1yo naps and late bedtime - advise please!

[booomy]

DS goes to bed at about 9:30pm after a good routine of bath, bottle, teeth and story. He goes down easily and usually sleeps through. He then wakes up at about 6:30/7, eats his breakfast and then at 9am is ready for a nap!

It's obvious to me that his bedtime is too late, therefore he wakes for his breakfast then wants to go back to bed. Trouble is if we put him to bed earlier, he wakes up at between 4am and 5am, then follows the same pattern!

When he wakes up on a normal day, he is fully awake, stood up banging on the bars type things, not just crying.

Is 9am sleep his only nap?

How long is it?

My DD went to bed at 9.30 last night, after having had a really long nap during the middle of the day (2-4.45 pm). She wasn't tired earlier so there was no point putting her to bed. We had our dinner whilst she played.
She was awake at 7.30 this morning, just chatting in her cot.

Usually we try to put her to bed at around 7.30, but some nights it just doesn't happen. Some nights she'll sleep through really well, but last week we had three nights on the trot where she woke at 2am and kept me awake 'til 4. (Irritating as I can't sleep when she is in our bed; and we only brought her in there because the grizzling she was doing was keeping us both awake).

I've given up stressing over it. She is only 20 months so plenty of time to get into a set routine.

Sorry, realise that's not very helpful - I was aiming more for a kind of reassurance.

He has three naps a day. From 9-10, then at nursery from 12-2 then when I pick him up from nursery 4;30-5. I know that's loads for a 1 year old!

It's kind of an issue notgeoff because I'm going back to work, and need to leave at 9 to drop him off. Since he's only been going in to get used to it for the last few weeks, we just set off when he wakes up. When I tried to set off at 9 yesterday (we go on the bike, so he can't nap) he was screaming and crying because he was tired.

If he didnt have his late nap, would he go down any earlier?

I hear you boomy - I'll be going back to college soon and will need a more structured routine.

I think that you are going to have to drop the late nap, and work towards dropping the early one. DD has been on one nap during the day for the past few months; at 1yr she was on two short naps (about 45 minutes) - one at around 11am and another around 3pm. If she sleeps past 4.30 then bedtime is always a battle. :(

My DD is a little older (15 months) but she still needs a first nap 2-2.5 hours after she wakes up. She also has a relatively late bedtime (9:30 last night when she fell asleep) but is a late riser too. She has another nap in the afternoon too. She used to have 3 naps just like your DS but dropped the later one at the childminder around 11 months and took two longer ones instead.

I don't have any answers but just wanted to reassure you that some older babies do need lots of sleep, and he will probably adjust quite quickly to the new routine once it's in place :)

Agree with gold & notgeoffvader - think the late nap is what's leading to the late BT, so I would first of all cut that out & get him to bed earlier. His nights should be longer as a result, but like you have said, I suspect he may wake earlier. Why - because his morning nap is too early. Early waking is strongly linked to too early a morning nap. At the moment the only reason he doesn't wake early is because he goes to bed so late & he still needs a certain amount of sleep at night. So step 2) of the plan would be to gradually push the morning nap a little later to a 9.30am start. In turn this will push the afternoon nap later to a 12.30pm start & mean he is better able to last until a decent bedtime without that afternoon nap.

HTH.x

Funnily enough, bedtime was 7.30 on the dot tonight. Today was nursery day. DD only slept for around 15 minutes. When she came home she was tired, wobbly and grizzly. Couldn't go to bed early as we had to go out again. By 7.10 she was really miserable.
Washed, teeth cleaned, milk, sleep - in the space of 15 minutes.

Hopefully she'll be tired enough to sleep through 'til around 6 am.