29 Month Old Falling Asleep Late and Waking up Early

well in my opinion i would say you need to make her take a nap alot sooner then she is and only let her sleep for about an hour and for a while she is going to be crabby but she will get use to it. also that is the babysitters job so if its hard she needs to deal with it that is her job. my son use to be the same way till i was like enough is enough and im a stay at home mom so i just changed the way he took his naps and dealt with the crabbyness. it only lasted about a week. hope you get some good advice.

We had the same problem. Here is what did the trick for me.

Changed nap to one hour at 2pm to 3pm.
Bath at 8pm every night
Storytime and prayers after PJs are on.
Turned on a familiar video for him with the sound SUPER low for him to fall asleep to.
We have a DVD player so if he wakes up in the middle of the night the video still is playing and that comforts him, he falls right back asleep.

I agree with the majority... Consistency is KEY!

Good Luck!

S. -
My daughter was going through something like this over the past couple of months and we finally broke it. She'll be 3 in January. She was taking 2 naps in during the day after we specifically told our sitter that we wanted to cut out the 2nd one. We were in the midst of changing sitters, so now with the new sitter she's taking 1 nap... earlier in the day. Then we put a featherbed on her mattress - she seems to fall right asleep on it now and doesn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore. Oh - and we also do a bath before bed time, this helps in getting her to relax and she knows that bed comes after the bath.

Good Luck!

I agree that it does seem that she is overtired and napping too late. Beth M's suggestion of slowly and consistently changing the bedtime and having a solid routine will make a world of a difference. Slowly changing the nap to a much earlier time will equal an earlier bedtime.

She is at a great age to use a sticker chart that she can a part of by checking off the bedtime things (bath, story, potty, brush teeth, etc) and then the final one should be staying in her bed. When she succeeds, she gets to wake up in the morning, check off the biggest block maybe with a sticker or something similar. As for the nightlight/door open - does she have a doll that she can put in a "bed" next to her's? Sounds more like an excuse than a fear since you've already enough lights, but do check to make sure they are not throwing odd shadows.

As everyone else suggested (and as you know), an earlier nap would help. The trick would be to actually get her to do that. I would recommend waking her 1 hour before her usual wakeup time. She'll be a little crabby so alot of positive fun (maybe) singing and talking might cheer her up. Then of course get her to nap no later than 1pm. If she won't do it right away, maybe a quick drive or a long stroller walk will do. I think a good bath and some calm reading (or storytelling with the lights off and a cute flashlight--my daughter loves this) and hugs with M. or daddy at the end of the day should help her sleep happily.

Hi S.,
As strange as it sounds but the reason why she is sleeping less is because she is overtired. I would try to get her to bed earlier. Try calming activities (bath, soft music, no tv) for an hour or so before you put her down. If its 10 now, start with 9:30 and then 9, and then 8:30 and so on.

I bet you will see her sleeping later too. It won't be over night, but once you get her into a routine, it will even out.

Is she verbalizing that she wants all those lights on? Maybe its too bright for her now. Is she getting up and coming out of her room after you tuck her in? Lay down some ground rules and have there be consequences.

We went through some sleep issues with my oldest and I know how tiring it can be. Also, what time is she taking her 2 hour nap? Don't let it be too late (she should be up by 3 or so) in order for her to be able to go to bed at a reasonable time at night.

I hope some of this helps!
B.

It sounds like she is overtired. I had this problem with my eldest who is now 7. He was so over tired that he didn't sleep at night at all. Put your girl to sleep earlier in the night and have her take a slightly shorter nap meaning 1 1/2 hours and earlier. My 5 and 7 year old go to bed at 8:30. We have a bedtime routine, follow it. Once I knew that my eldest was overtired, we got a groove going and he hasn't had trouble since.