Argh why is my 11 month old fighting sleep now??!!

[Stillmonday]

He's always been a dream to get to sleep but for the last month it's been awful. Every single night he's fighting it which takes about an hour to get him to sleep. After his bedtime story he starts thrashing around throwing himself head first into the bed repeatedly and rolling around kicking and generally just being fidgety. He's clearly tired as most of the time his eyes are closed and I never let him nap after 3pm in the day.

Any suggestions please?

Anyone?

Teething?

It's every single night though. He's had some teeth come through at 8 months and didn't do this.

My DD had a really big sleep regression at about 11 months, could it be that?

My DD still had both a morning nap and an afternoon nap at that age - she's always slept better at night when she's napped through the day.

Could you try letting him nap after 3pm if he's showing signs of being tired? He might surprise you and only have 30-60 mins (as my DD did) and then settle well again at bedtime. May mean you need to make his bedtime slightly later but has to be better for you all if he settles straight to sleep.

No advice I'm afraid, but i feel your pain as my 8 month old is the same. She only sleeps when we either cuddle her in or walk the floor with her, with her screaming as we go. It takes about 5 minutes but she gets so distressed it feels much longer that. At one point she was going down (the holy grail) drowsy but awake and wasn't I smug. Hoping it'll pass soon.

Maybe I don't let him sleep enough in the day? I always wake him after an hours nap both am & pm. I clearly need to change something but don't want to make things even worse for myself 🤔

My DM always said 'sleep breeds sleep' and in my DD's case I've found it to be true!

She's 20 months old now and down to one lunch time nap and she still settles far better on a night when she's has a decent nap in the day (up to 2 hours).

Maybe have a few days where you follow his sleep cues and let him nap, if it doesn't work you're no worse off 🤷‍♀️

Just to go back to another point - I always let DD sleep as long as she needed to and get into her own routine rather than one I imposed. I would say when she was having both her naps they could be 90 minutes each so he's possibly not having as much as he needs?

At his age he'll be learning so much, crawling/learning to walk/playing with new toys and seeing new things. I genuinely think every day exhausts them and they need plenty of down time.

I have to agree with sleep breeds sleep. My 10 month old sleeps from 8pm to 6am only if he has gone back to sleep for an hour and half at 6am, napped for an hour at 11am and 2 hours at 2pm. He then has his tea, a little play, bath, bottle, book and bed.

If none of that routine happens like when he goes to in-laws it's blown outta the window and he's a bloody nightmare. Seems to get hyper the more knackered he gets , I'm dreading returning to work and loosing this routine.

He is a little whirlwind in the day, he never sits still always wanting to explore everything everywhere. I sometimes try to get him to sit with me fir a while but he has none of it.

I have to be a voice of dissent I'm afraid and say sleep certainly did / does not breed sleep in DS1 - he sleeps far, far better at night with minimal daytime sleep (if any now as he is 2.5yo) and LOTS of exercise - is your 11mo crawling/walking/mobile? My advice is as much movement as possible- run around the park, softplay, set up an obstacle course in the living room. I also dropped to one nap by 12mo as otherwise bedtime wasn't until ridiculously late as he just wasn't tired. As for the thrashing - we get this too particularly with teething (molars came through recently) and coughs/colds. It does seem to pass in between these ailments though. Have you tried a dose of calpol before bed to see if it helps?

Sleep regression around this age. Teething.

Mines loses sleep at night when theres a new skill coming out- walking, talking?

He’s too young for it to matter how late you let him nap. You need to look at the intervals. At 11 months both of mine were still sleeping every three hours, so as long as they woke up by 5pm we were fine for an 8pm bedtime.
If he’s anywhere close to walking, both of mine had a massive regression that finished the day they cracked it.

@KatnissK OP is trying minimal sleep through the day, even cutting short his naps, but that doesn't seem to be working at this stage. I agree with making sure they burn off energy, but she said in her last post that he's a whirlwind and won't sit still 🤷‍♀️

I'm not saying it applies to every child, but from what OP has said so far I do think it's worth trying him with more daytime sleep.

I'd say he was over tired. What time does he go to bed? We had this around 4/5/6 months with my son and it was because bedtime was a fraction too late.

We go to bed around 6pm and have stories then he's asleep by 7pm usually

It might help to post your daily routine for more specific advice?

5am wakes up, 30 minutes in bed BF & play
7am breakfast
8am 1 hour nap
Play
11.30 lunch
Play & BF
2pm 1 hour nap
Play
4pm dinner
Bath
Play & BF
6pm story time in bed &BF
7pm asleep

??

If you follow previous advice to let him sleep longer in the day, could you - let him sleep as long as he likes for am nap, maybe do a half hour power nap if he needs it later on and then try a later bedtime? If he is fighting sleep for an hour anyway then would putting him to bed at 7.30pm/8pm make that much difference to you?

Personally I'd let him nap for as long as he needs. My soon to be 11 month in 2 days time can go 2.5 hrs in the morning, then has a little nap in buggy/car for the afternoon as we're usually out and about. No meltdowns at bedtime - he has a bath, bottle then sleep around 6.30ish.

He needs a longer morning sleep. Being awake from 9am to 2pm is a vv long stretch.

He's getting about 12 hours sleep a day in total. The recommended time is more like 15 hours.

I'd be a bit grumpy too if I was woken up after only an hours nap

I would try moving the timings around to see if that helps. I have 9 month old twins and their routine (roughly) is:

7am wake up and milk
9am breakfast
10am nap (30mins to 1hour)
12pm lunch
2:30pm milk
3pm nap (again 30mins to 1hour)
5pm dinner
7:30pm milk
8pm bed

Maybe a later bedtime will move the early wake up for you. I try hard to keep my boys awake ready for their nap times as we've recently gone down to two naps - this might help, it might not! No one needs a 5am wake up!

Advice says babies need 3 hours of naps during the day otherwise they might be overtired at night and wake up more... mine have always been ok with less sleep but you may need to increase your nap times (more cuddling/rocking if that works).