is she getting up later as well? What I have found to help DD reset sometimes (in fact, it's the only things that works) is to just get her up earlier in the morning - this makes her tired for nap earlier leading to an earlier bedtime.

Funny thing is she used to wake up later ensuring she had at least 10-11 hours of sleep. Nowadays, regardless of how late she falls asleep (usually it's around 11pm but once she fell asleep at 1am!) she wakes up at 9am on the nose.
Hmm, maybe I should try to wake her up earlier. I do cherish that extra hour though especially when I'm going to bed later because of her bedtime as well.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try waking her up a little earlier to see if that helps reset things.

[somanyjoys]

Can you set aside a week to give her some physical morning activities to really tire her out and nap earlier. Perhaps a week of that (I'm thinking swimming) might reset her routine. Wake up, morning chores, pool for a couple of hours, having lunch there, then home for nap.

[pantrygirl]

Originally Posted by somanyjoys

Can you set aside a week to give her some physical morning activities to really tire her out and nap earlier. Perhaps a week of that (I'm thinking swimming) might reset her routine. Wake up, morning chores, pool for a couple of hours, having lunch there, then home for nap.

Swimming! That always tires her out! It tires me out as we live in the city and need to travel to swim.
I think the suggestions are pretty much, wipe her out and hope that resets things. This sounds so logical. Unfortunately when you are running on less than 5 hours of sleep it's hard to think straight let alone have the energy to tire out your toddler who seems to run on cheese, fruit and crackers. Ok, mommy is going to have to grab some type of caffeinated drink that is safe for breastfeeding, find physical activities to get that energy out.
Thanks for the suggestions.

[somanyjoys]

I know just what you mean about being in the midst of a "problem" making it harder to get out of. FWIW, I drink caffeine while nursing (and pregnant.) Moderation.

[ssh]

My DD started taking later and later naps right after turning two until we dropped them at 27 months. Her sleep needs had just changed and she couldn't go to sleep unless she's been up about 8 hours. She also went from sleeping about 14 hours to sleeping 12. It was a really annoying couple of months for us.

It sounds like your DD is sleeping less at night and staying awake longer between sleep sessions so her sleep needs could be changing. She used to have 5 and then 4 hours long awake times and now it's up to 7 hours sometimes.