1 year olds and sleeping - not sure where we've gone wrong!

[stiltonontoast]

My son will be 1 on Thursday. He's always been a good sleeper up until now, always sleeping through 7-7 and 3-4h of naps a day (over 2 naps).

Suddenly his sleep is the worst its ever been. Refusing naps (screaming and tears) for 1h+ and waking up for up to 2h in the middle of the night and then waking for the day at 5.30am. Its like he's got out of sync because he's clearly tired but is very good at masking it - other people and nursery often say 'he doesn't seem tired!' but he has a few tell tale signs like touching his ears, cuddling up to a toy or he keeps coming to cuddle me.

When put in his cot to nap he's usually in his sleeping bag, with a dummy in and then he has his cuddly elephant to snuggle. Before now he's always down and sleeping in around 10 mins, but now he just makes this constant grunting which turns to crying / screaming. If we go back in to settle him he cries even harder after we leave.

Just wondering what everyone elses 11/12 month olds nap and sleep patterns were like, is it a bad sleep period?

That's quite a lot of naps. Maybe he's under-tired?

@ReaganSomerset Thats what I'm wondering. He still goes down for his first nap 2 hours after waking and then he has another one around 2pm. If we don't wake him he would sometimes sleep longer than 2h.

3-4 hours of daytime naps?? Too much. Cut back and see if his nighttime sleep improves.

Too much daytime sleep. I would do all you can to keep him going until after lunch and then put him down for a sleep around 12/1pm. Then up and active again for a few hours and bed for the night at 7

Ok, so cut out the first nap for him?

How many hours would you say he needs during the day?

My dd is 12 months. Usually has one 1.5 hr nap at around 12. Sometimes up to 2.5hrs.

Sleeps 11-12 hours at night.

However a combination or teething, a cold and one year injections has ruined her night time sleep for 2 weeks.

Wakes after a few hours and can be up for 2 hours. I'm hoping this stops soon.

My 14 month old only naps once a day (has done since about 10 months), I have recently started to put a time limit on duration of up to an hour, it means she's definitely tired and should sleep better at night. I have also increased food at dinner time which also seems to help

at that age my dd was having about 40mins at 9.30 ish (woken if.necessary) and 1.5-2 hours at 1ish

It was around 1 my LO started to drop
A nap and slept for two hours in the morning (usually 10-12), then around 15 months old that naturally moved to the afternoon post lunch.
As for waking up early mine also did this around their first bday, I put it down to it being summer and the bright mornings but maybe it’s developmental. My HV recommended not giving breakfast any earlier so they didn’t think a 5am start (4.30 on a bad day) was the norm.

My 1 year old has a one 1/ 1.5 to two hour max nap each day

Thanks everyone - really appreciate your responses. Sometimes its good to know whats 'normal' for other people.

Today we decided not to put him down to nap in the morning but to wait until 12 instead. Well we got to 10 and he was knackered so caved and put him down for a nap. He slept for 50mins, got up and had lunch and we walked the dog, then he played for an hour and now he's having his afternoon nap. So far, not too bad... we'll see how it effects tonights sleep I think.

Advice at one is to have two naps so your little one may still need this. If so, I would shorten them to twp one hour naps- wake him up after an hour.

We decided to transition to one to make things easier- was getting increasingly difficult to fit two in and do anything meaningful in the day and our baby has adapted well, but e could have easily contd having 2 naps a day.

Mine dropped daytime naps completely at 18 months and slept 7-7 shortly after.

Definitely reduce the naps. Try and stretch to lunchtime and do 90 mins