Bedtime Routines for a 2 Year Old

Sounds normal to me! My 2 year old has just recently been staying up later too (mostly because I am very pregnant and too tired to go through the routine and put it off until he's loopy!) But ever since he was little I would put him down and he would just babble and play until he fell asleep. I think as long as she's not seeming tired the next day that you should just continue what you're doing. She'll fall asleep when she's ready and I don't see that stretching out the nighttime routine would add any benefit. Just my 2 cents!

hi M., my neighbor has an almost 3 year old girl and she does about the same thing. she does do a little warning to her daughter maybe about 30 min before bedtime to let her know its soon. and that seems to help her gear up for bedtime. i agree with some of the other moms and maybe do a little longer pre-bed routine to help her wind down more.

Sounds like you have a good routine and if she is not crying, no harm done. If she talks all night, so be it. As long as she is not crying and in distress, I see no real problem here. If she is sleepy at the wrong times later, she will probably adjust herself to your schedule with time. At two, children begin to test their powers. For her, it's probably just a control issue -- she has control over when she falls asleep. As long as you do not adjust your schedule or your routine to change with her changing her own sleep patterns, you will be okay and so will she. She will on her own adjust to the right schedule.

What time are you putting her to bed?
That routine is pretty standard I think.
and the talking in the bed , I would just leave her , shes not fussing , shes just having a hard time finally settling down and the babbling to herself prob helps. You can not force them to go to sleep. That starts a whole new battle you will not win.

Try to put her to bed 30 minutes later. Dim the lights 30 minutes before and have it a little quite in the house before bed. Just let her talk to she falls alseep, if she is gettting at least 9 hours of sleep she is fine. Does she tkes naps. If she does let her tke short ones no more than 2 hours.

Childcare provider and a mother of 3

My kid was like that, too, at 2. Still is, now that he's 5. Takes forrrever in the bath, wants to stay until his fingers AND toes are all shrivelled up, then he can't RESIST running around after the bath - it's like he gets his second wind. Usually we have to tackle him for pajamas.
Then at LEAST 20 minutes of stories... Oh, and we have a nightly ritual of bringing the cold glass of water to put on the bedstand, because otherwise that would be another trip downstairs. He's not doing it in a disrepectful, sassy, manipulative way. It's just that he REALLY IS wide awake - it's not like he's "being stubborn" or "just fighting it" and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Because once he *is* in bed, I'll hear him rolling over and sighing (just like *I* do when *I* can't sleep) - sometimes for a long, long time.

I think some children are naturally more nocturnal than others. I always say my son will do GREAT in college, if he can make it through elementary school! He'll be up for those all-nighters - and no caffeine! :)

I'm joking, but the reality is that we *know* people differ greatly this way, and many "night owl" adults are very productive. We NEED people to work graveyard shifts in our society, from 911 operators to Nobel Prize wining scientists. And many writers, professors, police, engineers, journalists, etc, etc are able to work odd hours. Adults can manage it, but unfortunately for kids, schools aren't that accomodating.

If she's not crying and fussing, but lying in bed talking to herself, then you can't really fault her. She just can't fall asleep as easily as some kids. Soon she'll be up with a nightlight browsing her books, and a few years later, she'll probably be reading deep into the night. Don't come down too h*** o* her when she drags herself downstairs all groggy, as she probably will do when she's school-aged. There's only so much you can do. And the grown-up world is much more accomodating.

As I write this (9 p.m.), my five year old is playing quietly in the next room talking away to herself. It seems she doesn't wind down enough to sleep until she has had a good, very long talk with herself. (She often stays up at least an hour longer than the other children and always has. It's a little tricky now that she's started kindergarten, but she's adjusting.) I try to ignore her. Eventually she just wanders back to bed and sleeps. Our official bedtime routine has been greatly simplified over the years as we've had more children and as they've gotten older. Our official routine starts with family prayer. Then the children are responsible to brush their teeth, use the restroom, say their personal prayers, bathe/shower if they haven't already that evening, and read to themselves (optional) until they fall asleep. The older boys (ages 9 and 11) sometimes play and talk quietly in their room, but I ignore them and let them fall asleep when they're ready. My 7 year old girl usually falls right to sleep after she reads for a few minutes. Our 15 month old, of course, has a different routine. Once we've had our family prayer (the signal for bedtime), the children are expected to be responsible to take care of themselves and do their own routines. That gives my husband and me some time to wind down and finish up chores and such before going to bed.
As for your daughter, your routine sounds very reasonable. I would suggest letting her talk to herself in her crib for as long as she'd like. Even give her toys and books if that helps. She'll fall asleep, and you don't have to be there (or even awake) when she does. As long as she is safely in her crib, let her be. She'll wake you if there's a problem. You may have to adjust her nap schedule and such depending on how tired she is, but she'll adjust. Good luck.

Mine does the same thing. It's still not a definate schedule. Sometimes right to sleep, other times: up talking in bed or reading to herself. I'm surprised she's not crawling out of that crib. Mine is in a toddler bed. She's 2 1/2 though.

i am mom to a four year old son that has the same problem as your two year old with behavior and don' t want to go to sleep either. i love my four year old son but i have hard time with him. My name is K. lewis , i know the feeling of that being a mom.

