Struggling with no routine for one year old DS!

[LittleNapRefuser]

Hi,

I posted here when DS was 6 months old ish and you were all so very helpful.

My DS is now one and I am really struggling with his naps. I wanted to know what your routines were with a baby of this age? My issue is that if I let him nap for too long in the morning, he won't nap at lunch and so ends up overtired by bedtime.

However I then tried following a well known sleep plan and only allowing him ten minutes for the morning nap but often he then wouldn't sleep for the rest of the day either.

I am not too fussed about a strict routine but nothing I try (and stick with for at least a week) is working and it makes it hard to make plans with friends/attend classes.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Has a 10 minute morning nap and a 2 hour lunch one worked for you? DS has never really managed the full 2 hours but at 9 months was doing 30 mins in the morning and then 1hour- 1 hour and a half at lunch. Now that's all gone out of the window!

He goes to bed between 6 and 7pm depending on whether he has napped or not and wakes around 6-7am with one quick breastfeed at 5am ish.

I know it might sound silly but it is really getting me down. I get a lot of anxiety around nap times and worry about whether he will sleep or not. If he doesn't, I get no time at all to do anything and with him still breastfeeding can feel quite 'touched out'. It has started to really effect me and in the mornings I feel a lot of dread. A bit of sleep training worked at 7 months but now he gets very hysterical if left and it ends with us both in tears. I have left him for 30 minutes on a particular awful day and I keep being told letting him cry is the only answer.

I just want to work out a routine that will work for him but that seems to be totally alluding me...

My DS is 13mo. His normal day is something like this:

6:00 Wake up
8:30-9:30 Nap
1-3 Nap
7ish Bed

If we're in the house, I've always found it easier to cosleep for naps with both of mine and then do jobs whilst they're awake. The thought of a few hours to do stuff always sounds appealing but then I like lying down, reading, napping too much!

I'd try this .

6/7am wake
11am nap until 12:30/1
Cat nap if needed at 3:30/4 for 20-30 minutes.

He may be ready to drop to one nap

My 14 month old naps around 12noon for 2 hours. Maybe ready to drop to 1 nap?

So at one mine generally had a morning nap of around an hour to an hour and half, exactly when depended on what we were doing as he’d only fall asleep in the car or buggy. Then another afternoon nap for 30 mins to an hour some time between 3 and 5. Nursery just did one nap after an early lunch at about 12.30 for an hour and a half or so. He goes to bed at 8ish though.
Never had a strict routine, I’d have found it too restrictive and never let him cry just made sure he had the opportunity to nap when he looked tired or I expected him to be tired.
He’s still not slept through though at 17 months so this may not be the right approach! He is an awesomely happy and fun little boy though so I live with the lack of sleep!

Many recommend cutting down the morning nap as baby gets closer to one nap days which is why the routine you've found suggests a 10 minute morning nap. It really varies when they switch to one nap days - most sleep consultants advise from 14-18 months but in reality, I know so many who have switched from 10-11 months and had no issues.

My daughter went through nap regression at 10-12 months and if I hadn't used a sleep consultant when she was younger, I would have unknowingly switched her to one nap from then. I knew from what the sleep consultant had described that she still needed the 2 naps so we continued them until almost 15 months old. (She slept exactly like yours at night until 13 months - down until approx 5am, one breastfeed then back to sleep until 7am.)

If you feel he still needs 2 naps, I would roughly go with 2-3-4 routine (2 hours from wake until first nap, then 3 hours from wake until next nap then 4 hours from wake until bedtime). Alternative is to try one nap a day at 11.30-12ish, aiming for 2+ hours and see how he gets on with that. You are in best position to judge if he will cope ok with one nap a day or if he still needs 2.

My 14 month old has one nap between 30mins and 1.5 hours on an 'as and when' basis during the day. If we're home and she's whingy then she goes down in her cot but if we're out and about she will just drop off in pram or carseat (occasionally not at all). She sleeps 7pm-8am with no wake ups generally so freestyling the naps works for us

Dd is 13months. She’s dropped her morning nap now so our day looks like this:

5/6am wake up
7 Breakfast
7:45-11:30 either play at home where I get stuff done or we go out to groups or shops etc.
11:45 Lunch
12:45 ish down for a nap for 1.5 - 2 hours. I usually have a sleep as well as she’s still up a few times in the night
2:30-3 she’s up and we play, do bits round the house and I prep dinner
5:30-6 dinner
6:30 I start bedtime routine, so bath, jimjams on, a book upstairs, breastfeed and I put her down.

That may not work for you, but I found dropping down to one nap a day helped Dd settle so much easier in the evening. Although she’s cutting molars at the minute so is up anywhere between 2 and a million times a night. It was a lot of trial and error to get here, and a hysterical baby because I was certain she still needed two naps a day. Not sure why I didn’t just follow her lead, I think I was dreading not having an hour to have a coffee in the morning!

This is really helpful thank you. My issue with the 10 minutes and then 2 hour nap is that he never does the full 2 hours. So somedays he would not go down at all and only have 10 mins all day.

He woke at 6am today and is shattered so is napping now but I know if I leave him he won't nap later.

I don't necessarily want a strict routine but it makes it so hard to plan anything not knowing when he will need to have a nap. Do you think I carry on for a bit and then try and drop to one nap?

I just don't know what to do :(. He doesn't sleep in the car and we haven't attempted naps in his pram (he had severe reflux) so it means I need to be at home for them. At the weekends my husband carries him in the baby carrier but he is too heavy for me to that now.

I found this really tricky time. My ds wouldn't nap twice without much effort but was finding one nap hard. Some days he'd sleep 3 hours from 10, others an hour then wake up etc. All you can do is just play it by ear, work towards pushing the morning nap later, and hope he will sleep longer. Mine is nearly 17m now and if we go anywhere in the car after 10ish he tries to drop off. If he did that'd be a short one and it for the day so we end up shouting and patting him to keep him up
Try not to stress about it, easier said than done I know. Try him napping in the pram sometimes, that way you are less tied to the house