14mo bedtime is a mess!

[GinnyBee]

I really don’t know what we’re doing wrong and why it’s got to be such a fight every night! 😭 he’s never been particularly good, but recently it’s next level battles! We’ve always supported him to sleep by either nursing or bouncing. I weaned a few weeks ago so now it’s just bouncing. But he just HATES going to bed! 😢 it makes me so sad, and frustrated. And I don’t understand why it’s so terrible, we’re always with him, and always respond when he wakes at night, so it’s not like he’s had a traumatic separation with bedtime.

He kicks and screams, tries to jump out of my arms, if I let him roll on the bed in an attempt to let him play himself to sleep in case he’s done being bounced he will get off and run out the room, or just keeps rolling around all over me, fetching books, and will do it forever! And even if he starts out calm and sleepy cuddling and rolling he will soon get excitable and ramp it up.

Schedule varies. We get up around 6.30-7am every morning. Then when he’s at home with me he naps any time between 10-12 and sleeps around 2 hours. He goes to nursery two mornings a week and when he’s there he hasn’t napped for a couple of weeks now, so I pick him up at 1 and put him straight to bed when we get home and then wake him at 2.30 in an attempt to keep bedtime at a reasonable time but that doesn’t work.

So for example today he was up at 6.30, went to nursery so didn’t sleep until 1.20pm and I woke him at 2.30pm. We had dinner all together as a family at 6pm, started winding down at 7 and he was obviously tired, rubbing his face, wanted to just sit quietly and have some milk. But every time I tried to make a move to carry him into his room he kicked off! At 8pm I decided to just go, and he tried to squirm out of my arms and shouted for a good while until he FINALLY relaxed and stopped fighting it and eventually fell asleep at 8.30pm.

This is the routine every single evening now. The timing or length of his nap doesn’t matter one bit, bedtime is still awful. I’ve tried earlier bed and that’s a disaster. Once he’s asleep he mostly sleeps through now, bar one or two very quick wakeups before 10pm but then goes until the morning. Every now and again he also has a split night and is awake 2-4am but again, there’s no reason I’ve found why this happens sometimes. Maybe teeth? His bottom gums look a little bumpier, so those lateral incisors are on their way, but not imminent I don’t think. I’m desperate for him to go to bed earlier because I feel like there’s never any time to unwind in the evening 🫠

And today he was up at 5.50am 🫠🙃

It sounds like you being in the bedroom with him is over stimulating him. If you just put him in his cot say night night and leave, what would happen?

I have a 15 mo and have struggled with this… I now do not let him nap after 12. And finally got him in a great routine of bed at 7 and doesn’t wake until 7/8. He used to wake up 3 or 4 am wanting to play. I have found the trick is he’s exhausted by bedtime. Otherwise his sleep is all over the spot.

@SeaToSki he has a floor bed and would just get off and run for the door.

@JonjoMonjo21 maybe that’s the trick! The days when he’s home bedtimes are a little bit earlier, although still a fight. Can’t control what happens at nursery though, FOMO baby just won’t nap there anymore 😂

There is a sleep regression around 15m so it could be that. My DD is 16m and we're having the same battle. I'm just waiting for it to pass. I don't attempt bedtime until 8pm and try to wake up from nap by 1pm at the latest.

@bluebird3 oh goody, another regression! 😬🫠

@GinnyBee i tell nursery no naps after lunch. I know it sounds harsh but when ur working and have other kids , housework etc and then u need that 5 minutes peace once they’re in bed. Just try it. Also make sure they eat plenty through eve I often give a banana or something before bed x

@JonjoMonjo21 the problem is he doesn’t nap at nursery, at all. I pick him up at 1 and he’s often asleep 2 minutes into the drive home. And he’s so not ready to drop the nap either.

