Please help! 11 month old sleep pattern is awful

[zombiemummy10]

Hi everyone

I’m a first time mum to an 11 month old baby boy. His sleeping pattern was ok up until maybe 2 months ago but it’s now upside down. We have absolutely no routine and I’m exhausted. Currently my sons sleep pattern is as follows:

1800 - Dinner and bottle - falls asleep shortly after this

2300-0000 - Wakes up, changed, has another bottle. He is wide awake for hours and hours. He’ll usually have another bottle around 0330

0400-0530 - Falls asleep (this is in the morning!)

1400-1500 - Wakes up. Eats lunch and has bottle.

Then the cycle repeats itself. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing when it comes to sleep and my health visitor seems to have disappeared. I would be so grateful if any more experienced parents could give me some tips on how to establish a sleep routine as I don’t know how much longer I can do this 😢

Thank you

So your baby is sleeping from 5am ish until 2pm in the afternoon?

Is break the cycle by starting every day at a particular time (7am works for us and our routine and commitments, but you can choose what time works for you), and wake him up at that time, every single morning. Put him down for a nap after 2 hours awake, and wake him after an hour. Put him down again after 3 hours awake, let him sleep for 2 hours. Bedtime 4 hours after that.

I would stop the night time bottles, as long as he has plenty of milk and some food in the day there really shouldn’t be any need - offer water if you genuinely think he’s thirsty. It sounds mean but I also wouldn’t let him sleep 5.30 until two in the afternoon - wake him up at about 8ish maybe, go out and do something fun together, and then have another nap after - and again don’t let him sleep for too long. I wouldn’t usually say wake an 11 month old up at any point but it sounds like he’s got his days and nights back to front and needs a bit of help recalibrating.

He’s having the night time bottles because he’s asleep most of the day... if he’s asleep from 5am-2pm then he’s missing both breakfast and lunch.

Sorry I saw he has lunch. But my point stands... the reason he’s having the milk through the night is because he’s asleep most of the day. He’s reverse cycling.

I think in your position (how did it get that bad by the way? It’s like he’s nocturnal!) I would just go drastic and get it done, rather than gradually trying to change it.

I would write down what you want his routine to be, and do that from tomorrow. Wake him up at 7am, give him breakfast, then a nap at 9.30 for no longer than 2 hours, wake him up again etc etc.

Good luck! You’ll get it fixed x

Oh yes that’s a good point Soy. Definitely get the bottles and meal times in there as well during the day.

Definitely wake him up at 7/7.30am!!

Give him milk and breakfast, then a short nap in the morning. Again wake him if necessary! Lunch at midday. Long afternoon nap and milk on waking then dinner, bottle and bed at 7. Keep at it for a few days and you will break the cycle.

At 11 months you can do something like this:
Wake at 7am. Religiously no matter what time he slept in the night.
Milk feed
8.30am breakfast
9.40-10.00am small nap, will be dropped soon
12pm lunch with protein and plenty of water
1-3pm nap
3pm milk or yoghurt and rice cakes
5pm dinner
6pm bath
6.30pm bottle
7pm bed

Thanks to each and every one of you for your replies. I really don’t know how it got this bad. When he’s sleeping, I never wake him up and I think that’s maybe where I’ve went wrong (or at least one of the things I’ve done wrong that I can think of)

Tonight I’ll write down what I’d like our routine to be and I will start it as of tomorrow morning. I know he won’t get into the routine straight away but I will persevere 😊

If I’m honest, I really didn’t know where to start regarding a sleep routine because it got so out of control. However, everyone who has replied so far has given me great tips and I now feel that I know where to start. I’m actually looking forward to getting started!

Thanks again everyone, it’s much appreciated.

You need a complete and utter reset! It's going to be a tough few days but it'll be worth it, it generally takes three days for a baby to create a new sleep routine.

I believe you should be looking at a short am nap 2-3 hours after waking, longer nap after lunch /early afternoon and maybe a short pm nap depending on bedtime. While in transition I would try to achieve three naps with the after lunch nap being the main sleep.

Google sleep routines to get a rough idea, obviously each child is different but you need to find your way back to what yours needs in the day and their natural awake times.

Create a whole new routine with meal times, outings, bottles and sleep. Baby will soon get it, but you need to be strict with him and yourself. Especially when you could happily bed down too!

How’s it going zombie?