Help with 10 m/o routine / bedtime / overtired!

[BerryBee]

I losely follow the 234 routine with my DD. Our day looks something like this:

6.15 - wake and bf
7.30 - breakfast
8.45 - nap. She usually sleeps for an hour and 20 mins. Sometimes longer. She goes from awake to asleep in cot (I sit by cot).

From whatever time she wakes up I then put her down 3.5 hrs later for her second nap.

On a good day she then naps for 1.5 hours and goes to bed for the night 4 hours after waking from second nap.

I feed her 2 snacks and 3 meals over the course of the day. Basically a snack when she wakes from a nap and then a meal about 1 hr before her next nap or bedtime. She has one more bf before bed (bf, bath, into pjs, lullaby, cot).

All going well she'll go to asleep from awake at bedtime in cot (again I sit by cot).

However, often that second nap is really short (always 30-40 mins if in pram / sling) but often the same length if in cot. Our day then goes to pot as she's up too long before bedtime, gets massively overtired and ends up being rocked to sleep. That's not the end of the world (she sleeps through usually - although often wakes a couple of times before 10 pm) but it's getting harder to do as she gets heavier. She screams bloody murder if I leave her in the cot - no matter how much in cot comforting I do. I have never left her to cry. She doesn't have a dummy.

I don't have a set bedtime as such but if she wakes from her second nap at 2, I just struggle to get her in the cot for 6. And I think she also can't cope with a 4 hour awake period if she's only been asleep for 30 mins.

A lot of this might be my fault - I do like to take her out for the day and this often means she has second nap in pram or sling.

So, sorry for rambly post but my questions are:

• what do I do when her second nap is too short?
  

• occasionally she wakes before 6.15. How's best to handle this?
  

• occasionally she wakes after less than an hour's sleep from her morning nap. This also throws the day off. How should I handle it when this happens?
  

Thanks for reading. Again sorry if anything isn't clear. Really grateful for any advice.

[FATEdestiny]

Some babies are better having a shorter morning nap in order to elongate the afternoon nap. I'd keep the morning nap long if you were also getting a long afternoon nap. But given you are not, it is more sensible to have the shorter nap first rather than second.

This would involve waking baby up after 45 minutes sleep. It would also mean your afternoon nap needs to be in the cot. The morning nap could be in the pram/sling of its short, so maybe swap your day around so you're home in the afternoons?

Is 6.15am the time you want baby to wake? In the mornings, you need to allow for some flexibility. So have an 'aim for' wake up time at which you would wake baby if not already awake, but accept that anything from an hour earlier is likely.

If asleep by 7.15pm then a is likely 'aim for' time would be 6.15am (11h), with anything from 5.15am-7.15am (10-12h) in the range of normal. Anything less than 10h sleep and I would treat as a night wake. Anything over 10h but too early for me to get up and I'd being baby in for a morning snuggle in my bed.

[penny14]

Hi berrybee,

I have 10m old twins so I was interested to read your post on your routine. I would say my twins are in largely in a similar routine albeit not always in sync with one another.

I mostly stick to the 234 routine as well and hope to get a 1.5hr morning an a 1.5hr afternoon nap. Morning awake time usually around 6.30/7am and bedtime 6.30/7pm. That said oftentimes one (or both) will nap for less than an hour in the afternoon which can lead to a difficult tea time and bedtime routine.

I've found the best thing to do in this case is to get out for a walk around 4pm for an hour before dinner so that although they are awake, they aren't using lots of energy rolling/cruising around so dinnertime/bath time is a bit less grumpy. That might be worth a try?

[BerryBee]

Thanks for replying.

Fate - thanks. Yes, 6.15 is convenient for me and seems generally right for her. The earliest she wake seems to be about 5.30 and I tend to bring her to bed with me. When this happens I'm never sure what I should do with her nap - bring it forward so awake time is the same length as normal or leave the nap at 8.45 and stretch the time she's awake. What do you think?

In terms of waking her from her first nap....oh god I'm reluctant to do it!! It's the most reliable and indulgent time of my day!!

She has had days of 2 long naps so I feel she's capable of it. When she wakes in the cot after 30 mins she wakes crying and is obviously still tired. It makes no sense. 😫 I wish I could extend that second nap.

Ps - as an aside I followed your advice re clocks going back and it worked really well. Thanks!

Penny - yes that sounds exactly like my day and that might be worth a try actually. Well done for doing this with twins! You'll be reaping the rewards when they're playing together in a couple of years!

[BerryBee]

Fate - meant to add that on days where her first nap is short that doesn't necessarily mean that she'll have a longer second nap (sometimes both are short - making bedtime so hard!). So I think that's what worries me about waking her from her first nap...

[skippybobobo]

Could you put her down for a 2nd nap at 2.5 hours after the 1st ?
Maybe she's over tired ?

[BerryBee]

Yes could do. There's no consistency though....I tried after 3 and she slept for less than an hour. So then I tried 3 1/4 hours and she slept for 1.5 hrs. Thought I'd nailed it but then when I tried the same thing the next day she woke after 30 mins 🙄

I wonder if it's something to do with the length of her first nap? So if that's 2 hours then she can stay awake for 3.5 hours but if first nap is just over an hour maybe I should reduce that second awake period.

It just makes it so hard to plan stuff though. Then I just prioritise having a life and we muddle through as best we can.

[skippybobobo]

It is so hard .
My eldest at that age was sleeping 7-7 and then 9-10:30 and 1:30-2:30/45
My youngest was doing 7-7 but only 9-9:30 and 1-1:30
And I tried the exact same things with both of them !

[BerryBee]

It's frustrating cos the end result is an unhappy baby and bedtime. Although I'm grateful that in the grand scheme of things her sleep (at the moment!) is not too bad.

I do wonder that if I had another the second baby would just have to fit in and I wouldn't be spending the day as a human calculator constantly totting up timings!