Routine for 10 month old - help me get one!

[fruitsticksinyourstocking]

Have never been terribly routine orientated but he did kind of have one until he was about 7 months. however, it has gone to pot.

he is incapable of settling himself to sleep so I spend my mornings (when DS1 is at preschool) spending half an hour/45 minutes getting him off to sleep, then he sleeps for about 30 minutes.

However it's so late hen he finally goes off that he is then not tired for an afterlunch sleep but is tired and cranky if he doesn't have another nap. I let him have one but can't let him sleep too long, otherwise he won't go to sleep at night. I can't spend too long getting him off to sleep in the afternoon as DS1 gets neglected.

so my questions

• what daytime routine does your 10 month old have?
• when esptablishing routines, is it better to sort the times out first or the method of settling. Eg - do I get him used to sleeping at those times using whichever method possible (car, rocking, feeding etc) or do I have to tackle the sleep associations first.

New year, new broom etc.

Hi fruitsticks - remember you from the Fab Feb thread. My DS2 is 10 months now too and is fine with his day time naps but a bugger at nights due to teething at the moment.

However his routine normally goes

wake up around 6ish, bf
change, breakfast, play
watch for tiredness signs - pulling hair, yawning, irritability, rubbing eyes - then go into wind down mode - few stories in his grobag in his room then down for a nap (normally around 9.30 after his brother has gone to preschool) - wake him up around 10.30
bottle and snack
play
lunch at 12.20ish
play
wind down stories and nap around 1/1.30ish for an hour or so
bottle and snack
play
dinner at 5/5.15ish
play
bath, bf, stories and into cot around 6.40ish

When not teething he'd wake around once in the night for a bf - at the moment its around 5 or 6 times.

I'd say get him used to self settling (had to do shush patting with DS2 for nap times when he was refusing them a few months back) and the day time naps will follow.

My dgs is 10 months
wakes about 6ish has 7oz formula then half a banana and a Weetabix
8.30 has nap about an hour then play till 11 then a bottle and a snack-rice cake and other half banana
Play/walk in buggy
12.15 lunch-solids followed by fruit or yoghurt water to drink
12.45 nap time till about 2.30 then play/snack[3ish]
Brother home 4ish plays then has short[30min]nap till teatime at 5ish
bath about 5.45 then stories,bottle and in cot by 6.30.
He usually sleeps through unless he is teething when he may wake once or twice no more.
He gets himself off to sleep usually-thumb in mouth and teddy in other hand.
He sleeps in a grobag thingy and seems very contented.

OK, I definitely need some of this routine business.

I think I'm not winding down enough before his nap - just trying to put him in his cot to fierce protests!

Might give the whole story/music thing a go in the day.

Will try the shush pat thing too. I tried pick up put down with DS1 but did my back in Was skeptical that it did any good anyway.

Here's another routine for comparison... DD now almost 1 but at 10 months her routine looked like this:

6am wake up (she's a fan of early mornings, sometimes she'd stretch until 6.15...)
6.30am milk
7.3am brekkie
9.15am nap 30 mins (I wake her from this otherwise she sleeps too long, won't go down after lunch and then wakes at 5.30 the next day
11.45am lunch
12.30pm nap 2 hours (she's usually wake dead on, but sometimes I had to wake her)
3pm milk
5pm tea
6.30pm bath, milk
7pm bed

IME it really worked to get her self-settling for bedtime first, then working on daytime naps. We sorted the nap time first, then the method, so we did a fair few naps in the buggy while out.

Also recommend tackling one nap at a time, so once bedtime self settling is sorted, start on the morning nap, then once that sorted, the afternoon one. Makes it more manageable for you.

We found Pick Up Put Down really brilliant for helping DD learn to self settle. Took 2 nights.

I have to caveat all this by saying DD was 13 weeks when we decided to do the routine thing, so it may take a bit longer with an older baby, and I guess PUPD could be trickier like you say, and perhaps just annoying for an older child too. Shush/pat or gradual withdrawal might be a good plan though?

Good luck with it all x

oh yes, forgot a couple of crucial things... we have a really quick nap routine for DD which we've done since 4 months:

• into bedroom, quiet songs on her ipod (docked not earphones!)
• check nappy, into grobag
• quick cuddle, draw blind, turn off light
• into cot, give her Mr Rabbit comforter and leave...

Bedtime routine too:

• bath, moisturise, into pyjamas and grobag
• into bedroom, quiet songs on
• milk
• read a v quick book
• cuddle, say night night to toys, into cot with Mr Rabbit
• songs and light off and leave...

These sleep cues have really worked for us and she settles easily even when in a strange house. She is a very alert little girl, and i think the routine and wind down cues have made a massive difference.

DS2 is 10 months and we're in a kind-of-routine which is led by him.

Sometimes he wakes up early (6.30ish), in which case he's tired again at 9.30-ish so after I've dropped DS1 at school I have a little wander round the park with him until he drops off in his buggy. He'll normally have 30-45 mins. Then he'll need another little nap in the afternoon. Sometimes he'll go off at around 3-ish on the walk home from school, if not, while DS1 is having a drink & snack I'll BF DS2 to sleep and he'll have another short nap.

