My son is 22 months old and this is his sleeping routine:
This routine is going on for a while now. He then goes out for the night at around 9:30-10 PM.
I tried putting him down even earlier but he does not take it, any suggestion on what I can do to try make him go to sleep earlier?
I suspect you would like your son to sleep earlier so you have some time with your spouse, or "me time", which I totally understand.
A child isn't going to sleep if he/she isn't tired. Your boy's getting a good amount of sleep for his age, so cutting down on his sleep isn't the way to go, but adjusting the pattern can be done. Simply wake him up earlier, and bring his nap back by an hour. If you bring his wake time back by 2 hours then you'll bring his bedtime back 2 hours and he'll still be getting the sleep he needs. I suggest you do it in increments, wake him at 8:00 for a couple of days, then 7:00, it will probably make for less grouchiness.
Your going to have to shift the schedule upwards and wake him earlier, either that or cut out the nap (when he is capable of skipping naps).
My toddler goes to school only three days a week, and when she does she wakes up at 6:30am, she takes a nap anywhere from 12:30-1:30 till about 2 or 3. On those days she falls asleep by 8pm naturally, I could not keep her up if I tried. On days she doesn't go to school, she sleeps in till 8am, and goes to bed around 10pm those nights. The only way to get her to go to bed earlier than that is to wake her up earlier, or to skip her nap (cranky all second half of the day).
Whatever you do, you want to try to keep the total number of sleeping hours consistent. Especially if you judge that this amount of sleep is working well for your child.
That's the schedule my 3 year old has been on the last year, except he wakes a bit earlier. Removing naps doesn't help, and moving to earlier wake-up doesn't make much of a difference either.
What does help is going outside late in the day. We go almost every day on a walk to the park a block away from after dinner to dark. This is only possible in the summer, of course, but that half hour to hour of outside play gets him to the point that he's ready for bed by 9 rather than 10 or 11, and on days we don't do it (because we go out to dinner, or otherwise are too busy to go to the park) he reverts.