Ahhh yes that’s not good, mine only has maybe 40 minutes a day. He’s way ahead of himself and me. He was walking at 8 months and I often feel he’s not been much of a baby. Maybe try the no naps on a non nursery day and see if it helps x

This is a very boring question, but is your routine consistent? It sounds a bit like bedtime is a moveable affair based on whether you can get him up there without a meltdown? Could be that he is overtired if he's showing sleepy cues but you're still downstairs for a while, then he's just overwrought?

Mine is a week off 14m, and in that weird 2 to 1 nap transition, also refuses a morning nap at nursery and some days comes home after having had only 40 mins daytime sleep. On days when he's with me he's closer to 2h daytime sleep. Anyway on those days at nursery he comes home so overtired he's a wailing mess from the moment we leave nursery until he goes to sleep. But our bedtime routine and timing is consistent, we do milk, nappy & pjs, teeth and eczema cream, and up to bed at 6.50.

I think having a floor bed is tough, mine is lobbed into the cot where he can't escape. Any chance of going back to a cot?

Mine was held to sleep until he turned 1, then he got too big and restless. Putting him to sleep in the cot was really devastating and exhausting for probably a week to 10 days, but he then got it. I also have a very consistent routine when we are up in his room, so he goes into his sleepsack while a specific song plays, into the cot and I read 2 books, lights off and i lie down on the floor next to the cot. Usually I am back downstairs by 7.15pm.

But I'm a very routine based parent and I know it doesn't work for everyone.

@reabies we try to keep to a routine as far as we can. So on a perfect night it goes like this: Milk and dry cereal or banana cuddling on the sofa with books or just talking about what we did or what we're doing the next day. Then take him downstairs to brush teeth, change into pyjamas and then I would rock him to sleep with a little song and humming.

The trouble starts if after getting changed he runs out to play! We don't even attempt going down before we think he's reasonably calm and tired, but still recently more often than not he's not ready. Then we either play outside in the garden as by this time in the evening our dog wants attention, or we might all go fo a walk around the neighbourhood. If the weather is rubbish we'll play inside or go back upstairs for some more milk and snacks and watch Ms Rachel together.

And I don't really even mind that the time he goes to bed varies, that's fine, what I want to solve is the upset when I try to help him fall asleep 😩

BUT by some magic last night was one of the perfect nights as described above! I think there were at least two factors in play: he had his nap early and it was on the shorter side (10.45-12.15) and I think he's coming down with a bit of a cold, as he was a bit sniffly and stuffy and clingier than usual all day. Now he's at nursery again, I fully expect a car crash tonight 😅

I’m trying a no nap day today. He came home from nursery buzzing, wanted a snack and then greeted me (hubby picked him up) by running at me with a new toy car shouting “caaaaaaa” so I didn’t even bother trying very hard 😂 I took him in his room to see what he would do as sometimes when we go in he rubs his face and starts relaxing but he just ran off with a sock in hand. So no naps today!

I could have written this, even down to the age and the two mornings at nursery.

My DD seems to not sleep at all... she'll be up at 6.30/7, nap at 1ish for an hour, and then go go go until anything up to 11pm!

Sometimes it's 8.30, sometimes 9pm, sometimes 10pm, sometimes later - no amount of darkened rooms, quiet, milk, shushing, no interaction does it. She was dancing on our bed in the pitch dark at 11.30pm one night last week!

She went down at 10.30pm last night, up at 6.45am, nursery from 8am until 1pm (had a 30min nap there just before pick up) and nothing this afternoon, how is she not beat??? I am!?

I would say -

1. No longer breastfeeding so no injection of melatonin at bedtime
2. Irregular routine so body not used to being tired at the same time each day

Going through something similar over here with a two and a half year-old who I finally weaned a month or so ago and still naps at nursery but not at home. He does sleep through though thankfully and he didn't at the age of yours which definitely makes bedtime battles harder, I'm much more relaxed and accepting of a difficult bedtime phase this time round.

