16-month-old sleeps 10pm to 6am and wakes up at night... EXHAUSTED (me)!!!!

[mackoo0524]

Hi everyone, I've posted a few times on MN about my DS's sleep and we're still having trouble with his sleep at 16 months...

He's always slept much less than other kids his age. Since he turned 1, he's been averaging about 11 hours of sleep max in a 24-hour period. He transitioned to one nap at 1 as well because having 2 naps was pushing his bedtime really late (like 11pm!!!).

For a while having one nap seemed to help, he would go to bed at around 9/9.30 which was still late but acceptable. He would wake up 2-3 times a night and get up around 8 in the morning.

But in the last few months, we realised that he needed EIGHT hours of wake time between his nap and bedtime which means that if he took a nap from 12 to 2 (which was his routine for a while), he still wouldn't fall asleep until past 10pm!!! Sometimes he would stay up until 11pm and as you can imagine, DH and I have zero time to ourselves and are exhausted! In fact I often fall asleep before DS does, while reading him his story!!

This week, he's been falling asleep around 10pm but for some reason, wakes up for the day at 6am. In the middle of the night he would wake up around 2am too and we'd give him a bottle to make him go back to sleep. So that means less than 8 hours of nighttime sleep!!!

He would normally take a long nap (2 hours) to make up for it but I always make sure he's up by 2pm, because otherwise he won't sleep until 11pm!!!

So... what's going on??!!

Is DS just a freak of nature??

Is his bedtime too late??

We tried doing his bedtime routine earlier but he would just play in bed for an hour and still fall asleep around the same time

Is it even possible that he's ready to drop his lunchtime nap...??? That would be slightly painful for me but if it helped him sleep through/ go to bed earlier at night it would be worth it!!

There was one time in December when he was very close to not napping. He was awake until 5pm, got super cranky and fell asleep in the pram when we left gran's house. But we woke him up as soon as we got home because we didn't believe he would treat 5pm as bedtime!?

I'm also 28 weeks pregnant now and just exhausted sob!

Sorry for the essay... Any input much appreciated!!

Sorry, just wanted to add - I don't think he's sleep deprived on the whole because when he's awake he's very active and in a good mood most of the time. So I do think that he doesn't need more than 10-11 hours sleep a day...

Wow you must be knackered!

I would try massively reducing his daytime sleep to a catnap (15mins or so) as early in the day as possible then start putting him down and getting him up (wake him) at the same time each day. Say 8pm - 6/7am. Keep the bedtime routine exactly the same every night and make him stay in his bed even if chatting and playing when you put him down. Basically it’s now ‘quiet time’. At least that way you kind of get a break/evening. Is he in a cot or bed? He’s still very little but some kids do just need less sleep.

Hi Nowwhyareyoucrying thanks for your reply!!

Yep, I think that might be the way forward... It will be hard at the beginning because he'll probably be cranky in the afternoon but I'll definitely give it a go.

Thank you!

If he’s really miserable you could do the bedtime routine slightly early to start then slowly make it later, just make sure you wake him in the morning at the same time (8/9/10 hours later - whatever you decide) so you can keep the routine going.