My daughter is almost 2 1/2 years old. Our night time ritual is get ready for bed, read books, go to bed. She will stay awake talking for 1/2 an hour to an hour. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get her to calm down sooner and actually go to sleep?
We typically start putting her to bed around 7:30 but it is usually 9 or 9:15 before it's quiet. She gets up at 6am for Daycare. She also recently moved to a "big girl" bed. Although it started before that, it's gotten worse. She will stay in bed.
Is she still napping? I find that we have that problem when my daughter takes a nap (she's 2 1/2 also).
Is your daughter tired in the morning or throughout the next day? Does she sleep through the night? If she's not tired and sleeps through the night then I wouldn't worry about it. My daughter lays in her bed at night and plays with her doll or talks to herself for quite a while, but she's not yelling out for me or crying so I just let her go and she falls asleep on her own and sleeps through the night. Maybe 7:30 is too early for her, you could try moving her bedtime to 8 and see if she falls asleep faster. Of course if you do that there is always the chance she will still stay up for the hour. Maybe she is excited about being in her new bed, which is great, and eventually when the novelty wears off she'll fall asleep faster. I know for me, it takes me about 45 minutes to fall asleep at night, so maybe your daughter needs that time to get herself settled.
Wish I had an answer for you, but our 3 year old is the same way. She just takes a long time to unwind. What makes it worse is that it doesn't matter if I put her to bed earlier or later, she still takes about 2 hours to go to sleep. Just hoping this stage passes soon. Sigh....
I just recently posting something similar. My son wasn't going to sleep until 9-10pm! He stayed in his bed too, but after about 45 mins of just laying there then he started whining and crying. I figured out that if he goes down for a nap any later than 1:00, he will have a hard time falling asleep at night. I've just got him back to the 11:00am nap time and it has made a HUGE difference in bed time. Maybe ask the day care to put her down earlier for nap?
This sounds just like my 2 year old. He fights sleep to the bitter end. Fortunately for him he doesn't have to be awake by a certain time to go to daycare but he still awakes on his own by 7:30.
We all have our natural, personal circadian rhythms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythms). It's what makes some of us early risers and some of us night owls.
You're quite fortunate that it's only 30-60 minutes. Our 2 year old went to bed past midnight twice last week. She would NOT give in.
Some people may suggest melatonin - ask your pediatrician before giving it to her. There are mixed scientific studies on its use, especially on what's the proper dose for a child her age and if it's safe. Melatonin is a hormone, but like insulin/estrogen, etc. not all hormones are good when given in non-physiological doses.
Good luck!
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child- it's an awesome book- It'll help get her back on track for sleeping!
Good luck!
We went through this with my daughter at that age as well. Our best solution was to move her bedtime back to closer to 8....and try to wear her out! But lucky for you she stays in bed...our's used to get up and ask for things!! And if you move the bedtime back to 8, use that extra half hour to just read to her or cuddle in her bed...maybe that will give her the time to "calm down".
My son is 27 months and some nights he chatters to himself for awhile, sometimes he goes straight to sleep. He stays in bed though, and seems to be fine, so we let him do what he does. He also gets up at 6 for daycare, but goes down at 6:30
Sounds pretty normal, and it's good she'll stay in bed! Summer is tougher b/c it's light out. You could try some physical activity right after dinner, then relaxing stuff. I.e puzzles, drawing, coloring, puzzles and dim the lights. NO TV and make sure her room is darker too. Also, maybe some sound soothing machine in her room could help her relax. Does she nap? Maybe cut that shorter or out on some days. I know my toddler doesn't want to go to bed on days she's napped (in the process of cutting it out).
It might be the naps at daycare. My son attends daycare and the days that he has a nap he does not fall to sleep until after 10pm. On the weekends he has no nap and is asleep by 8:30.
A natural remedy like L-Tryptophan works well for my kids. They drink a shot of this if they are too wound up to sleep and within 15 minutes they are snoozing away. I read to them while we wait for the supplement to start working. We got it here: www.visionary-wellness.com. Good luck and hopefully sweet dreams.
Some people take a while to fall asleep. It can take me anywhere between 30 min to one hour too.
