Naps

OK here is my suggestion. We had problems with Aaron wanting to stay up until 11:30 some days. So on the weekends I cut the nap out and played with him and did other activities. Kept him going all day long. It worked really well. But we did see him starting to dose off around 5 or 6 in the evening. Well my husband did not want to give up the nap during the day since that is when he gets all of his work done for the business. But when he saw that Aaron was going to sleep at 8:30 or 9 at night he realized that we needed to get rid of the nap time. So now Aaron does not take a nap for the most part. But we still do see that if we are in the car anywhere from 4:30 to 6:30 he will fall asleep. So we just try to avoid being in the car at those times.

I would just get rid of the nap and work on doing other things and put him to sleep much earlier. I know when I was a kid I was put to sleep at 7:30 or 8:00 each night. Maybe that is the time that he needs to go to sleep instead of 9:00.

Good luck.

Mommy of Aaron

From my experience with my boy... I tryed to put him to nap at around 1pm but realized that at 8-9pm he was still talking in his bed so I changed it for a early nep. At around 10:30-11am we go outside and "burn some energy", walk and play. At 11:30-noon I gave him is lunch and he goes for a nap and last for 1 1/2 to 2hours. At 7pm bath time and then goes to bed for the night... of course he's still talking for 15minutes but sleep all night.
I realize that less sleeps he gets, lets sleep he wants and then gets over tired.

If he isn't getting enough sleep to begin with it may make it even harder to fall asleep because their whole system just gets out of whack. When my 4 year old stays up too late, he suddenly wakes up really early the next day and shortens his nighttime sleep by at least 2 hours total. It just builds day after day if I don't put a stop to it and make him go to bed early and take a nap to get caught up.

So look at the total hours Luke gets in a day and see if it is close, maybe there is some tweaking to be done whether it is at naptime or bedtime.

-One-year-old: 14 hours, including one or two naps
-Two-year-old: 11 to 12 hours at night plus a single, after-lunch nap of one to two hours
-Three-year-old: 12 to 12 1/2 hours
-Four-year-old: 11 ½ to 12 hours
-Five-year-old: 11 hours
-Six-year-old: 10 3/4 to 11 hours
-Seven-year-old: 10 1/2 to 11 hours
-Eight-year-old: 10 1/4 to 10 3/4 hours
-Nine-year-old: 10 to 10 1/3 hours
-Ten through puberty: 9 3/4 to 10 hours
-Adolescent to adult: 9 ¼ hours

If he isn't getting enough sleep to begin with it may make it even harder to fall asleep because their whole system just gets out of whack. When my 4 year old stays up too late, he suddenly wakes up really early the next day and shortens his nighttime sleep by at least 2 hours total. It just builds day after day if I don't put a stop to it and make him go to bed early and take a nap to get caught up.

So look at the total hours Luke gets in a day and see if it is close, maybe there is some tweaking to be done whether it is at naptime or bedtime.

-One-year-old: 14 hours, including one or two naps
-Two-year-old: 11 to 12 hours at night plus a single, after-lunch nap of one to two hours
-Three-year-old: 12 to 12 1/2 hours
-Four-year-old: 11 ½ to 12 hours
-Five-year-old: 11 hours
-Six-year-old: 10 3/4 to 11 hours
-Seven-year-old: 10 1/2 to 11 hours
-Eight-year-old: 10 1/4 to 10 3/4 hours
-Nine-year-old: 10 to 10 1/3 hours
-Ten through puberty: 9 3/4 to 10 hours
-Adolescent to adult: 9 ¼ hours

I don't give my 3 year old naps I put her to bed between 7-8.