11 month old - please help!

[flowerbutt]

My 11 month old’s sleeping pattern has completely gone out of the window. She is fighting her 2nd nap and the 2nd wake window is stretching to 7 hours when it was 3-4 last week?! It’s only been happening for a week but I’m pretty sure she isn’t ready to drop to one nap because she is waking up every 1-2 hours at night, sometimes every 30 minutes. And she’s waking earlier in the mornings, 7am instead of 8-9am. Surely she’s overtired but she is point blank refusing to sleep, and then it gets to the point (like now) where it’s far too late for a second nap. I just don’t know what to do 😭 any advice?! I'm so tired. Just when I thought we were getting into some form of "routine" set by her, and I was getting used to 2 hourly night wakings, she's throws this curve ball at me!

Is she learning a new skill? It's very early to drop to 1 nap, this is usually at 16-18months. If she's learning to walk as an example, her brain is on overdrive and causes a sleep regression or she could just be teething.

That's what I thought, it seems far too early and I feel like she definitely needs two naps. I'm moaning now but it's very difficult when I'm with family as they don't seem to respect that she needs naps. I get the whole "well she doesn't look tired", "she will sleep when she's ready". And yes, she's been trying to walk for a while now but she's very recently got more confident with it.

I don't think it's that early to drop to one nap?! I think I read 10-15 months, my dd did one nap for a week or so when she was 11 months, then went back to 2 for a couple of weeks, then went to 1 and that's stuck.
During the transitional periods she had a mixture of 1 and 2 nap days.
The waking hourly/2 hourly sounds terrible though, have you done anything to try and correct that??

@Supersnot123 if she was coping on the days with one nap and sleeping well at night then I could understand it but she seems to go from being tired, then refusing a nap and then is super hyper which makes me think she's overtired. Then when I take her to bed, she falls asleep really quick just to wake up screaming 30 minutes later. Then the cycle continues throughout the night. It is terrible but I haven't done anything to try to change it. I wouldn't know where to start. The only thing that settles her is a feed (EBF).

@Supersnot123 she very recently started sleeping a 3-4 hour chunk when I first put her in bed but since the 1 nap days, that's out of the window.

The root cause is that she's breastfeeding to sleep. So when she moves into an especially light sleep phase, she cannot independently resettle back to a deep sleep.

Same cause for naps being difficult and night wakes. But this isn't an easy fix.

So to make life a bit easier (without actually solving the above issue) you could have a look at amending your daytime sleep routine. Run me through what happens and timings.

What times do you start feeding her to sleep?
What happens once she's sleep?
What times does she usually nap from-to?
What's the timings of her nights sleep?

@FATEdestiny

What times do you start feeding her to sleep?
I feed her in the morning, before every nap and again at bedtime. Bedtimes are a nightmare if I’m being completely honest. I will feed her and then if she isn’t asleep my partner will stand up & cuddle her to sleep. *

What happens once she's asleep?*
I try to stop feeding just before she's fully asleep and then pat/shush/rub her back. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to start feeding again to settle her. Sometimes she unlatches herself (not often!)

What times does she nap to and from?
A typical day would be 8/9am wake up.
Nap around 11-12 for 1.5 hours.
Nap around 3-4 for 30 mins - 1 hour.
Bedtime 7/8/9pm depending on when she seems tired.

I appreciate the 2nd nap is late but I feel like I'm working on later morning starts than most people.

What's the timings of her nights sleep?
She usually does go 12 hours overnight. With lots of wake ups. She was doing a 3-4 hour first stretch and then waking every 1-2 hours after that. My partner will settle her if he can after the first stretch and then throughout the night she helps herself to a feed as she's in a sidecar cot.

Your entire post I could have written myself!!

