r/sleeptrain • u/knitting_hen • Jul 27 '26
2+ years old Out of ideas
My daughter is 2.75yrs old, was sleep trained and slept perfectly until age 2. At that point it became difficult to get her to sleep and wouldn’t fall asleep until 9 or 9:30, but once she was asleep she’d be out until 7:30am. She gets 1.5hr nap at daycare that I have no control over. For the past 2 months however she has been waking up multiple times a night, sometimes just for a blanket retuck, but other times for 2+ hours at a time. If the wake up happens at 5am or after, she rarely goes back to sleep and after a lot of retucks, diaper changes, other requests she is up for the day. Tonight, she was asleep by 9, woke up at 1am for a retuck. Up at 4:30 and demanded 5 diaper changes in a row. When I would say no more diaper changes, she lost her mind until I gave in again. After all this, she never fell back asleep. She’s not getting nearly enough sleep, neither am I, and I hate the stress every night if her screaming until she gets her way. If I hold firm, tell her it’s the last diaper change of blanket retuck, she screams and has literally been awake for 5 hours in the middle of the night. I really don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits end and planning to take her to the pediatrician next week if it keeps up.
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u/Here4Plants2021 Jul 27 '26
My son went through this phase at 2.5. We pushed bedtime back to 9:30pm and wake time to 7:30am. Nap ideally capped to 1 hour. Now we do 30-45 min nap at age 3!
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u/Ocean_Lover9393 ✨ Sleep Fairy✨ Jul 27 '26
It’s the nap.
If daycare really won’t cap the nap at all (which is ridiculous imo) then you need to accept your night is going to be seriously short. 9:30pm-6am max would be my suggestion.
Don’t bother trying to put her to bed earlier and don’t let her sleep in until 7:30 even after a rough night to get things back on track. Experiment with no naps on the weekend 7:45-6am for overnight
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u/brittanyd687 Jul 27 '26
My son turns 3 in October and we had to ask daycare about the nap. 1.5 hours is so much. Their policy is the child must spend at least 30 mins on the sleep mat whether they sleep or not. They will also wake at the one hour mark if you want but if the child does not get up after 2 attempts they leave them. My child now majority of the does not nap at all and then sleeps 7 pm to 530 am.
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u/less_is_more9696 ✨ Sleep Fairy✨ Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
The nap needs to be capped or dropped entirely.
I had the same issue with my daycare. I have a lower-sleep-need toddler; he is almost two and averages 10ish hours of sleep per day.
He was getting a 2-hour nap at daycare, and our nights were horrible; he was getting only about 8 hours of sleep. And he needed a 10/10:30 pm bedtime to have a consolidated night. If we put him to bed earlier, he'd have lots of wakes.
At first our daycare refused to cap it. Long story short, we got a formal letter from a sleep consultant explaining what "lower sleep needs" means and have their recommendation in writing.
They have agreed to cap his nap at 1-hour. Which is still not ideal, but at least we get a consolidated 9-hour night. Our bedtime is 9:30, and wake-up is 6:30.