What time does your toddler go to bed?

[katy1310]

Hello

I'm just after some advice on bedtimes and naps etc and hoping that you can tell me what your toddlers do.

Sophie is 22 months actual age (but 19 months corrected, ie the age she should be if she hadn't been 3 months premature). She has been in a good bedtime routine for ages, bath just before 7, milk, bed, but over the past few weeks she has been refusing to go to sleep!

More often than not, it can be 1am till she goes to sleep - her mind seems to be so active just now, she's always busy practising her words, and just so hyper at night!

She naps early afternoon and doesn't seem to have much problem settling for her nap (although sometimes she will fight it but ends up sleeping as soon as we go out, so she obviously still needs it).

I've tried getting her up early, trying to tire her out through the day, we usually just try to settle her in her room without putting the lights on etc. We don't go to her with every little squeak, so that she doesn't think we'll immediately appear, but if she starts getting upset we do go.

It usually ends up that after lots of manic laughter all evening, she gets really upset around 1 and one of us goes to cuddle her and she falls asleep on us. She is tired, just won't give in!

I was just wondering if we should make her bedtime any later? What time do your toddlers of a similar age go to bed?

Thank you in advance from a very knackered mummy

 

[DebzD]

Our toddler is 18 months so a bit younger than yours but she goes to bed 8.15-8.30 if she's had any sort of nap (eg in the car on way home etc) or 7.45-8ish if she's not had a nap. Not really got any advice coz I truly believe each toddler is different but how long does she nap for in the afternoon? Could that be stopping her sleeping at night? My LO doesn't go down for a nap most days but that's her choice rather than mine, when she's not having a nap we try to get her to have an hour or so of chill out time coz she gets a bit grumpy when she's tired. Have noticed that on the days where she does nap, she'll tend to mess around in her cot after going to bed for up to 1-2 hours before going to sleep, don't know what she does exactly coz we just leave her to it! - she doesnt complain or anything, but we can hear her on the monitor moving round and talking/singing to herself etc.

 

[joannemc]

sorry i cant offer any advise, have just started a thread asking for suggestions to get my son to bed before 9pm, hes 16 months, and i personally feel this is way too late, plus its knakering, isnt it. hope some of the ladies on here can offer you some advise x

 

[faun]

Billy goes to bed at 7pm he normally plays a bit in his room but is usually asleep by 7.30-8pm if he has a nap there is no chance of him getting to sleep before 11pm. Luckily he doesn't nap anymore but i found for about 4 months when he was 21-25months it was horrendous as he still needed a nap but then wouldn't sleep at night. In the end i got an alarm clock and set it for 30mins and let him have a 30min nap which was short enough that he slept at night. He would be grumpy when i woke him from his nap but after a drink and snack he was happy again.

 

[katy1310]

Our toddler is 18 months so a bit younger than yours but she goes to bed 8.15-8.30 if she's had any sort of nap (eg in the car on way home etc) or 7.45-8ish if she's not had a nap. Not really got any advice coz I truly believe each toddler is different but how long does she nap for in the afternoon? Could that be stopping her sleeping at night? My LO doesn't go down for a nap most days but that's her choice rather than mine, when she's not having a nap we try to get her to have an hour or so of chill out time coz she gets a bit grumpy when she's tired. Have noticed that on the days where she does nap, she'll tend to mess around in her cot after going to bed for up to 1-2 hours before going to sleep, don't know what she does exactly coz we just leave her to it! - she doesnt complain or anything, but we can hear her on the monitor moving round and talking/singing to herself etc.

She was going for her nap at 12ish, just after her lunch, and up by 1.30/2ish and then going down fine at 7. Now that she's got into this awful routine, and getting up a bit later in the mornings, she's going a little bit later, maybe 1/1.30, and napping for no more than 1.5 hours if that. Sometimes she only has half an hour, sometimes she refuses altogether if she doesn't nap in her cot and isn't out in the car or her pushchair.

I really thought getting her up early might break the cycle but it hasn't, she still stays awake as late as ever!

I wonder if we should try putting her down a little bit later at night.

x

 

[BabyJ'sMummy]

We had bother about a month ago with Rhys and I thought it was maybe to do with his nap but it turned out it wasn't. He had been sleeping fine (going down between 7 and 8pm) then all of a sudden he would cry whenever we put him down at night and would throw his toys out of the cot. We tried lying him back down and giving him his toys back, staying in the room until he went to sleep but nothing seemed to work. In the end we had to do controlled crying, going in after 5 mins, then 10 mins etc and just saying ssshh Mummy is here, it's time to go to bed and it worked. We haven't had a problem since and he no longer needs his dummy either.

