Sleep regression at 12 months?

[LilyWhite2]

Advice really, DS turned one on Saturday and we moved 2 weeks ago. He's been good with sleeping usually, blip at 4 months. But the last month he has dropped afternoon nap and now ever since we have moved (and he spent a night with my parents) he has gone from 7:30/8 to up at 5/6am nearly every day.

Routine is generally,

6-8am - Wake, Bottle and chill out
8:30am - Breakfast
11am till the latest 1pm Nap (today was until 12:30)
Lunch when he wakes
4pm - Bottle
6pm - Dinner
6:30 - Bath/Bottle/Book or Night garden
7pm - Sleep

Usually whatever activities we've had to do inbetween, even long days out as it's been pretty hectic and when his bedtime has gone over. He is still up at 6am.

We've got blinds and blackout curtains, the only thing I can think is that the light from the landing is coming through his door? Or the new sounds like dogs are doing it.

We do miss this extra hour especially as DH travels a long way for work.

Is this him changing the posts now or something like a regression? He's obviously shattered as come 10am he's struggling for that nap so I try push it back.

I'm not too worried about losing the afternoon nap just this early starting is very tiring on us both.

Thanks

He wants a longer nap at lunchtime and to do that I'd go lunch before his sleep, not after.

If he's flagging by 11am then lunch at 11.30 ish may perk him up a bit. If he can make it, push lunch towards 12pm but eating anywhere from 11am is fine for lunch. Make lunch nice and filling and offer a milk drink afterwards too. Then do naptime.

The other possibility is to go back to 2-nap days. 12 months is on the young side to be known only 1 nap. My youngest was sleeping 9.3-11am then 1-3pm until 20 months old. You might be better doing a 9.30-10.15 limited nap and then a 2-4 afternoon nap.

@FATEdestiny

Ah ok.. we can try do that and I'll swap his morning snack to after a nap ect.

I did think it was unusal, I'm tempted to try an afternoon nap again first and cut the morning 3 hour* sleep to a 2 hour first and put him down at 2pm for an hour to see of he'll try that.

He's dropped the afternoon one at around 11 months himself, and all of this started. He would literally fight me, so in the end I gave up trying to make him, however he's happily slept in the car if we go on day trips and over my mums with her.

He's had his jabs so he's been really off anyway but today i very nearly got a second nap from him at 3pm.

Well see how it goes with reintroducing the second nap.

Thank you for your help :)

Ah I see. If he was having a massive, long morning nap then that would have been the problem. It probably wasn't that he was ready to drop the second nap, just that the timings of the two needed changing around.

On two nap days, the afternoon nap wants to be longest. That may mean limiting the length of the first nap.

If you can get two 2h naps (or maybe one 1.5h and knew 2.5h) then great. But if one nap being long causes the other to be short, then you need to limit the morning nap so that this is the short nap.

Limiting a 3h morning nap to 2h won't help encourage an afternoon nap, unless you are expecting a 2.5h plus afternoon nap (which sounds unlikely). Baby will probably still refuse the afternoon nap and you'll end up with an even more over tired DC who wakes earlier in the morning (early waking is a sign of over tiredness, not enough sleep over the last 24/48h).

Afternoon nap needs to be the long nap. So I'd suggest a morning nap starting at 9am or 9.30am (not any later than this or it impacts on afternoon nap) and wake baby after 1h at most, 45 minutes might do. What about having this nap our and about? Maybe allowing a half hour pushchair snooze while you walk to the park? Then a play at the park (or whatever) upon waking to help baby be less grumpy.

If baby is always awake by 10.30am (or even 10am), this allows for a good 2.5-3h awake time ready for another nap after lunch, say 1pm-1.30pm. Aim for this nap being at least 2h long.

@FATEdestiny

Yep exactly like you said, it took a little bit of a fight but the positive is we got two naps today! But the afternoon one was an hour and the morning 2hr so it's all completely backwards. I did try get him down 9:40am so we got that right.

He also with the landing window covered slept till 7am last night too. I'm going to persevere and try what you suggested tomorrow. I think I've just been use to him being a baby, so gone with whatever sleep he wanted and when but now we need a bit more of a routine.

So for the past few days we've had a 9/9.30 nap for approx 1hr or 1hr 15 at most. And then an evening nap for 2 hrs at 1.30/2pm and were still waking at 6am.. Had that one night with 7am.

No idea what I do, this has all been since we moved house. I close my bathroom blinds and door, blacked out the hall, he's got curtains and blackout blinds. He's also got a fan so it's cool but not too loud. Could it be the heat? This has all been since we moved though, i guess we've had this heatwave since then.

I can't pin point anything else.. He's teething his 4 top teeth at same time and is throwing tantrums now which he never does. Only thing I can think is the sounds outside and next doors dog are waking him as he's started waking up screaming an hour after he goes down too. I hope he settles soon, one tired mama as he was up at 5.45am today.

What time is he asleep by in the evening?

It's reasonable to expect 11h sleep at night around this stage - but anything in the range of 10-12h overnight sleep would be considered perfectly normal.

So I'd say you want an 8pm bedtime at the earliest if you are looking for a 7am or later morning. I would probably start bedtime routine at 8pm with a view to baby bring asleep by 8.30-9pm if I were hoping for a 7.30-8am morning. Then once the routine is fully embedded, only then start bringing bedtime earlier.

I literally thought this this morning about pushing back bedtime until he's ready. We went to zoo yesterday so he was eventually in bed at 8pm as he was over tired. All other days 7pm or 7.30 at latest. But this morning he woke at 7am after the 8pm settle.

Going to see how he settles himself tonight instead of the strict 7pm bedtime. Fingers crossed.. I did get a good night sleep though lol