Help! How Do I Get My 20 Month Old Son to Go to Sleep Earlier.

I have found that putting them on a schedule works. (same time for wake up, nap time, bed time, as well as meals.)
One thing I know that works to help get them tired enough at night and would also help you is to take a walk at night.... make him walk the whole way it will tire him out.
As for the bath thing..... if he gets hyper after a bath.... then you may have to switch bath time for the mornings. Several of my children can not take baths at night for this same reason.

I would read the book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". It helped me out a lot with my children. I know this sounds crazy, but he probably needs to go to bed earlier. You know how you get really tired and then you get your second wind. That is probably what is happening with him. Try starting his bed time routine about 30 minutes earlier. Make sure his naps aren't any later than 1:30. If it gets later than that, don't have him take a nap and put him down super early for bed. That is what worked for my kids anyway.

Hi! I had the same problem with my oldest (now 10) when he was about the same age...maybe a little older. One thing I found is that the evening bath before bed was waking him up and kind of giving him a second wind. And then in the mornings he was groggy and hard to get motivated. I switched his daily bath to the morning and he was awake and refreshed and most of the hyper was then in the morning, that got us to about a 9:30-10pm bedtime. I also adjusted his nap schedule...he was in daycare at the time since I was a working single mom and I found they were letting him nap for about 3 hours a day! I made them limit his nap to 1 hour tops and pretty soon he was in bed by about 8-8:30 every night! I hope this helps!

There is a lot of great advice here. I just want to stress that the more sleep they get - the more they sleep. Often times when they can not sleep they are overly tired. Try putting him down earlier. 7 or 8 is a realistic expectation.
Definately try cutting the nap down and make sure he doesn't sleep too late in the day. Does he fall asleep well at nap time? If so, I think that may be a key. Good luck!
P.S. I'm sorry for all the heart ache you both are going through.

I like the book "Sleep Sense" by Dana Obleman. It has good schedule suggestions. My 19 month old boys go to bed at 7pm! Also we have a family rule to never wake a sleeping child :) Sometimes it is necessary to turn on lights, open up their door and let them wake themselves up. They definately need their sleep at this age. Find a good schedule and stick to it! It sounds like you have a lot going on, I'm sure you could use a few hours to yourself before you go to bed! Good luck!

Hi M.,

I can completely understand the trouble you are having. My son is so energetic and active. As a result, he has a very difficult time falling to sleep. He will fidget, move, squirm, forever if I let him.

The advice about getting on a schedule is great advice. Set a bedtime (I would suggest around 7 - 730pm). Try to get him to nap at the same time everyday as well. I know this is especially hard because you are in a new situation as well. (I just moved in with my parents to help care for my dad and it is hard for the little ones to adjust).

Now here is the best part: I found "Melatonin." We give him 2mg every night in some milk about and hour before bed. This has allowed my son to be able to relax and calm down enough to fall asleep. Our night time routine went from it taking almost two hours to fall asleep, to maximum 20 minutes. It may be a good short term solution to help you get your little one back on track. I'd ask your Dr about it. It is all natural and that was important to me. I also do not let my son cry it out. It does no good. :)

I hope that helps and good luck!

Elle

I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, but you probably need to put him to bed by 8:00 or 8:30. Little tikes have their own internal clocks, and they are actually very tired by 8:00 or 8:30. If we miss putting them down during that window of time, they get a second wind and are almost impossible to get to sleep. I would start talking about bedtime at least an hour before you're ready to put him down. Try giving him his bath, some warm milk, and letting him pick out two books to read. Cutting out his naps or trying to wake him up earlier probably won't work, because they'll just make him more tired and cranky later. The more tired little kids get, the harder they fight going to sleep. Hope that might help!

Kids loves schedules or routines. I have two four olds and when they off their schedule they become very cranky. This is what I've done they are up at 7am, breakfast between 730-800am, 8-9am TV time, 9am educational time, 10am snack time play time, 11am more ed time rather its playing with play dough to teaching them how to hold a pencil, 1130-12pm lunch, 1230-1pm lay down for nap 2 hour max, 3pm snack, 4-6pm play time or TV Time, 6pm dinner, 7pm bath time, 730pm nite-nite. This pretty much has been their schedule for the past 3 years and for the most part it works. The biggest thing is that afternoon nap has to be done before 3pm and if not no nap after 3pm and in bed earlier. If you like to talk call me. Take care and God Bless You!

As explained in Love and Logic parenting style, you can't force someone to go to sleep, you can however provide options for parental sanity.
He's too young to read however you could set a time (9 or 10 pm to start) when it's 'quiet time'. This means he needs to stay in his room maybe listening to a story on cd or looking at books, maybe even playing quietly in his room.
The deal is: is that he does need to be in his room and quiet without relying on anyone else for entertainment. It generally works better for older kids, however you can start a process where you do set a time in the morning that he needs to get up for the day....
Just try to remember that we can't go to sleep on command and some of us like to go to sleep early, some late and same for getting up in the morning.
I remind you of this so you can practice patience and compassion and keep your sanity!
Good luck.

I love the book: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. It's called "The Sleep Bible" at our house. His whole philosophy is that sleep begets sleep -- the more they sleep, the more they sleep.

If I had the issues you describe, I might try to adjust it gradually - maybe 30 or an hour minutes earlier each day until you hit the target bedtime you are hoping for. Also, I would make sure he has a ton of activity during the day -- run at the park, play outside, kick the ball, walk the neighborhood, etc. He will be so tired that sleep will come easier.

Have him play outside first thing in the morning for 30 minutes to one hour and then 30 minutes to one hour in the evening. Being outside naturally makes one tired.

