1 year old sleep advice

[newmummytonoah2016]

Hi 👋🏻

Was hoping someone may have had similar experience or going through same thing and could offer some advice . My little boy turned 1 last month and has always been a generally good sleeper, usually only waking for teething or something like that but has always slept through generally.

Just recently we seem to be getting a couple of excellent nights followed by some really tough nights, where he’s just really restless and wakes up maybe an hour or two after he’s gone down to sleep well. He will literally lay in his cot sobbing his little heart out, 9/10 he’s still got his head down on his cot so I can tell he’s tired but just can’t soothe him until we pick him up. On the tougher nights where I’ve had Work the next day etc we’ve brought him in bed with us where he’s gone off to sleep fine. He’s not reliant on this method either as we have many successful nights where he sleeps in his own cot all the way through.

So I’m at a bit of a loss at what’s going on really , If anyone has any suggestions to what it may be or has had similar experiences it would be much appreciated xx

What happens to get him from fully awake to asleep at bedtime?

Does the same happen for daytime naps? What is his usual daytime sleep routine?

He’s usually great at taking his naps in a day, he takes this usually in his pushchair and has one morning one around 1030/11 for anywhere from 40 mins to an hour. Then one in an afternoon which is usually a bit longer anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. I did notice yesterday his nap was longer than usual, just under 2 hours so I’m wondering if he had too much time napping? I wonder if the extra nap causes us the trouble at bedtime sometimes. Should he be at one nap by now?

Also bedtime routine is usually a bit of chill time and then he has his bottle and is put down whilst he’s drowsy and he’s straight off to sleep. 9/10 he settles straight away. Just on these odd occasions he’s waking up an hour or so later very unsettled.

I think those naps need moving around. He may be ready for one 2-3 hour nap per day. Try having a bush morning, easy to eat lunch at around 11.30am and then try a cot nap at 12pm until 2pm or even 3pm. Then a bedtime between 7pm-8pm

I would also completely separate milk and sleeping. Give a bottle while downstairs, still in daytime clothes. Then do bath/wash, teeth brushed, into night clothes and then into the cot completely awake.

bush=busy

Thanks for the tips!

He had a 2 hour nap this afternoon and made sure he didn’t have one this morning. Fingers crossed this pays off tonight.
Will it benefit him more to have the bottle completely separate to his bedtime routine?

On all honesty I wouldn't change a thing.
Try to just go with it and meet his needs as best you can.
It will likely even itself out on its own.

In the meantime, have some

My DD is 14 months old, and she has phrases like you describe.

Usually she'll sleep nicely from 7:30pm to 7:30am but then she'll have a week or two of being generally unsettled between her bedtime and ours, and then waking up properly at around midnight, sometimes for hours.

In my experience, the phase passes quite quickly, just when you think you can't take another night of it, and can't remember her ever sleeping through, she goes back to normal.

FATE is a wealth of sleep knowledge, but if all else fails, I believe your DS will go back to normal at some point soon, he's probably having a learning/growing spurt.

Aw thanks for sharing! If I’m honest I’d be a bit wary to change anything as he always has been a good sleeper and whatever we’ve done has generally always worked well. It was just more recently he has changed it up a little, which made me think should I change something. Hoping it’s just a phase he will pass through!

They like to keep us on our toes these babies!