As simple as waking her earlier?

[londonmummy2019]

Hi first time mum, please be kind 😊

My gorgeous DD is now 12 months. She sleeps ok at night but takes a while to settle to what I call "finally down" and asleep...

The pattern from 9 months has been:

Bedtime from 8pm
Will sleep to 8.30pm
Down again at 9pm
Sleeps about an hour to 10pm
Down again at 10.30pm...usually then sleeps through to 8.30am or 9am but can sometimes wake at 2am/3am.

I've no idea if this is right or wrong. Speaking with mums at playgroup they say their babies go down at 7.30pm and sleep through to 7.30am and it's feet up and Netflix!! I wish!! Feel like I have a tiny evening time with hubby if not back and forth to nursery. I know I should be grateful she sleeps well but it's grating badly on me!!

Is it simply a case or wake her earlier in the mornings? Sometimes I'm so knackered from the day I'm happy to let her sleep to 9am. I'm so confused.

My DS is much younger at 4 months so can’t really give much advice, but I’m in the same boat. Bedtime is 8:30pm and he sleeps until around 8am with a feed in between. If I try and put him down earlier at around 7pm, he still doesn’t go to sleep until 8:30pm. For a week I tried getting him up earlier in the mornings at around 7am but he still wouldn’t sleep at night until 8:30pm and became very overtired and grouchy, so for me it didn’t work.
I’ve asked many friends etc about the routine and they’ve said if we’re getting good sleep at night then not to change things so I’ve just accepted it for what it is really, even though I would like more time with DH in an evening! It sounds like your DD sleeps really well at night and a 9am wake up is fantastic!

It sounds OK to me as she only sometimes wakes at 2-3am. I'd keep her downstairs with me until later rather than be up and down to the nursery. You might find she sleeps like a log in the same room as you, with conversation and television going on, and you can carry her up later.

Waking at 9am is great!

Thanks for your kind replies.

I actually had to wake her this morning at 9.15am. But she did wake in the night at 2.30am for 30 mins.

I'm going to try and wake her at 8am tomorrow morning and see how it goes.

She is close to crawling. Although there is a slit of bum shuffling going on!! She was right across the kitchen yesterday - I turned away for a minute 🧐

I'd put her to bed earlier, over tired children wake more in the night.

@alarmclockstop I have tried that she keeps waking every 30 to 40 mins.

I'd bring the whole routine back by an hour or so, in 15 minute increments over the next couple of weeks. You won't need her to lie in if you can get her off to sleep a bit earlier.

My DD is 8 months and when she started going to sleep at 7pm it had a massive beneficial effect on my happiness. I get to relax and have dinner and a conversation with my DH now! Although she still wakes up at least once a night and is up for the day at 5am so we haven't quite cracked it ...

That’s either overtiredness or reliance on an unsustainable sleep prop.
At 12 months you can try something like this:
7am wake and milk
8.15am breakfast
9.45-10 nap
12 noon lunch
1-2.45 nap
3pm milk
5pm dinner
6pm bath
6.30pm milk
6.45pm bed
Try not to feed or rock to sleep.

So many mixed messages here...now she's overtired and I shouldn't feed to sleep? I've been doing that for 12 months.

Now I feel like I've been doing it all wrong.

Teething messes things up a bit....but I know some mums whose babies never sleep more than 2/3hour stints.

Thanks for those who have given me hope that I'm doing an ok job.

She is waking because she is overtired due to broken sleep, and she needs you to help her back because you are feeding to sleep.
If you want something to change, you will need to address her routine and the sleep prop. However if you feel like it’s ok for you and her right now then keep going!

Thank you.

I just don't know where to start...is it the wake ups after 30 mins at the start of the night?

She had nearly a 2 hour nap yesterday but it was because she woke at 7am. She napped at 11am.

She then didn't have an afternoon nap. She went to bed at 8pm.

I've tried to put her down on all the tired signs but she just won't go to bed.

She seems to be a 3.5hour awake baby.

At 12 months, one 2 hour nap is perfect, and at 11am is fine although you could try t slowly push this back so it’s 12.30-2.30.

After a 1pm wake up though she’d need to be in bed asleep at 6.30pm. Otherwise you would miss her sleep window and end up with a baby that is very difficult to settle.

You can feed until she is very very drowsy and then wind her a bit and put her down awake but sleepy.

That's what I do..she sometimes has her eyes open when I put her down in the cot.
She'll then snuggle into her blanket as such and goes off.

If I woke her at 8am instead of 9am - do you think this would be ok:

8am Wake
Breastfeed
9am Breakfast
Playtime etc
Morning walk
Snack about 10.30/11
Nap 12/1230 - 90 mins to two hours
Lunch 2/230
Playtime
4pm little snack
5.30 dinner
6 bath
Books, reading and breastfeed
Bedtime from 7.30...aim for bed at 8pm

If she wakes at 8am then you will need to do the nap 1-3 and back to bed for 8pm, otherwise she has too long before bedtime and will be overtired

Just to say it most likely isn't anything you're doing, it's just what she does! My DD would go to bed around 7.30 then be up 2 or 3 times before we went to bed around 10. She would then sleep through till around 6.30. We didnt do anything and she eventually started sleeping all evening just waking at 10ish, and now sleeps from 7-5 with no wake ups. They do things in their own time!

Thanks everyone, you've made me feel so much better. This is so hard. Why is it so hard? 😖

Anyway - not a bad night...yesterday's nap was 1.30pm to 3pm. She was in bed at 8pm...a couple of wake ups but then down at 10.30pm and slept through to 8.30am

I did lots of activity in the morning prior to the nap as I was sure she wouldn't nap then! Plus moved lunch to 12.

So far so good. Shall see what today brings.

Any other advice please feel free to share.

She has been bum shuffling a lot and trying to crawl forward. Also pulling up bit nearly to a stand.
Anyone else had a bum shuffler to walker?