2.5 year old not falling/staying asleep

tracyl0826

My LO has always woken up at some point during the night, talked to himself a bit, then gone back to sleep.  However, recently it's getting much worse.  We usually have him in bed between 8-9pm.  However, he doesn't fall asleep for about 1.5 hours.  He stays in his bed (toddler bed) and talks, sings, laughs, etc.  He doesn't cry, call for us or get out of bed.  He then will wake up at some point either in the middle of the night or very early morning.  He may or may not go back to sleep.  I've determined that he's only getting about 8 hours of actual sleep during the night.  It seems that he's using the time to talk about the things in his head, he sings songs, talks about his day, etc.  He still naps well (2-3 hours at school, 4 hours on the weekends).  Any suggestions on how I can get him to sleep sooner/longer?  Thank you!!

ELF4321

It sounds like his naps are quite long, which might be making it harder for him to sleep at night. My daughter has always been on the low end of sleep norms, and usually sleeps 10-10.5 hours at night plus 1.5-2 hours nap. . I do think it's more beneficial to get more at night. Perhaps you should try cutting naps off at 2 hours and see if that improves thing at night.

The other thing with my daughter is that she takes a long time to unwind at night. The wheels in her brain just can't stop spinning. Sounds like your LO may be similar. After dinner, around 6:45, DH sits and reads a few books with her (or we do a bath on those nights). Then we go upstairs for potty time around 7 (usually 10 Minutes including more books), toothbrushing, jammies, another bedtime story, rocking and talking about our day or singing for another 15-20 minutes. Then in bed around 7:45. And it still takes her another 30 minutes of talking to herself before falling asleep. We tried just putting her to bed later with a shorter routine, but then she actually got overtired and took even longer to fall asleep.

tracyl0826

Thanks, I was thinking the start of the bedtime routine is probably a little on the late side.  I think I will try to get him upstairs and starting to unwind a little earlier to see if that helps.  I think he is becoming overtired and having a harder time falling asleep.

SusieBW

That seems like a long nap to me, too.  Maybe try waking him from naps a little sooner.

DD usually naps for about 1.5 hours at school and 2-2.5 at home on weekends.  Occasionally she'll sleep for 3 or more on a weekend, if we did something huge in the morning, but it's rare.  She's in bed between 8-9 and usually stays up talking and singing for 30-45 minutes.  She mostly wakes up on her own around 7-7:30, so I'd say she gets about 10 hours of sleep a night.

junebugrbig

SusieBW said:

That seems like a long nap to me, too.  Maybe try waking him from naps a little sooner.

This...I am all for letting kids sleep but if it is going to interfere with night time sleep, I would cut down the length of the nap...unless they are sick or need it for some other reason.  

TeacherVicky

Seems like the naps are a little long and bedtime is too late. You're probably missing his natural window of sleepiness.

I would aim for a 1.5-2.5h nap and to move bedtime up to 7-7:30. Also, if he's getting any screen time before bed, I would aim to cut that out as well (for the hour before he goes to bed).

DiveFrog

This ALWAYS happen with DD if we let her nap too long, or too late in the afternoon. We have a set rule that naps are not allowed to be longer than 2hrs. and she is not allowed to sleep past 4:30pm regardless of how long she has been down.

During the week she is in bed by 8-8:30 and falls asleep about 9:00-9:30. We wake her at 6:30, so she is getting on average about 9hrs. at night and 2 during the day. On the weekends when we don't have to wake her up in the morning, she is much more likely to sleep 11-12hrs. straight through and then either not nap, or nap only for an 30min-1hr.

meglette417

I would just say the bedtime may not be too late, DS goes to bed between 8-9 as well and has been reading for a while afterwards before falling asleep.  I thought he was going to bed too late so we tried going to bed earlier.  It just made it worse and he ended up staying up later.  So no help with bedtime we just let him do it.  For naps they def sound too long.