Other days he won't wake up til much later then he'll stay awake until between 11am and 12pm and when he is ready to go to sleep he'll ask for a feed and then conk out for a good 2 hours.

Although I like a bit of structure in my life I find the thought of a regimented routine quite limiting. I hate the idea of having a child who can only nap properly in his own bed. DS2 doesn't need any special cues to sleep, as long as he's in his buggy or has someone to cuddle he'll happily and quickly drift off wherever he is, when he needs to.

hello have skimmed this thread but i was rubbish with timings and routines etc with dd (who's now 21 months) but at about 10 mo i do remember wondering why on earth she didn't go down for a nap as well as she did at night...

anyway - it was because i wasn't treating her naptime like i do her BEDtime....i think i was probably just putting her in the cot and leaving her to it....(poor mite). When I tried putting her to bed with her grobag over her clothes (give or take the odd layer off so she didn't get too hot), and closing the curtains, perhaps reading a book together before i put her down, then suddenly she went down BEEYOOOOTIFully...

So that might work? once she started sleeping well during the day i noticed how well she slept full stop - at night and at naptime....and how much better she was in between..
good luck

Fruitstick - pick up put down definitely wouldnt work with DS2 as he'd think he was being taken out of his cot for playtime and would get furious - keeping him in his cot and shush patting him worked a treat though.

He will have a nap in the car seat/buggy if tired instead of his cot but I find annoying things like police sirens/motorbikes roaring along tend to wake him up if he's in his buggy so he only has a 30/40 min nap in his buggy as opposed to a longer nap which he'd have in his cot.

I agree with crazycatlady - work on one nap at a time and the rest will hopefully fall into place.

Good luck.

Personally I'd work on the night time bed settle first.
Once he gets used to settling on his own then, you can take that routine and do a mini one for naps. For example my ds's evening routine is a bit like this

Dinner 5pm
Play 5:30-6:15
Bath 6:15-6:30
Dressed for bed
Story 6:35-6:45/6:50
Bottle and bed by 7pm

It has always been like this for both ds's so to encourage a day time nap, I'd take him into the bedroom, turn lights down, maybe some soft baby music. I'd take his top clothes off and give him a little cotton wool wash, then read him a story, give a little milk, put him down and say goodnight or something and leave him. If he starts crying, I'd go in and stroke him and make shushing noises.
It took a while to 'train' ds1 when and how to nap, but this is how I did it.
Ds2 is quite good really, he doesn't have such a strict routine as ds1 did because it's harder with 2, so I wait until he shows me he's tired and I change his nappy, remove top clothes, give milk and put him down, he whinges for a minute or so, but not strong enough to make me go in, and he sleeps mostly 9am to midday then 3-4pm ish. Unless we're out and i don't bother with any of it as he sleeps in pushchair.

Our solid meals are routine, milk feeds are when he gets really ratty (he can have between 2 and 4 feeds a day) but because our meals are at set times, everything else just falls in really. We have play time, tidy time, mumsnet time

Thank you everyone. It's so nice to see some of you from the Feb 09 thread. We moved when DS2 was 6 weeks and I was without the internet for 6 weeks. By the time I got it back I'd lost track of it!

Maybe if I'd have stayed on I may have managed the whole thing much better so far .

I tried a kind of shush/rock today but put him down half awake - it definitely took less time than it has in the past so I'm hoping if I keep it up it will get shorter and shorter.

Can I also ask those of you with 2 children, how do you manage bedtime with 2? At the moment they have a bath together, then DH reads to DS1 while I settle DS2, but I'm not sure how it works when it's just me!

Like I said before, we're ok now and doing the whole bath/bed thing on my own is fine.
I get ds2's bed clothes together and put them in the bthroom, then I put ds2 in the bath and wash him, then ds1 joins him and I let them play for a bit, then I wash ds1 and then get ds2 out and dry and dress him on floor while ds1 plays. Then I get ds1 out and wrap him in a towel and sit him in living room, then I get ds2 and bring him to living room and give him a toy while I dress ds1. Then I read them a story, then give ds2 a bottle, put him to bed. Spend 10 mins with ds1 and then put him down.
In the early months when ds2 needed help settling, ds1 would just have to wait and I wouldn't bother with the bath.

Fruitstick -you are more than welcome to pop in on us on postnatal as and when you want to. We have plenty of guest appearances from antenatal thread posters....

The way I cope with DS1 and DS2 is that they have a bath together, then DS1 is given a cup of milk and some tv (generally a Charlie & Lola dvd - he gets 2 episodes) while I give DS2 a breastfeed and some stories and put him down to sleep around 6.40ish and then go down, pick up DS1, take him to the bathroom for his nightly poo and toothbrush and then into his room for more stories and he's in bed around 7.30ish. DS1 is nearly 4 though so can be left alone downstairs without too much worry on my part - if the age gap was smaller I think I'd probably have to work it more like LBB does.

Have to admit though I take my hat off to people with 3 kids or more...