gaaaah! Not again. We cannot get sleep right for 1yr old - what is working for you?

[Badgerqueen]

We can't seem to get naps and going to bed right for 1yr old DD.

We are trying to drop the morning nap and aiming at an after lunch 1-2hrs, as she has been very difficult to get to bed and down for naps. This sort of works except that she has been waking between 5 and 5:30 and even if she wakes after six (what joy) she is still exhausted by 11. We have pulled back lunch to 11:30, but even then she sometimes falls asleep in her food! And then is up by 1ish - which makes for a very very long afternoon.

We have tried putting her to bed earlier too, but that ensures a really early start and then we are in a mess again. I can sort of cope with 11.30 to 1 nap and a 6:30 bedtime but she would need to sleep nearly 12hrs to be getting up at a reasonable time and I really think that + nap is too long.

I think we are in a period of transition as she has just started really walking and talking and her brain is clearly going like the clappers, but we have to be able to do better than this. Also before anyone says we can't do cc as she shares a room with DD1 and we don't really believe in it.

Why drop the morning sleep if she is not ready? I used to let DD have 30-45 mins at around 9.30am then she was back in bed for 1pm for a couple of hours then 7 nightime sleep.

A year is really young still, they do need so much sleep and as sleep behests sleep perhaps she is getting 'over tired'?

DD is not 2.2 and still has 2 hours at lunchtime.

I really wouldn't drop it if it wasn't affecting everything else. The problem was that if she has the morning sleep we really can't get her to go down at all after lunch and it was getting harder and harder to get her down at bedtime too and then she was up at 5. Cutting down the nap to 15 mins or so in the morning was working and she had been having a lovely long afternoon nap, but then it all went wrong, really since she started walking. It was slightly better today as I got her back to sleep when she woke at 5. She clearly needs more sleep, but sleeping later in the morning is preferable to a 5am start, a collapse at 10 and then up till god knows when.We shall see what tonight brings.....

I would try and get her down at 10 and get her up for lunch if necessary, then down again around 2 and up if you must. I don't really believe in waking sleeping babies and at this age DS would regularly sleep 3:30 - 5pm and still go down at 6:30/7pm.