My (nearly) 3yo has been refusing a nap, she also won’t do quiet time. She’s obviously tired but no matter what, she won’t sleep during the day and she also takes HOURS to fall asleep at night. For the past three weeks she has been falling asleep at 9 (I put her in bed at 7), waking up crying between 12-2am and staying awake for about 2 hours, and then waking for the day at 6am. I’ve tried putting her to bed earlier, and later, and no matter what she takes hours to fall asleep.

She used to fall asleep independently but when she started preschool in September she started having a lot of trouble falling asleep so we would sit next to her bed. We’ve slowly worked down from holding her hand, to sitting next to the bed, to sitting across the room, to now sitting in a chair outside the room where she can see me.

I tried doing quiet time but if I leave the room she just screams and runs into the hall. If I sit in the room with her she screams that she hates quiet time. If I offer to lay with her she will just keep climbing around and getting out of bed and back in, she never rests. She won’t even sit and read a whole book with me. She never stops.

I’m exhausted. She must be too. She’s miserable. But I can’t force her to sleep.

We do outdoor time, we do sensory activities, we have rough housing time, she gets 30 mins of screen time at 3pm (but she doesn’t even sit still for that long.) I make more than 90% of our food, she doesn’t have anything with dyes.

What else can I do?!