Low sleep needs toddler

[EmptyDumpty]

My DS is 21 months. He sleeps 9pm to 6.15am with a 1 hour nap in the day (generally sleeps through or with 1 wake after night weaning, for which I am extremely grateful)

This seems really little, but it seems to work for him. But I am pretty tired and always chasing my tail. It feels like we get so little adult time - and very little time for planning/prep/household chores.

If you had a low sleep needs kid, what were your tips for keeping on top of daily tasks?

Nursery

My second child is like this and it's exhausting. I really sympathise. My only advice is outsource as much as possible (ready meals, cleaner etc), lower your expectations of yourself massively and keep the faith that one day they will be a teenager you can't get out of bed!

Thanks @marlfield - I'm currently outsourcing lunches by buying a sandwich every day, which is one of the things I'd like to change as it's £££! We batch cook at the weekend, which definitely makes evenings smoother though.

Sadly @TooBusyGazingAtStarss he's at nursery quite long hours already. But when he's in nursery, I'm generally at work! I do have 1 WFH day most weeks, so I think I need to be making better use of that to get some chores done as well as work!

Yeah, i use my working from home day to do stuff. I get them in nursery early, then have an hour to do some bits, do more bits on my lunch a day then maybe out some stuff away or quick bits before I pick up.

Not time otherwise 🤷‍♀️
Its shit but is what it is x

My DS was very similar at that age but he massively improved when he dropped his nap shortly after he turned 2, went from sleeping 9 hours a night to 11-12, even though his nap was only an hour. We had been in survival mode til that point as he was a regular waker as well. Hang in there!

@OpalCitrine3 that would be the dream! Can I ask what dropping the nap looked like for you?

DS would nap for ages if we let him - we start cutting it shorter when his bedtime starts creeping later and he's waking earlier. Gone from unlimited to 2 hours to now 1 hour only.

My two are both similarly low sleep needs (but on the plus side, the 4 year old still sleeps about the same amount as she did aged 2, so it's not got worse). For getting things done, yes, leverage the work at home day, use the commute time you save and the lunch break – either for chores or for a bit of quality 'me-time'. Half an hour reading my book or getting out in the garden on my lunch break makes me feel much better about life.

Also communicate about how you're tag-teaming evenings and weekends (whilst also having some blocks of family time, of course). If we aren't deliberate about it, we find it's easy to drift through the day, but if we say 'right, I'm watching the children this morning whilst you tackle this job, then after nap we're all going to the park' or 'you're doing bedtime; I'm sorting the kitchen', things go better.

Finally, learn what you can get done with him in tow. Get him involved 'helping' where he can (at this age, this mostly means not slowing you down so much you're going backwards), but also I squeeze in bits of chores as and when they're occupying themselves for a minute or two. Yes, this means the kitchen cupboards get wiped down one or two at time, and baskets of washing get folded in three stages – but I view it as a bonus, that's still a basket of washing I don't have to fold when they are asleep.

Much like you, we had it cut down to an hour as he wouldn't sleep until way past his normal bedtime if his nap was too long. He started fighting his nap after he turned 2 so we skipped it on days he was really fighting it. It was actually nursery were he mostly skipped naps at first, I think he didn't like missing out on what everyone was doing! He might have had a nap 2 times a week maybe, then that stopped too.

It was a bit of a rough transition for about 3-4 weeks as he was exhausted by 5.30pm and got very irritable but once we got over that his sleep improved so much, he sleeps 7.15pm to 6.30am most nights now. It used to be 8pm to 5am with a few wake ups so big improvement!