Help! How do you keep a toddler awake?
Our current process with our son goes like this:
- wake up between 7am and 8:30am
- play hard all morning
- lie down around noon for around 15 minutes, but don’t fall asleep
- play hard all afternoon until about 4pm
- fall asleep hard, and nap for an hour to two hours
- play hard until mom is exhausted (any time after 10pm) and then lie in bed fighting with her because he’s not tired at all
8 hours of sleep is barely enough for me, and I’m not convinced it’s enough for him. We have determined that if we can get him to stay awake at 4pm he’ll go to bed and sleep around 7:30 or 8pm. But that period from around 4pm until 6pm is killer. We can’t seem to keep him awake. He has fallen asleep while eating, while playing, watching a movie, reading a book, and more. We then shake him (gently), talk to him, carry him around (hard when he weighs nearly 60 pounds), try to get him to play, and nothing wakes him. Yesterday he fell asleep on the couch, and when we told him we were going to feed the animals (a chore he loves to do) he woke up enough to say “I want feed animals” and then he was asleep again, and continuing threats did not wake him again. Any suggestions? How do you keep a toddler awake when he doesn’t want to be so that he will sleep when we want him to be asleep? I’m desperate (and tired).