2.5 yr old nap & bedtime struggles

crawfordk · May 2013

My son has been a great sleeper up until we took his paci's away over a month ago. He did okay for a few days but now it takes an hour to get him to nap & then he only sleeps for 30 min. It takes him forever to go to bed at night as well.

We are potty training & he is cutting his last 2 molars on the top. He wasn't this bad for the bottom 2. We do orajel & teething tabs. And motrin at night.

The first time this happened after the pacis were gone, I eventually took him to the dr b/c he got a fever after a week of not going to sleep well & he had a double ear infection. I took him back 2 weeks ago to get his ears checked since he is still fighting it & his ears were fine.

Is this some sort of regression? Mixed with teething & learning to potty?? What do we do? I can't handle going in his room 100x's. It puts me in the worse mood.

abs05 · May 2013

I'm guessing it is the age. My DD is 2.5 as well and we have some major sleep struggles recently. Naps have been nonexistant and overnight sleep has been really short. It's taking her atleast an hour to fall asleep at night and she is up between 5 and 6 in the morning. Right now I'm blaming teeth and developmental stuff.

DisneyFreeek · May 2013

My 2.5 year old has not napped in months. However, she is very good at night. I basically wear her out for 12 hours, and she sleeps for 12 hours. I stopped trying to make her nap once I knew she was just laying there awake for an hour or 2. I realized it was making her too calm, and we were having night time problems because she just wasn't tired enough. We also have a 1.5 year old, and lately she hasn't wanted to nap because sissy may be having fun without her. So I get no breaks during the day. My suggestion is stop trying to make him nap, and he should be tired enough to go down easy at night. Let him sleep until he wakes, to see how long he will go for. My girls tend to have a burst of energy right before bedtime, then we watch a 1 cartoon, and go to sleep.

KMEss86 · May 2013

We are in a sort of similar situation... My son is 27 months, and as of a couple months ago would only fall asleep nursing. I weaned him shortly after turning 2, and since then he will not nap. I think it is just that he cannot relax himself enough to fall asleep, unless it is dark and he is exhausted (bedtime). Its been about 2 months and he will now nap once in a while. He also takes forever to fall asleep at night.

olechka · May 2013

Blackout curtains did the trick to get us naps back, sometimes she naps for 2.5 hrs, sometimes she wakes up to go to the bathroom and thats the end of it.