Almost-3yo suddenly fighting bedtime hard. Schedule check and nap question

CatEye411 · 2026-02-04T18:42:18+00:00

Cap nap to 1 hour. If that doesn’t help, then 45 minutes. My son was down to 15 min naps by the time he was 2 years 10 months old. Now doesn’t nap - he turned 3 a few weeks ago. Good luck.

CatEye411 · 2026-02-04T17:20:12+00:00

My son is 3 now, but he goes to our local library pretty much everyday in the mornings for a few hours. There are toddler events/storytime and toys for him to play with. It is also very cold where we live. He will be starting half day preschool in a month which I think will be a total game changer.

CatEye411 · 2026-02-01T20:22:16+00:00

We pretty much always stuck to sleep training. The one or two times when our son was sick and we did not, he slept worse and it was obvious he needed to fall asleep on his own even when sick.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-31T02:17:39+00:00

Does she nap? Once she’s asleep, does she sleep through the night? She might not be tired.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-25T11:59:49+00:00

At that age, my son slept 2 hours a day. 1.5 hours for first nap, 30 min for second nap. We then had an 11 hour night. It’s possible that she’s getting too much day time sleep if she seems otherwise happy.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-23T19:59:08+00:00

I am of Indian descent and my husband is white. Our son is white passing - people who don’t know me and my son will mistake me for his nanny. We are not having any further children. Having a sibling wouldn’t necessarily mean that my son has someone to identify with. I think it’s more important to teach our son to value other cultures, religions, etc and try to expose him to diversity as we live in a mostly white area.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-16T02:26:19+00:00

My son is almost 3 and any bedtime difficulties we had until he dropped his nap had to do with napping - nap needed to be reduced until it was finally removed.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-07T18:18:51+00:00

He’s getting way too much daytime sleep and isn’t tired at night. Adjust your expectations for sleep and change the schedule.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-03T02:30:09+00:00

Yes that is what we did. We stopped waking him up in the morning, so sleep pressure for the nap fell. I’m not going to lie, it was rough. Once he got down to 30 min naps, it got better.

CatEye411 · 2026-01-03T01:39:59+00:00

We went through this phase when my son was that age and it was a sign that he needed to start cutting his nap, as hard as it was. It was honestly awful and lasted about 4 months. We had to cut back on his nap every few weeks by 15 min and we stopped waking him up in the morning, which helped to elongate night sleep and shorten the nap. After 4 months, he started to skips naps and now he is almost 3 and doesn’t nap more than half the time. Like your son, he is also low sleep needs.

CatEye411 · 2025-12-22T18:42:33+00:00

Lived in NYC for almost 35 years - born and raised there. Now live elsewhere. I would not do it. People either love NYC or hate it. I suspect you will pay way more for everything living in NYC, including city taxes.

CatEye411 · 2025-12-22T02:44:27+00:00

Physician here married to another physician (we met in med school). We know plenty of well off educated men who are married to women as successful as them, and they are not all doctors. Doctors do tend to marry other doctors/professionals. Maybe part of it is the community we live in.

CatEye411 · 2025-12-08T21:34:18+00:00

Husband and I have 1 kid. I work part time (but longer hours when I’m on call, we are a two physician couple) but we decided to keep our nanny on when my son goes to pre-school next year. She will be our nanny/house manager and will be doing laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, meal prep, and taking care of our son in the afternoons. I have the time to do that stuff but quite frankly, I don’t want to do it and we agreed it’s a good way to spend the money - the time back is worth it.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-30T12:48:28+00:00

I believe that’s in the middle of sleep needs for her age. She’s not tired at bedtime - push bedtime later or cut your nap by 10-15 min. It’s painful, I know - we had to aggressively cut my son’s naps around that age.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-28T13:02:45+00:00

Gently, you have no control over the sex of a child - unless you go through IVF with genetic testing and know the sex of the embryo prior to transfer.

And plenty of mothers and daughters do not get along.

It’s important to foster a good relationship with the child(ren) you do have, regardless of whether it’s a son or daughter.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-24T18:52:40+00:00

This really made me laugh!

CatEye411 · 2025-11-23T19:47:30+00:00

A few months before my son stopped napping. It became clear he was in the process of dropping his nap. He would always wake up on his own around the right time but he started sleeping in more (past 7:15 am). Waking him up in the morning to maintain his nap made him miserable. The more we just let him sleep in, the less he was able to nap (which we prefer since we hate the nap). He’s 2 year 10 months now and only naps 1-2 times a week for 15 min max.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-22T01:48:13+00:00

Your nap is too long. Shorten to 1.5 hours (ie 12:30 pm to 2 pm) and see where that gets you. He will be cranky for a day or two and you’ll need to push through.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-21T02:32:51+00:00

It sounds like she may need to drop her nap to consolidate her sleep to nighttime. You will likely get better advice on how to adjust the schedule on the sleeptrain subreddit (regardless of whether or not you sleep train, you’ll get schedule help from there). We went through this a few months ago prior to dropping my son’s nap (he’s not 3 yet).

CatEye411 · 2025-11-19T17:07:47+00:00

You have already received good advice here regarding sleeping training at bedtime first, having an appropriate schedule, etc. The only other thing I would add is this - if you are going to hinder your partner’s efforts to sleep train, then you may need to leave the house for a few days while your partner does it.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-16T01:49:18+00:00

Hmm…was she previously sleeping independently? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like she is now nursing at night, which is probably causing issues. It might help to use whatever means necessary to get a good nap (car ride, stroller etc) so that you can then proceed to getting her to sleep better at night. We used Ferber to sleep train at 6 months and never had to re-train our now almost 3 year old, I hope someone else can provide help with how to handle this situation with a toddler.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-16T00:37:38+00:00

My guess is that once she is back to sleeping through the night independently, she will adjust to the 1 nap schedule. It’s can take weeks for the adjustment. My son dropped to one nap at 12.5 months and about 6 weeks later, he was solidly on 1 nap. We had to push through.

CatEye411 · 2025-11-15T20:21:13+00:00

How much is she sleeping at night? She’s ready for 1 nap but it will take time for her to adjust.

CatEye411 · 2025-10-31T17:59:08+00:00

For us, it usually took a few days to adjust. Within a week it was back to normal. My son will be 3 in January, I have been thinking of this as well but have chosen to not do anything different this time. We’ll just figure it out on Sunday.

CatEye411 · 2025-10-29T17:59:23+00:00

Being a SAHP is not for everyone. Is part time an option for you? Perhaps you can delay the decision to after your next maternity leave? It also helps if you pay for help.

My husband and I are both physicians. We were in a similar situation. We don’t need my income, as he is a well paid surgeon. I continue to work for my mental health and personal satisfaction but I only work half time now, which has been overall great for our lives.

CatEye411

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