14 month old sleep routine

[pinklashes98]

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I'm a first time mum, I'm just looking for some tips / advice regarding sleep routine for my son. The last few days he's been fighting his sleep, I just wanted to share his routine to see if anyone had any tips or suggestions to help him settle better at night.

Current routine:

5:00-5:30 am - wakes up for a bottle feed, approx 5-6 oz

8:00am - wake up, nappy change and downstairs for breakfast

10:30 / 11ish - bottle feed & nap.

12:30 - wake up & lunch

3:30 - bottle & nap

5:00 - wake up & bath time

6:30 - dinner

8:30 - bottle and up for bed. This is where he has been fighting his sleep, I can see after his bottle he's not wanting to sleep. He's been falling asleep around 9:30!

Thank you in advance

Any reason bedtime can’t be 9 or 9.30 if that’s when he is ready to sleep?

Hiya, thank you for replying. No, of course not. I guess I'm just thinking it's too late for his age? But again please ignore me, this is all new to me and I'm still learning.

No it’s fine and normal when they are having two naps. If you want him to go to sleep earlier then you would need to get up earlier in the morning or reduce the length of naps.

Big caveat on my reply that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So no need to explore changing it if it works for you.

Is he having 3.5 hours of nap in the day?
Why is bath time before dinner? Are you confident you’ve got a good bed time routine?

@Babs709 hiya, yes he is having 3.5 worth of day time sleep. Some days if he wakes up slightly later e.g. 8:30 he has just one nap. I've been living with my parents since he was born, so there's quiet a queue for the bathroom once everyone is in from work. So just to avoid that I usually give him a bath once he's up, but I could try changing to before bed.

I think bedtime routine is good, has been working so far. We read a story, have some cuddles and then he has his dummy and is usually off to sleep.

When mine were that age I transitioned them to one long nap after an early lunch. Then they went to bed at 7pm or 7:30 (or occasionally 6:30 if they were knackered 😂). But I mainly did it because they were going to nursery 2 days a week and they'd only get one nap there. If your routine works and you don't mind a later bedtime you could just go with it?

I think if it is working for you, then it's working!

He will, however, soon be getting to an age where 3.5hrs is a lot of day time sleep and it will begins to deduct from the night time sleep. Anywhere from 12-18m kids tend to go to one nap roughly just after lunch. I found it a fairly tricky transition, but once we'd established it I felt a lot freer in terms of what I could do in a day as I only had to be at home for one longer nap.

If you're finding the late bedtime a pain then I would think about transitioning to one nap

If the bed time routine works then no need to change - just thought it was interesting to see bath not done at bed time.

It looks like his total amount of sleep is about right for his age but I do agree that I’d be expecting him to have more sleep overnight and less during the day. 9.30-5.30 doesn’t sound like much. Maybe try and cut the afternoon nap down?

But again, if it’s working fine I don’t think you necessarily need to change. I know I’d want more of an evening to myself 😂🙈

13 month old here is:
6:30/7:00 wake
9:30 - 11:00 nap
2:00 - 3:00 nap
6:30/7:00 bed time

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I think I will just leave him as he is and go with the flow!