I guess you could try adjusting your home routine to being more similar to the nursery one? You'd probably have to aim for a later bedtime generally though with the later nap. Might have the added bonus of a later morning wake though.

I agree with LGBirmingham on the second point - I know you said that a variable bedtime isn't what bothers you, it's the drama when he does go to sleep, but I think part of consistent routine is timing. So like, doing the same things in the same order at the same time everyday is more effective than just doing the same things in the same order, if that makes sense?

Apart from this weird nap transition period, I'm trying to keep DS on nursery's schedule as much as possible as they have him 4 days a week and I have him 3. So even though I don't want to each lunch at 11.30 and dinner at 4.30, that's what we do to keep him consistent.

I really hope this doesn't sound preachy or lecturing but I feel like anonymous forums have a way of making it sound like that! Just sharing what works for us, but like I said before I am a creature of habit so routine routine routine is my default setting.

Is the floor bed non-negotiable? Being able to stop the running away might help?

Best of luck! This stage is turning out to be so exhausting for us too.

In an ideal world we would have a consistent schedule but that’s just not possible with the two mornings in nursery. He used to nap there just fine at his usual time, but for a few weeks just hasn’t. But at home he doesn’t make it until after lunch and has his nap earlier. Sometimes he’s grouchy from 9am and then needs the nap closer to 10 than 11!

Except today when he decided to skip it again. He dozed off for about 4 minutes in the car at usual nap time, and when hubby tried to continue it when they got home, as he woke up getting him out the car seat, he just cuddled him calmly for 15 minutes and then wanted to get up for a snack.

Yesterday after no nap all day bedtime was super speedy, down for change at 6.30 and asleep by 6.45. Today has been even earlier, he’s currently (6.30) snoozing on my shoulder and I will roll away in a moment. But the pay back for an easy bedtime was frequent waking last night 😭 he needed resettling I think 5 times.

Does this sound like the start of 1-0 nap transition? Or more likely just a developmental leap wrapped in a sleep regression and we’ll be back to something more normal after a while? Both yesterday and today he’s been in a great mood all day, so the skipped nap hasn’t made him cranky.

It's hard to say as my ds first refused to nap at 2 and 3 months. But we'd been having difficult bedtimes for a while preceeding that point. We first began capping his nap at 18 months. At the age yours is he had just dropped to 1 nap. Ds would still nap now but bedtimes are horrendous so we do everything to skip it at home. Might have to stop it at nursery too as he actually has less sleep now if he naps.

If yours is refusing regularly and managing to keep going OK I reckon maybe you could be transitioning. Mine sleeps through on no nap but I think the first time he maybe did wake up in the night and had a night terror. But yours is much younger so still a baby really and ds had very disturbed sleep at that age when he was transitioning to 1 nap. For him sorting out a routine that kept his bedtime the same time whether he had 1 or 2 naps solved it at the time.

Yeah this guy has dropped every nap early. Down to 2 naps at 6 months and transitioning to 1 nap starting 8 months and reliably just on one nap from 10 months. Still seems crazy early even for an early nap dropper / low sleep needs baby.

Maybe I’ll attempt having the nap early and waking at noon on home days and then nursery days try to skip the nap or just let him snooze in the car. Or idk, thus far my approach has been ‘let him sleep when he’s sleepy’ and not interfere. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It seems like yours dropped to 1 when mine dropped to two so it stands to reason he would drop his nap completely when mine dropped to 1 nap.

Good luck with it all. It's an annoying phase I'm finding because you go anywhere and they fall asleep. Or even sometimes just fall asleep watching TV and mine was never a baby who would do that. He had to be very deliberately put to sleep after precisely the right amount of time. I just don't know how long it will take for the nap to go, we've had no nap days since March.

I guess if you have no life then you could just stay at home prodding your toddler so they didn't sleep. But who wants to do that!?