I'm no sleep expert nor was I blessed with children who are sleepers but here's what I would do. I'd start waking him up at the same time every day, feed him the same time everyday and do the night time ritual the same time each day. Get into a daily rhythm. Even if it's not exactly by the clock, he will thrive in the predictability of the daily rhythm and it should help straighten out his internal clock. It might take awhile but it should help. Have you also considered any herb tinctures that would help him wind down? Also, with a night ritual, reading and praying might help him get still and ready to go to bed. Just be consistent. It sounds like the lack of rhythm might be contributing to the prob. I struggle with the same things and doing this has helped me a lot.

My son (16 months old) is the same way. He can go like the energizer bunny (am I dating myself?). But when I turn the light out he gets up, walks to his crib and wants in. I don't even get to cuddle with him much anymore. ;-( Anyway, I have always had a betime routine with my kids. We have dinner around 5 or 530, bath every other night, then stories and bedtime. We start stories around 7pm (a little eariler if he's more tired) and then lights out no later than 730. We also turn the main light in his room out and put on a reading light and play lullaby music. When he sees the light go out and the music on, he knows what's coming. He usually wakes up around 6am. He goes to a day care each day and naps from 1230 - 230 or 300pm each day so I try to keep that schedule on the weekends too. My older son is 6 and he's had the same routine since he's been a baby. He goes to bed at 8pm and gets 2 stories then lights out. I believe the key is to have the same evening routine every day. That way your son will know exactly what to expect and what comes next. Good luck.

Hi M.,

So sorry about what you're going through. It's probably a little difficult for your son too to be experiencing this transition because of the excitement of being in a different place.

Waking him earlier and bathing him earlier is a good idea. Even bathing him earlier in the afternoon would probably work. Then, you might try coming up with a bedtime routine for him. Telling him it's almost bedtime about 20 minutes early is a good start. Then, tell him again in about 5 minutes. This allows him to transition to the next phase.

I would also implement a bedtime routine like a story or his bottle of water (or whatever you give him).

Laying down with him or rocking him to sleep never hurts. But let him know you're serious and don't leave the room till he's out. It might take a few nights but he'll get the picture.

Good luck!

M.

As other's have suggested, take a look at Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. It has a great easy to get started guide, to read about the sleep habits of your aged child, without having to sit down and read the whole book start to finish before carrying out a routine. But that is key, having a routine. Give him a bath, read a book, drink of milk, sing, rock, down to bed (or whatever works for you). And as crazy as it sounds, he needs to be put down earlier, before the hyperness starts. Kids get hyper when they are trying to stimulate themselves to stay awake. When they fight off sleep it is because they are too tired and don't know how to cope. You will probably find that he even sleeps longer as he goes to bed earlier. Good Luck!
Jenny

It sounds like your son sleeps wonderfully - it is just that his schedule is shifted. Have you tried putting him to bed a little earlier each night, perhaps 5-10 minutes earlier for a few days then 5-10 minutes earlier than that..etc. Also, what I noticed helps is a long, soothing bedtime routine. We have a bath, reading, snuggling routine that takes about an hour from start to finish. If you can manage to gradually move his bedtime back he may not notice it.

Good luck!

My son is the same way. But they are tired even if they seem to have all this energy. I often find that I have to be theparent and just put him down at 9pm and let him lay there until he falls asleep. Sometimes he cries and if he does I just turn off all the lights and grab a small cup of milk and get him and he can lay down with me until he is done with his cup. This usually helps him calm down and then I get him and put him back in his crib. He eventually falls asleep. Sometimes he will sing himself to sleep or I can hear him talking to his babies. I find that playing classical music works well too. It will drown out other noise so he can rest well. Also you might wanna try lavendar oil. You can buy it at like bath and body works or body glove and just rub some on the collar of his shirt and a lil on his hair and it helps calm them down. You can even put a few drops in his bath water. Good luck and keep us posted.

Hi M.,
I am the Mom of a really active little boy, too. He's 25 months old. I wanted to recommend a book (I hope that's OK for the rules of the website) that has literally become our sleep bible. It's called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. My son now sleeps 11-12 hours at night and has 2 hour naps. The idea of the book (and he presents a lot of data, scenarios and case studies if you like that kind of stuff) is that well rested kids actually sleep better and longer. So putting the child to sleep earlier will eventually result in better and longer sleep. It worked for us. My son now goes to sleep between 7:15-7:30 and sleeps until 6:30 or 7. There are ideas for how to do it gradually but I would recommend working on the bedtime before you work on the wake time. I would not have said that before I read the information in the book because some of it is just so counter-intuitive. I'm hopeful that my own experience will be what stands out rather than just giving you another book recommendation. This stuff really works and believe me, my boy is go go go all the time during the day. We had to teach him how to wind down over time so it might be slow going at first but it's been amazing. I know you wrote that crying it out is not an option but you might see your situation in some of the case studies and how letting the child cry for 2 or 3 nights actually helped the situation. I do know how hard that is. Good luck- it's obvious that you love him and know you are blessed that he is so active and happy! Great job!

I went through the same things with my now 3 year old. She would out last me most night, luckily my husband is a night owl. She was super cute during those late hours, so we just let her stay up and then I got to where I need a break and we just had to get her to sleep earlier.
I noticed too that she would sleep in later and later which would have been great, but I have 3 other children-the oldest is 7 yrs and so I have to get up anyway. Her naps were getting later in the day too and the later the nap, the later she would go to bed at night.
To get her on a better schedule, I started waking her up earlier and then she was ready for her nap by about 10 or 11am. She would sleep for 2-3 hours and by night came around she was ready for sleep. Granted it was 10pm one night, and then 9pm and then 8:30pm and now FINALLY she is going to bed at 7:30 with the other kids-it took awhile, but we did it! It has been a real sanity saver for me :D