19 month old staying up too late...

[Ninetales]

My 19mo old, my husband, and I all sleep together.  The routine has always been very loose and it hasn't been a problem before now.  Once she could sleep without being in my lap, my daughter has slept more or less fine in the big bed on her own for naps and bedtime.  For the last six months or so the general routine has been to put my daughter down between 8 and 9, my husband and I going in around 10 or 10:30.

Suddenly about three weeks ago everything fell apart.  She started staying up very late, like past midnight.  I'd try to put her down several times but she just bounced around, squealed, and laughed.  Or got up and went to the door.  Staying up late made her sleep late, and then nap late, and then go to bed late, and on and on like that.

I've tried to break the cycle several times - taking her for a drive so she'd sleep a bit in the car and wake up when we got home, skipping her nap so she'd be forced to go down early, etc.  It works for a day or so and then she's right back on the new night owl schedule.

I really don't care to stay up that late or sleep that late.  I prefer going to bed myself no later than 11:30 pm and would rather wake up around 8 or 8:30.  I get exhausted and very irritable staying up so late and feel like I lose half the day by sleeping in, especially with the days getting shorter.  My husband can't help me with the late nights because he has to be up for work at 3:30 am.  So I'm alone too.

She's not waking up in the night or anything like that.  She just seems to want to stay on a very late schedule.  Transitioning her to her own bed is not something I'm interested in at the moment.  I really hate waking her when she does sleep - is that something I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with to get her used to an earlier routine?  Or should I be sucking it up and letting her choose the routine that she likes best?

She's a very early teether and I think I see signs of the second molars coming in.  Combine that with a suspected growth spurt and possible language explosion on the horizon and maybe her little body is just too busy to sleep right now.  I don't know.  Any suggestions?

[voca]

I'd recommend you read Sleepless in America if you haven't.

However, you can expect sleep disruptions every six months or so. My daughters always came on the milestone months 6, 12, 18, etc., but your little one may just be a month behind that. The problem might well resolve itself in a month or so.

[Asiago]

From about 20 until 22 months my son's sleep routine fell apart. We co-sleep and he goes to sleep when we do between 9-10 pm, then sleeps until 8-9 am. 

All was going well for months on end, then we experienced a little bit of difficulty. He'd either wake up strangely early or take an hour to get to sleep at night, just things of that nature. 

Everything is back to normal now, I just was patient and went along with it.

I do think growth and developmental changes has an effect on sleep patterns. I just rolled with it and it took a couple of months but now we are back to the regular routine.

[octobermom]

 Mines jsut a bit younger but we recently went through the same thing.. In the end we discovered she was jsut staying up way to late in the first place. I now get her to bed around 6:30pm she'll sleep eaither in her bed ot ours till around midnight wake enough to find me if I haven't already gone to bed then cosleep till around 5:30 am.. I'm not 100% keen on the am wake time but its still better overall sleep before it was awake from about an hour after bedtime around 9-10pm then up from like midnight-4am just happy as could be for HER mama was going crazy.