Annoying is the right word! Last week I was driving home at 4pm from a play group after he'd only had a short nap earlier, and he started falling asleep in the car about 20 minutes from home. I worked really hard, and with music on loud, windows down and me occasionally yelping at him if he nodded off I managed to stop him going to sleep. It made him upset though.

Today I got him to nap, and he decided 2.5 hours is the right amount of sleep. He used to never ever nap any longer than 1:45 when he first dropped to one nap. But I let him because we had an awful split night last night (12-3 looking at books, throwing cheerios all over the floor, and chatting) and we were hosting a parents group gettogether so was gonna be a busy, stimulating afternoon. They left around 7, we cleared up as quickly as possible and DS was having a bottle and a snack on the sofa at 8 and at one point looked like he would fall asleep sitting up! Took him downstairs and you could have thought I was pulling his fingernails out with rusty tongs the way he ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT TO GO TO BED. Back upstairs, lots of noisy play (I've never heard him scream "BRRRRRR" (ball) with such energy and franticness!) and he finally went to sleep at 9.30

If this is the start of the transition then I guess I might as well try to accept we won't have any time in the evening, but in the summer that's just as well as it's nice and we can be outside too. And with any luck he'll have adjusted by the time we lose the light and go to bed earlier again 🤷‍♀️

You're very baby led, which is maybe your intention but obviously they don't always want what they need if you see what I mean. So if you take him to bed and he screeches, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not tired (and you said you saw signs of tiredness before) -it's just he'd rather be with the excitement upstairs. My baby is the same age and about 2/7 nights will resist going to bed but I'll insist and he will protest but within ten minutes will be asleep. Also, if your baby has access to cereal and books in middle of night then that'll probably reinforce the split nights.

@purplejeanie he doesn’t usually. There are books in his room that he technically does have access to but he doesn’t want them at night. It’s happened twice in his whole life that he’s just so awake and in a playful mood in the middle of the night that we read some books for quiet time, and if he tells me he’s hungry then I get him a snack. First I offer water though, and only if he keeps asking I will get him a snack.

I’ve tried “insisting” if I think he’s tired and should go to bed but that never ends well actually. He might fall asleep with rocking but will not stay asleep if he’s actually not ready for bed yet and that then makes it even harder later. So I may be able to bounce him to sleep, lay him down and he wakes up, bounce again, lay down and he wakes up and then by the third time I bounce him and he wakes again when I lay him down he will then be AWAKE for ages because those two little micro naps were enough to given him a boost.

@GinnyBee you know you're baby. So you're best placed to know the right thing to do.

I find with mine if bedtime is atempted too early he can wind up falling asleep later than if bedtime was attempted a bit later. Also though if he's got too tired then he can either go hyper or very emotional and thst can make falling asleep take ages too. It's a dark art this falling asleep stuff.

I think if yours falls asleep in the car when he's already had a nap, albeit short, I would say he still needs a nap. Any sleeps over about 10 mins here effect bedtime and a half hour nap at any time of day means a bedtime of about 10pm.

Little update:
I don’t know what happened but things are a little more normal again (crossing fingers). For three nights bedtime has been easier again and at a decent time at 6.30-7pm. He’s napped at normal time 11am again and I’ve woken him up latest 12.30. He even had a nap at nursery on Thursday!

Two of those three night we had a rough split night of him just dozing off lightly and twitching and rolling a lot for like 2 hours, and when I thought he was finally properly asleep and rolled away, he would wake up max 20 minutes later. Then last night we only had one quick wake up at the same time the split nights usually started and he was back to sleep within minutes and deep sleep within 20 minutes.

And even after a split night he’s been awake 5.30-6am for the day 😬 but I’ll take an early morning over a fight in the evening! And if last night is any indication of things to come then I don’t mind at all!

So in short, seems to have been a blip, or a regression. Changed nothing except lightly keeping an eye on nap time and no sleep after 12.30.

Could be that nursery is not as novel and exciting now so he's prepared to sleep there?