Sensitive Sleep and Leaving the House

[user1474565301]

If you have a sensitive sleeper, who needs a routine, how do you go about ever leaving the house or doing anything?
My daughter is 13 1/2 months and is not a natural sleeper, by any means. I have to work really hard at it, which is fine. It is what it is.
She really needs routine (still working out exactly what that should be) and I occasionally have a couple of days in last row where she sleeps through the night and has decent naps, which really helps her, but then if I attempt to go anywhere or visit anyone during the day and a nap is shorter than usual or mis-timed, we enter this overtired cycle for days on end and it all goes wrong, Day and night.
I don't mind nor going too many places, as I am getting used to it, but would like to leave the house occasionally and I do notice that my daughter needs to socialise more, as she is very sensitive with other people. She needs new experiences but how do I do it without messing up her sleep? We live in the country, so a 30 min drive from most places.

It's really tricky, isn't it. Does she sleep in the car or buggy at all? If so I'd time outings/groups so she's got the chance to sleep at the right time and for the normal duration halfway through an outing.

If not, can you try to invite people with children to yours where possible and give it another few months? I found that once walking and talking were properly established and teething all done, my ds was a bit less reliant on naps being 'just right'.

I've had two of them! Once they get down to one nap it is much easier. Their sleep was/is a huge priority for me and they were pretty miserable if they didn't get it. So we just made sure we were home for naps and that made everyone happier.

Does she sleep in the car? If she's on two naps, I used to like this stage because DD could nap in the car on the way to somewhere, have a few hours out and then she could nap in the car on the way home.

Baby surely doesn't sleep 24 hours a day? It just comes down to
(a) being efficient and
(b) realusing that it is only like this for a short time

At 13-14 months I had to be at home for naps 9-11am and 1-3pm. Before 9am and after 3pm I had the older children at home, so trickier to get stuff done - therefore out of the house chores all needed to be done between 11am and 1pm (and baby also needed lunch in that time).

So I would get myself organised while baby was asleep so that as soon as baby wakes, I'd zoom out the house with focus on where I'm going and what for; get it done and go home.

Socialising (as in toddler groups etc) started as soon as baby dropped to 1 nap. No point in going to groups before then, she'd just sleep or be grumpy because she needed to sleep.

This is where the second point comes in, it's not like it's going to be forever. By the time your baby is 2, the move will come to just a lunchtime nap and you'll have your mornings. We go to playgroup, toddler groups, swimming, messy play, the park. But every afternoon we are home and ready for nap time. So still tied to the naps, but with more free time too.

For now, you could socialise with her late afternoon. Especially so with the lighter nights now. You could go to the play park, country park, soft play, swimming and so on. You'll meet loads of others doing the same.