Overtired baby - new nursery routine

[MummysGlassesAreNotAToy]

My 11 month old has just started nursery as I've gone back to work. We're all having a little trouble adapting to the new routine.

At home he will sometimes have 2 naps (down at 9-ish, wake after 30 mins, then down again at 1.30-ish for about 1.5hrs) and sometimes will have one nap.

Nursery do the main nap 12-2, with sleep music on and lights dimmed. They will try to put him down outside those times if he seems like he needs it, but he finds it hard to settle outside of those times as there is too much going on.

But today for example he slept 12-1.25. I finished work a bit early and picked him up early and had him in bed by 6.20, but since 10pm he has been on and off awake every 20-30 mins which I think is down to being overtired. Most days we don't get home til about 6.15.

Hoping for some insight from more experienced parents? Will he adapt to sleeping at nursery outside of their main nap times? Will he adapt to getting by with a longer afternoon awake time? Or is this what my nights are going to be like for a while?!

Oh dear, that does sound like overtired. I think at 11 months he might be able to cope with just one nap on some days - how often is he at nursery?

Generally kids do seem to adapt to nursery routine within a week or two. My DD is now 2, she has one routine for days with me (I cuddle her until she's nearly off and then put her in bed, doesn't take long), one for days with my mum (she sleeps in the pram), one for days with my DH (they have a snooze on the sofa together) and one for nursery (she sleeps with her blanket when all the others do). Each one of those was added one at a time and she took about two weeks to settle to the new routine. BUT she's back at nursery this week after 3 weeks off and we have had two bad nights so she's unlearnt it a bit!

My guess is that he'll adapt, but you'll still have the odd rocky night like that when he's under the weather or off routine for another reason. I'm starting to think that a child that reliably sleeps through the night the majority of the time is a fantasy

I found this age tricky for the same reason. DS was exhausted when he got home from a full day at nursery.

We tried to get him in bed by 6:30, as you’ve done, and avoided doing anything too stimulating in the evenings - generally we’d just go home, have dinner, watch some TV/play with toys and then go to bed.

It didn’t last long - he eventually got to the stage where he was generally quite contented in the evenings, I think just due to his need for sleep reducing. He still has some really long naps at the weekend though - he’s 2.3 now and I think he needs to catch up on his sleep at weekends.

We’re now starting to drop the nap altogether which is fun and not what I want to happen at all but there’s not much to be done about it. Basically, it’ll sort itself out and you’ll get a good routine going and then your child will change again and all your hard work will be undone

My DD started nursery at the same age. She did get used to it and had longer naps at the weekend and grumpy evenings for a little while.

He will adapt to nursery, but also I’d say unfortunately what you’re describing is pretty normal for many babies at this age. Both of mine went through a phase of waking every 30 minutes or so around 9-11 months (one was in nursery but the other wasn’t, so nothing to do with nursery). It’s hell ish but doesn’t last forever.

Thank you all! So nice to hear from other people. Sleep has been tricky for us and the last couple of months had settled down a lot. I was expecting nursery to disrupt things a bit but we've had a few very difficult nights!

And today he's had two naps and hasn't been able to go to sleep at bedtime... so yes, think it's probably partly nursery and partly just a tricky age! Fingers crossed it settles down soon and in the meantime I'll just try and stay awake at work!

Agree with others that we experienced a kind of regression at this age. But also found that nursery was so over stimulating that DS needed extra time to wind down when we got home. Any chance you can engineer an earlier pick up so he can have quiet time at home for longer before bed? We really noticed the difference on days we were unable to do this. Less important now that he is more used to nursery though, so I'm sure it will settle down for you too.