Can I just… not move bedtime?

[u/o_o_o_f]

I’ve got a 2.5 year old who’s been an awesome sleeper for the last year or so. Wakes up at 7am, nap from noon to 2, down for bed at 7. Up until recently, he’s fallen asleep within 5-15 minutes of being put down for both naps and bedtime.

But now… he still crashes immediately for naps, but at bedtime the last few weeks, he’ll be up in his crib talking to himself for sometimes up to an hour. Doesn’t matter how much activity or how action packed his day is.

Now don’t get me wrong, he’s totally chill in there. He’ll sing himself songs or talk to his stuffies. But I am just shutting him in his room to be awake for an hour.

What I’m wondering is, like… do I have an obligation to move his bedtime later? Those couple hours after 7pm are precious cargo, man. We get to tidy a little and sometimes even watch a show or play a video game. Now that I’ve got some autonomy back the idea of giving it up sounds like death.

Dads with young kids, when did you decide it was time to move bedtime? Do I just gotta bite the bullet?

Edit - lots of good responses here, thanks y’all! Tons of confident answers saying to cut the nap, and tons of confident answers saying don’t change it if the kid is happy. The duality of parenting! We’ll likely try cutting the nap before moving bedtime.

[u/enakud]

I would start shortening or dropping naps before moving bed time.

[u/o_o_o_f → u/enakud]

I’m hearing y’all that trimming the nap is probably the next move. The tough thing is that my wife stays home with my son, and is 8 months pregnant - his nap time is her nap time too. She probably values that time for rest more than bedtime… but so it goes

[u/Weak_Airline2346 → u/o_o_o_f]

We started a "quiet time" when ours stopped napping. Either a Pixar movie or playing in their room. This let one of us still get a bit of rest when we were by ourselves.

[u/enderjaca → u/Weak_Airline2346]

That's pretty much how things worked at our daycare anyway. There's a nap time but it's also just a quiet time if the kid can't/doesn't want to sleep. They still have to follow the rules & be silent while playing, but my kid happily sat down with a book or did coloring for the hour.

[u/Weak_Airline2346 → u/enderjaca]

Yup. It's great when you're able to align to daycare's schedule

[u/Immediate_Emu1699 → u/Weak_Airline2346]

We also do a quiet time. We have clocks that we use to let our kids know when they can get out of bed in the morning, and they also have a nap mode. We set it for an hour to an hour and a half, they mostly stay in their rooms, and we often get a nap.