Does she want you to go in to the room? I think the reason Rhys started playing up was because on Christmas day at my sister's we tried to put him to sleep but he wouldn't go so we brought him back downstairs, he must have associated the crying with the getting back down to play. xx

 

[mumandco]

Zack hardly ever naps and when he does it's usually around 12ish and fir about half an hour he goes to sleep at 6 and he's 16 months Tyler is 3 but nothing has changed since he was 18months he has a nap in the day (not always any more) around 11ish and will sleep an hour and a half he then goes to bed at 7,sometimes he lies awake talking until 9 but more often than not he's sleeping by 7:30 and then he wakes about 6:30

 

[Alias]

My DD is 21 months, 20 corrected. She naps at around 12 for 1-2 hours (never let her go past 2) and then is in bed sometime between 7:30 and 8 usually. I have found that whenever we start having trouble getting her to sleep or nap then it's time to start working at dropping a nap. When DD dropped her afternoon nap, we had issues for a while with her falling asleep in the car on the way home. But after a week or two she got used to it and stayed awake. If she sometimes skips her nap entirely, then I think I'd work at trying to drop it.

 

[nonnysmommy]

dd is almost 19 months and goes to bed at 7. Rarely she fights it until as late as 9pm. She gets a 2 hour nap everyday. When she goes to bed at 7, she usually sleeps between 10 and 13 hours. If it's later, she sleeps between 8 and 10 hours. So, we try to stay right at 7. She goes into her crib at 7 and by 7:30, I no longer hear her playing around.

 

[Natasha2605]

Have you tried taking her nap away? We've had to do that with Summer in the past fortnight and although it was difficult at first she's now so much better for it! She now sleeps 7pm till 8am ish without any difficulty!

To be fair to Sophie though, she is hilarious! I love reading your FB status' about her at bedtimes meowing and making noises into the monitor haha!

 

[tu123]

My DD is 21 months, 20 corrected. She naps at around 12 for 1-2 hours (never let her go past 2) and then is in bed sometime between 7:30 and 8 usually. I have found that whenever we start having trouble getting her to sleep or nap then it's time to start working at dropping a nap. When DD dropped her afternoon nap, we had issues for a while with her falling asleep in the car on the way home. But after a week or two she got used to it and stayed awake. If she sometimes skips her nap entirely, then I think I'd work at trying to drop it.

I agree with this. When we had issues with Lil's sleep, dropping one nap was one way we manged to get back on track

 

[Natsku]

Maria is quite a bit younger but she won't go to sleep til at least midnight (often as late as 2) when she used to go to bed really easily at 6:30. Wish I had an answer, been trying to put her to bed earlier and it just doesn't work

 

[babyjiva]

later than 1am? I don't understand. or did i read something wrong.

i agree with tweaking the nap. we found that if our LO napped any later than 1pm, she would be up later than we wanted her to. if she napped any later than 4pm then we were in big trouble!!! it took us a while to pin it down but in the end we did realize that 1pm was the nap cut off time.

she now goes to bed between 7:30-8:00 and her silly laughing energizing time is between 6-bedtime. i know what you mean, they get so energized you think they can't be tired but that's actually a sign of overtired-ness and chances are good that they are acting up also because they are aware that bedtime is coming. it's a fun time of the night, but you should be using it to focus on winding your LO down because what it probably means is that LO is tired.

don't get me wrong, we've still got sleep problems, but we've finally managed to get her down by a decent time and that's how.

 

[dizzyisacow]

ari is 3 years in 2 months, he used to have 1 hour nap from 2-3 and then wouldnt sleep until 11 at night so i cut his nap out entirely and now he sleeps from 7/8 until 8 in the morning.

theo is 11 months and im at a loss as to what to do with him. he sometimes has 2 naps a day sometimes one, he gets tired at around 7/8pm but if he sleeps he is wide awake 30 minutes later and wont sleep until 11-12 looking for ideas on here to see what to do.

 

[katy1310]

Well Sophie didn't nap yesterday, she went to bed and straight to sleep....but 10pm she was wide awake again and practising all her words!! We heard her whispering "daddy" over the monitor (she whispers till she gets things right!) then "Good!" once she got it, then something else followed by "No no no no no!" then she started doing laps of her cot and squealing "running!"

She was awake till about 1.30am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Samemka]

Katie (14 months) 6-6:30pm
Emma (2.5 years) 7pm

They tend to wake up 7-7:30am

 

[hardworknmama]

Cormac is 19 months and he goes to bed at 8pm, asleep no later than 830pm. He has a nap at 1pm and will sleep for 2 to 3 hours. He wakes in the morning between 7 and 8am. I put him in bed at the same time every night, regular nap length or not. Of course it helps that Daddy is already in bed and I take his older brother upstairs to do his bedtime so it's nice and quiet in the house for him. He seems to fall asleep better the quieter it is.

 

[Kelz22]

My LO goes to bed about 8pm - 8.30pm.