DD had been having 2 naps (1hr 30 in the morning and anywhere from 30mins to 1hr 30 in the afternoon), bedtime at 6:30pm-ish, waking up around 12/1am and then up for the day at 5:30/6am (this time works for us and is not an issue). This last week, she has flat out refused her second nap and is awake for 6/7 hours before bedtime and then up near enough hourly through the night.

She’s had 2 naps today as I was out and she fell asleep in the car on the way home - we’ll see if this brings a good night 😬

I have no advice I’m afraid (other than a motion nap is possible - but that’s not practical every day) but I hope the issue settles for us both soon xx

In terms of timings, a good approximation to work to is 234 for 2-nsp days

• 2h awake from morning to first nap
• 3h awake from 1st to 2nd nap
• 4h awake from 2nd to 3rd nap.

If this doesn't get you through to bedtime, then add in a teatime powernap with about 2-2.5h awake times. For example

8.30am wake
10.30-12 nap
3pm nap

• if awake before 4pm, then either add in a 6.30-7pm power nap and make bedtime 9pm.
• or if awake before 4pm, make bedtime 7pm
• if awake after 5pm (which would be the aim), then bedtime 9pm

Really your problem is baby needs to be asleep where they fall asleep.

● If feeding/rocking/cuddling to sleep - then baby needs to stay asleep in your arms in order to have healthy sleep habits. This means naps in yoir arms and long term co-sleeping at night.
● If you are expecting baby to sleep independently, ie in a cot, you need to teach your baby to go to sleep independently in the cot.
Going into the cot fully and completey awake and falling asleep in the cot.

The problem comes from assuming baby can cope with dependant setting techniques (feeding, rocking), but then sleeping independently. This won't work out. You have to 'pick a side'

@HJFTM it's so strange isn't it! It's nice to know I'm not alone. How was your night last night after the 2 naps?

@FATEdestiny Thank you. I will give the 234 a go. Already failed today because shes gone 4 hours between waking up and her first nap. So if she wakes up at 8am should I be aiming for a later 9pm bedtime than an earlier 7pm bedtime?

She does nap in my arms and we co-sleep. We’ve gone backwards because I never used to feed her to sleep and her naps were in a bouncer until she got too big for it. My plan was to move her to a cot nap when she was sleeping through her cycles independently but that point never came. She’s become more dependant on me as time has passed and I’m well aware it’s my fault.

I definitely don’t expect or assume that she can cope with sleeping independently when she can’t independently get herself to sleep. I provide all her sleep props at the moment so she has no chance of sleeping on her own until I change something.

should I be aiming for a later 9pm bedtime than an earlier 7pm bedtime?

Theres no right to wrong answer. Make the routine for with your preferences. If you prefer later bedtime and (hopefully) later wake ups, aim for that.

And the madness continues, 2 hour nap late morning and now she's point blank refusing her 2nd nap even though she was nearly asleep in the car 5 minutes ago. She's just high pitch squealing, laughing at herself and generally being hyper.

Starting off overtired hasn't helped, when the first nap was a lot later than it needed to be.

If she was dropping asleep in the car 5 mins before nap time, I'd have kept driving for 30 minutes then sat in the car while she napped.

Or alter your daytime routine such that you avoid driving any time close to nap time - this is always recipe for disaster

She's resting on me now. Not asleep but still. I've never seen anything like it. She is so tired but it's as if her mind and body aren't allowing her to fall asleep. Even now lying with her eyes closed she's chatting away to herself and every no and then throws in a really loud animal noise for good measure.

[quote flowerbutt]@HJFTM it's so strange isn't it! It's nice to know I'm not alone. How was your night last night after the 2 naps?[/quote]
Hourly from 10pm 😩😩😩 I can only assume that something is bothering her as she was doing so well for a little while.
I’ve tried the 234 for a few weeks and I couldn’t get her to sleep at the 2hr mark but I’m going to try it again. Let me know how you get on :)

@flowerbutt @HJFTM Hi. I could’ve written your posts about my now 11 month old. Did it pass for you or did you end up moving to one nap?