What is your two year old's bedtime?

[Namaste Amma]

My DD will be two in about a month. She is a horrible sleeper, has been since about 7 months old. I could never have imagined that sleep would be this awful. My 12 year old son was a difficult sleeper, or so I thought, but this is a whole different ballgame. We are working hard right now to reset her internal clock so that she is sleeping at NIGHT. In Pantley's No Cry Toddler Sleep Solution she suggests that most toddlers do best going to bed between 6:30 and 7:30pm. I cannot imagine how that would work for us! So, what does your LO's sleep schedule look like? What time do they go to sleep/wake, nap, etc? I know it will vary per child/family, but a general idea would help us.

Thanks!

[corrieoseal]

Ours changes with the time change. I think DD's internal clock is pretty firmly set. During daylight saving time, DD goes to bed at 8:45-9pm. She wakes around 7-7:30. (And usually once briefly during the night for about 5 minutes where DH goes in, tucks her blanket again and gives her a drink of water.) She naps from about 2-5 most afternoons. (Sometimes there is about a half and hour variation and sometimes she plays and sings for a half hour or more before falling asleep, but she generally naps about three hours.)

When daylight saving time ends, her bedtime shifts to around 8 and everything else moves up about an hour. (Though I'm really hopeful that she'll at least sleep until 6:45-7 this winter. Last year we had some very painful 5am wake ups.)

[GardenStream]

Bedtime is 8:45 or 9:00. We do this because that's the time that our older DS needs to go to bed. They both get up about 7 or 7:30 in the morning. Our 2 year old generally naps for 2 hours in the afternoon as well.

[mommydesi]

My DD (2 1/2 but has been on this routine for probably a year) goes to bed between 8:30p and 9:00p, wakes about 7:00a-8:00a. She generally goes down for a nap between 12:30-2:00p and sleeps for 2-2 1/2 hours.
I will say the poor girl has had A LOT of sleep issues. To the point where we were seeing a sleep specialist when she was about 1 1/2 years old. She's doing better than then, but still has nights where she's up for 2-4 hours in the middle of the night.
She's always been one that really likes a routine. Like when we're going to bed she has certain steps we follow or she will let us know if we miss one . So we try really hard to start the routine as soon as we see she is getting tired. It really helps her to know when bedtime is coming.

[mama_ani]

My youngest is 2 years 5 months and bedtime routine starts at 6:30 and she is usually asleep just after 7pm. She does not nap at all. She gets up between 6 and 8 a.m. depending on whether her brother wakes her up or not.

[marispel]

We start DS (2 yr) bath at 7:30, which usually lasts 15 minutes between playing, bathing and changing into jammies. We read 3-4 books while DS drinks his bottle (only at bedtime). We listen to a lullaby CD. It usually takes 15-20 minutes to drink the bottle, then we quickly brush his teeth and say night-night. We turn on a sound machine and we put him in his crib. He will usually talk on/off for 10-30 minutes and then go to sleep.

He naps from 12-2 during the week and usually longer on the weekends.

We do this routine every.single.night.

[4Marmalade]

My 26 month old twins go to sleep around 7pm and wake up for the day around 6am. They nap for about 2 hours (usually from about 12-2pm).

[CinCanada]

I've been wondering about this too lately.
My DD just turned 2 & in the last weeks has gone from a pretty consistent nurse-to-sleeper around 8pm to still asking to sleep between 7:30-8 but then as soon as her head hits the pillow she gets a sudden 2nd wind that has her WIDE awake for at least another 2hrs. I find this soooo frustrating & it doesn’t help that my husband & I differ slightly in opinion on how to handle the situation. She wakes between 6:30-7 to go to daycare & he often has trouble getting her to wake up. She naps for 1.5 hrs around 12:30 @ daycare. My tendency is to try & get her to maintain the earlier bedtime by following our toothbrushing, story, nursing routine & then turn down the lights & stay in the room but remain as boring & un-interactive as possible in hopes that she starts to learn to put herself to sleep (no CIO at all, just being firm that this is bedtime). Hubby on the other hand has just discovered that he is able to put her to sleep if he reads to her for 1.5-2hrs & then sometimes rocks her after that. He claims she just isn’t tired while I think that the extra stimulation just keeps her up longer. Anyway, not to hijack but I’m trying to decide whether I should try & change things or just keep my nose out of it since he likes the cuddle time & is so proud of this new development of playing a more active roll in bedtime… I also think a 2-3hr bedtime routine is unreasonable.
No advice I guess, just really sympathising. Maybe I’m missing an earlier sleep window but with our work schedules dinner does not usually hit the table until 6:15-6:30 & finishes around 7 so if we had her in bed by 7:30 there would be virtually no time spent together playing during the week.

