Toddlers' and Sleep

What I have leaarned from my children is, they do not sleep like adults! With most children, the later they stay up and the more tired they are...the less they sleep. Try putting your daughter to bed earlier and see if that makes a difference. Also, you might try cutting out that AM nap. I know it's hard when she gets up at 5:30. I am sure she is exhausted by 8 am! However, if you get her to bed earlier she probably won't be so tired in the morning.
My boys go to bed at 7 -7:30. If they stay up later they will be up before 6 am. If you get them down before they get overly tired it will be less of a fight too. If she is tired at night, why try to keep her up? There have been nights when my boys are tired and they go down at 6:30 and sleep until 7.
These are just things I have discovered with my boys (14, 5 and 3). I also do daycare and see the same things with the daycare kids. The parents who keep their kids up at night come in saying their kids were up at 5 am.
Good luck to you!!

It is possible that she is napping too much in the day. I have found that there is only so much sleep my son will get in a 24 hour period. Maybe start by reducing the length of her naps? (If you want her to sleep more at night)

On the days when she gets an early AM nap and no second nap, she may be overtired. When that happens often it is hard to settle down and to get a long stretch of sleep at night. The cure to that is an earlier bedtime.

I have heard that most babies go down to one nap around 18 mos, and alternately I have heard that two naps can last until 22 mos. My son is just over 18 mos and we just went to one nap. Part of what was happening was he wasn't sleeping as much at night. Now he is back to 11 hours at night.

You may also find that an afternoon nap that is late can interfere with bedtime.

It could be a struggle to get her to consolidate to one nap(especially with early wake ups), but just work towards it slowly. Make 15 minute adjustments at a time and be ready for some days that just don't work to your plan. It may help to add up the total number of hours she currently sleeps in a day, to give you an idea of how much sleep you can expect from her. (FYI , I can relate to the keeping a toddler busy as ours doesn't watch TV either. We rotate toys, that helps).

Best wishes, N.

Take away one of the naps- she may be "sleepy", but get her moving! I would suggest taking away the morning nap and trying to get her to go down after lunch for a 2 hour snooze.

You are right, she should be sleeping longer in theory, but every child is a little different. Around this same age my son went through a period where he was waking up at 5:00 am no matter what we did. It was frustrating, but only lasted a month or two. This sounds like a pattern she has gotten into. Frankly, she's sleeping a lot during the day and just isn't tired enough to sleep in.

How do you keep her up? Do something with her! Find some activities that she can do on her own with supervision...
- play doh on a sheet pan
- puzzles
- books
- crayons
- puppets
- set-up an obstacle course in the living room
- do something that burns-off energy in the late afternoon so she will be tired at night... bundle her up and let her run around outside!

I remember being upset when my son gave up his morning nap (around 12 months) b/c I felt like I lost some of "my time", but in reality he didn't need that much daytime sleep anymore. Entertaining a toddler for multiple hours straight can be really tiring, but you don't need to be "on" the whole time- teach her how to entertain herself too!

I didn't read any of the other responses so I am sorry if I repeat. At her age, she should only be taking one nap a day, so she seems to be getting too much sleep during the day. You said that she only gets her second nap if you are home so it seems that things are a L. inconsistent when it comes to her schedule. Before I had my first child I researched sleep like crazy and it was the one thing that I made sure I was consistent on and would never budge on. Having a routine and a set nap time and bedtime is so important. Having a routine before sleep times is important too, because it cues the child that it is time to wind down for sleeping. With both of my kids I read books, sing a lullaby or two and then put down AWAKE and they put themselves to sleep. Maybe you already have a routine, you just didn't say so I thought I would mention it. Can your daughter get herself to sleep without intervention from you? Everyone wakes up at night it just that adults can get themselves back to sleep but kids need to learn how to do that. This has been my daughters (33 months) routine since she was about 18 months: Wakes around 7:30, nap around 12:30 (sleeps 2-3 hrs), bath, reading then bedtime between 7:30-8. She can put herself to sleep and if she does wake at night, she puts herself back to sleep because she never yells out. Despite all my efforts to be consistent my son refused to follow my sleep routines! He finally started sleeping through the night at 11 months. He is 13 months now and is down to one nap a day no matter how hard I try to get him to take two, but he is still sleeping well at night! He does wake up from time to time and will yell out once or twice but falls back to sleep. It will be frustrating but you just have to keep at a routine and you can't let up or give in. Good luck!

i agree that that is too much daytime sleep. i would try to consolidate into one late morning nap. what helped with getting my daughter to nap only once during the day was being in daycare. the older kids only napped once, so she just fell in line with them. now she just turned two and is trying to drop her nap all together. she will nap about 30 mins after lunch. but since she's sleeping less during the day i've started to put her down closer to 7:30, she's usually up by 530, but then we cuddle or lay on the couch and go back to sleep until about 730. she'll still wake a few times crying for me in the middle of the night, but she's finally started staying in her bed! YAY!! good luck. just keep her active. i know its exhausting for you, but after a few days it will become old hat to her, and will be easier on you. good luck!

It sounds like she is getting too much sleep during the day (4+ hours? that's a lot, she is growing out of that) , so shorten the nap times. I know it also shortens "your" time if you are with her, but it will be worth it when she starts sleeping longer in the mornings :-) It might take a fews days for the adjustment. Good luck!

At 20 mos, she should be down to 1 nap/day. You may have to distract her in the morning - get her doing something to keep her busy, to get her out of that tired rut. If she wakes up at 4:30 or 5, then yeah, she's tired by 8am! You would be too! :)

Try a distraction and move that nap as close to lunchtime as you can get it.

Then try putting her down earlier, like 7:30. She may not want to, but that's OK. If she's in bed and plays by herself in her room, she'll eventually get into the habit and fall asleep earlier. My son frequently talks to himself for up to an hour when we put him down at 8 (he's 2.5).

Finally, sometimes kids just have earlier clocks than we do.
No matter how we play with bedtime, our DS is up between 5:30 and 6 everyday. We now consider it sleeping in if we make it past 6.

I would definitely go down to 1 nap, about 12:30 or so. My 31 month old, will sleep from 2-3.5 hours during those naps. The first few days, make sure that you are really stimulating her and do something that she really enjoys. She will get the hang of it. My son sleeps from about 7 - 6:30, so maybe she is getting too much sleep during the day and not enough at night?

For the clock, try My Tot Clock (mytotclock.com). It is worth the money!

For activities, do you do any crafts, play-doh, build forts, race cars, draw, pretend to be animals, go for a walk, get a little tent, line up her stuffed animals, play on YOUR bed, chase each other.

I agree she should be down to 1 nap a day. My son (15 months) is transferring to the older class at daycare next month and will be going down to napping only from 12-2. I suggest you start there.

That being said, my daughter was a 10 hour per night sleeper until she was almost three years old. It's only been in the past few months that she has started sleeping 11-12 hours at night.