Your routine sounds normal for most kids (families). Keep in mind a few things I had a doctor tell me when I was concerned about bedtime she said when my son's wouldn't sleep think about there stage first..are they teething, are they taking to long of naps in the afternoon, are they having a nap to close to bedtime?? I'd go over this in my head and remember sometimes if one of my kids were getting sick they'd stay up later also. I can say this my youngest child now 4 to turn 5 in two weeks stopped naps at age 2 and has always been able to sleep less then my two other older boys. He's just different he still does very well in prek is an early bird and very smart in fact advanced. he just around age 2 started sleeping less and didn't require naps, every once in a while he takes a cat nap about 20 minutes and he's good to go for hours. Of course if he's not feeling well it's a different story. He also doesn't like me to read to him at bedtime he likes that during the day for some reason it stimulates him to be awake and want to look at books. He likes to watch the 10:00 o'clock news with me and it puts him to sleep (puts alot of people to sleep lol). I also keep in mind that some kids just have different ways of relaxing themselves to fall asleep my middle child always likes ocean music he was almost 5 before he wanted me to not have it for him. My oldest has always loved for me to read to him before bed hold him for a few minutes then off to sleep. I think you are doing a great job just baby is maybe going through some changes and if she likes talking to her self to sleep maybe it's ok and just her way. Best wishes.

Your bedtime routine sounds like ours. I'm just curious why her taking forever is throwing your schedule out of whack...unless that means she doesn't want to get up. My daughter takes much longer to fall asleep some nights, too, now that she's 2...but she just talks to herself or sings or whatever. She's safely in her crib so she's good to go. It hasn't disturbed our routine or anything. She gets up at her normal time and everything.

It's always good to know others are as normal as we are! :)

M., you are doing the right thing! She's now getting to the point where she's testing her boundaries to see what she can get away with.
Our 3 year old daughter also went through the same phase (for almost a year!). We did bedtime routine from 7:30-8 but she never fell asleep til sometimes midnight. She never cried or complained but she played w/ her toys, read books etc. We moved our routine to 8:30-9 thinking this would make her sleep earlier; and it didn't. My advice is stick to your routine and not go in. My friend's mom (child psych) said that children change their night time routines many times and she may be going through her change right now.

For us, but I think we're out of the norm, we let our son, who is 2 1/2, watch Noggin until his bedtime (either 9 or 9:30, since he needs to finish a show or there's a fight), then, if he's not already in jammies from a bath (which is every other night) he gets into them, gets his teeth brushed, gets hugs & kisses from either mommy or daddy, then the other parent takes him to bed (he takes a toy or 2 with him), we read 2 stories that he's picked out, and he gets into bed. With another hug & kiss from the parent putting him to bed, that's it. Door gets shut & we don't hear anything else from him. Usually he'll flip through his books again or play for a few moments with the toy he's taken in with him, but that's it. He's been sleeping in his toddler bed since his birthday in January and things are fine. The only time we have a hassle with him is naptime, when his room has natural light in it. Yes, he has a nightlight in his bedroom, but he doesn't get out of bed until morning (we can hear his every move in the living room).

Can your daughter still hear you when she goes to bed? Maybe that is part of her problem with not wanting to go. If she can still hear the TV, people talking, it may make her feel she is missing out. I'm not saying to alter everything, but our TV gets turned down a good bit until we know our son is asleep. Or sometimes my husband will go into the bedroom to watch TV and I'm on the computer, so the living room TV is off. That way, our son doesn't hear too much and he can be content to nod off. When we do have an issue at naptime, I tell him that Mommy is going to take a nap, too, and he usually does better when he knows that I'm not out there having fun.

I wish you the best. I'm sure it can be frustrating.

My son just turned 3, and our routine is about the same as yours! Teeth, shower (very quick), pjs, story, lights out! He takes about 10 minutes to fall asleep, and sleeps about 10 hours and takes a 2 hour nap during the day. Some nights he might want to be giggly and talk, but as long as he's in bed and stays there, I figure he will go to sleep when his body is ready. My 8 year old goes through the same routine and will talk to himself for about an hour before bed, but I think it's just his way of winding down since he seems to do it no matter what time he goes to bed. He's been doing it for years, and I don't mind as long as he stays in bed and isn't too loud. Maybe your daughter is just finding a new way to put herself to sleep. Good luck!

Sounds normal to me. Sounds like a good bedtime routine. I'm not sure what you mean when you say she takes "forever" to fall asleep. Or how that is messing up your schedule? I wouldn't think it would be a problem if she is staying in her room chatting to herself. My kids are older (5 and 6) so our routine is different now... they go to bed at 7:30 (have to get up at 6:15 for school) and they are sometimes awake for up to an hour. They just kind of lie there, thinking! And I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Not only does your routine seem normal, so does your daughter!! Think about it like this-you tell her when to get ready and what to do, probably even what order to do it in right?? So what control does she have in that bed time routine?? Staying awake!! She's two and there isn't much she can do about what goes on in her life right now. Just keep doing what you are doing with bed time and what time you need her up in the morning, keep naps at the normal time as well. Her staying awake will pass just as fast as the next strange or annoying behaviour appears!! That's the joy of having a 2yr old!! lol Mine has to put 3 stuffed animals to sleep and takes about 3-5 books with him just about every night!!

Just keep doing what you are doing and she'll start falling asleep sooner before you know it!

S.

Hi M.,
I'm going through the same thing with my 2 1/2 year old daughter, except my routine is now taking 30 minutes!! I can't get her to do anything without it taking forever. When my daughter goes into her crib she doesn't want to go to sleep right away and makes up every excuse to get back out. Lately, she cries when i leave her and it's heartbreaking, but she WANTS me to come back in. So now i just leave her, let her cry for a few, and after about 10 minutes she's in there talking or singing to herself. Usually it takes her about an hour to go to sleep, but as long as she does it's what i have to do. So you're not alone!!