[daniturtle]

We start the routine at 8ish, usually asleep by 8.45pm. But we are trying to move it to starting the routine at 7ish, whenever we've done this everything goes much more smoothly and she still sleeps until 7, 7.30am.

Nighttime sleep lately has been perfectly awful though- for example, last night she woke up 5 times!!!! That's more than she woke up as a newborn for frick's sake. Add to that, I'm having insomnia issues getting back to sleep after I get her back to sleep = one pissed off Mami! So we're going to get out our copy of NCSS for toddlers and make some changes.

[JBaxter]

on a 3 hr nap day its 930-10 on a 1 hr nap day 830-9.

[EzzysMom]

Mine went to bed around 8:15 at that age. Now it's more like 8:45. She used to get up around 6, more like 6:30-7 now, which we are happier with!

[GreenMomPhD]

My daughter is 27 months old. She goes to bed at 7pm and gets up around 7am. She takes a 2hr nap during the day. We read and rock her before bed for maybe 15 minutes max, then put her in her crib. Sometimes she goes right to sleep, and other times she is awake and talking, playing in her crib, etc. for an hour or more. I figure that she just wasn't tired, but she's fine in her crib looking at books, etc. We rarely go back in and get her, we just let her fall asleep on her own. In the morning, I never go and get her before 7am, even if she's awake. She usually just reads books in the crib and talks to herself, she never seems to fuss in the morning.

[globe-trotter]

my 13month old has a STRONG internal clock. He has gone to bed between 9-10 PM since he was 4 months old. What does change is how frequent he is "up" during the night. normally every 3 hrs for 1-3mins. And then up at 9-10 AM. I love it!
During the day he takes 15.-3 hr nap.... it depends on what we are doing though, he can easily stay up all day and be fine!
If he went to bed before 7:30 PM he wouldn't ever see his father, so I'm glad he has a late clock.

[Nicole730]

DS sleeps about 11 hours a night, sometimes more, sometimes less. Goes to bed b/w 7-8pm, wakes up b/w 6-8am. Takes a 2-3 hour nap about half the days.

[~cassie]

Right now my 2 yr old is getting up around 630(I wake him), napping from 1230/1-3, and then in bed by 7-8. I prefer 7 so he gets enough sleep at night b/c I have to wake him early to get the big boys to school.

[not_telling]

Until recently, DS (2 yrs) slept in our bedroom...which for us meant we all went to bed at the same time. Now he's in his own room but we're still on the same schedule:

DS is usually asleep by 10:30-10:45pm (this will have to change when we start preschool at 3 yrs).

DS and I get up for the day b/w 8:30 and 9:30am.

He naps for about 1.25-2 hours in the afternoon.

[happysmileylady]

My 22 month old has fortunatly been a fabulous night time sleeper (naps were a whole other issue) since around 2 or 3 months old. She set herself up on a natural bedtime of around 9:30 to 10:30...and gets up between 8am and 9am. Works for us, we are nighttime people and prefer to sleep late anyway.

[sapphire_chan]

If she naps, around 11pm/midnight. If she doesn't nap, around 9:30 and we get to deal with night terrors.

When she was younger, she'd frequently have her 3rd nap from 7-9/10 before she went to sleep at midnight.

Any time someone suggest a "one size fits all" solution, I look forward to the next Friday 13 (the day when karma, good or bad, comes home to roost.)

[luvmybaby333]

My 2-year-old goes to bed between9 and 10:30pm. Usually it is later, rather than earlier. We wake up between 8:30 and 10:30 am. My oldest daughter usually wakes up on the early side of that, then I wake up (after having gone to bed much later than both of them) and finally the 2-year-old wakes up last. We homeschool and my DH works second shift, so the later schedule works fine for us. The only problem we have is that my younger daughter starts getting kinda sleepy around noon. She will fight it for HOURS, though. She doesn't always take a nap, but when she does it usually isn't until somewhere between 4 & 6pm. It lasts for a couple of hours, she wakes up super cranky, and then she's pretty difficult to put to sleep at "bedtime". I think we'd be doing really well if we could figure out what was up with her cranky/ sleepy/ naptime pattern.

[OkiMom]

Mine goes to bed between 730 and 830 most nights (unless something out of the ordinary happens like DH works late) and is up between 430-630 depending on how well she sleeps. She takes one 1-2 hour nap, time depends on when she wakes up