Two Year Old Refusing Naps and Going to Bed

This is fairly typical of kids this age. Remember, 2 year olds test EVERYTHING. That's a normal state of being for them. She wants to know if the rules about taking naps and going to bed really apply, and it's your job to reinforce that yes, the rules DO still apply. Rather than changing everything up, turning lights on, moving dinner time, etc etc etc, I would do exactly what you've always done. Changing things up is confusing to children this age, and unsettles them. Keep the routine the same, and if she gets up, walk her back to her bed. You can also tell her, "It's okay if you don't close your eyes. Just lay down so your body can rest." After all, nap time is not always about sleep, so much as it's a rest time. And any child who stays laying in bed at night will eventually fall asleep. As long as she's not screaming, it's no big deal if she falls asleep immediately, or 2 hours after you put her in bed.

In my experience, little ones tend to sleep best when they go to bed early (6pm at that age). I don't know why, but their internal clocks are different than ours. If they go to bed super late (10pm), they will wake up super early, almost guaranteed. Put her down early in as dark a room as she will accept (it's ok if she doesn't fall asleep immediately), and if she gets up, don't interact with her, just take her back to her bed. It may take several nights of doing this, but stick with it. If you allow her to sleep with you, she'll never leave your bed and you'll be stuck with a squirmy toddler for months or years to come! Don't do it! ;)

Good luck - it's a fun age, but has the potential to drive you crazy as well! LOL

My son started doing this at age 2. He dropped his nap completely and I was shocked since my daughter napped until she was 4 and a half. What I found out is that I had to put him to bed early. 4:30 some nights, and give him a very early dinner. If I put him to bed too late, even 7pm, he was up so early, but the earlier I put him to bed, the later he would sleep. I think he was overtired from not having his nap anymore, and so the later he went to bed the more overtired he was and the earlier he woke. Now at 3 and a half he can go to bed between 6:30 and 7pm, and sleeps til 7am. If I get him to bed later than that he is up around 6am. I would try putting her down really early for a few nights to see if it helps. I found once he was not so overtired anymore I could put him down a bit later and he was still okay, but at 2 his bedtime was usually 5:30 once he wasn't so overtired anymore. Good luck, this is always tough dealing with sleep issues.

My DD is almost 3 and we've been up and down this year with naps and bedtime too. Around 2.5 yrs old she went a couple weeks not napping in teh afternoons and I was afraid our afternoon nap was gone (she'd fool around in her room...as long as she wasn't crying, I'd just leave her there for "quiet play time".). Eventually she went back to napping. With kids, everyting is a phase! We just need the patience to wait for things to change!

She also started getting up at 6am a couple months ago, but again, after 2-4 weeks that wore off and she's back to normal wake-ups.

As for bed, she's been fooling around more at bedtime (7:30pm). I often hear her up in her room singing, talking for a good hour or more after I've put her there. I just leave her. With summer, she'll get more exercise and hopefully be wiped out by bedtime!

Oh lordy, this is my house right now. Ds is 18 months old and for the last couple of weeks he's been waking up all hours of the night and being cranky/refusing to sleep. He's never slept great, but at least he would go BACK to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. Lately, not so much. Tonight was awful, I could have sworn he was possessed. Same routine, same bedtime, everything is fine - then he gets put in the crib and freaks out. He screamed horribly for close to 30 minutes. I sat in there the whole time and tried to comfort him but he just screamed and screamed until he fell asleep. I told dh and he said: "They're called the terrible twos for a reason". Yup....