Should I move 7pm bedtime to earlier now dd at nursery? Any advice appreciated...

[wifeofdoom]

My 1yo dd started nursery last week (5 hrs per day)and seems to be settling in well when she's there, and seesm to enjoy it, but keeps waking in the night and crying. She won't sleep at nursery but when she gets home she has a nap.

So at the moment her sleep routine is

6.50 Get up
13.10 nap
15.00 ish get up
7.00 bed

I think there's some separation anxiety not helping - when she wakes up she cries and cries, eventually I manage to calm her and she will fall asleep on me whilst I rock her. Waking in the night used to be a go in and put her dummy back in, which was fine, seeing her cry like this is upsetting.

Any help really appreciated!

When you say 7pm bed do you have a long routine or a short routine to follow?

If I remember right my DS use to have a 2 hour nap early afternoon when he was 1 so that's about normal. Perhaps bring the evening bedtime earlier as she is waking so she still gets lots of sleep.

Hopefully the anxiety will get better. It can be quite a shock to them going to Nursery all of a sudden.

About 20 mins - bath, book , bottle, bed.

Thanks for replying - I appreciate it.

My DS (9mos) sleeps much less during the day now at nursery, but is very tired when he gets home. Bed is 7pm but quite often he has a little nap on the way home from nursery (eg around 5pm) if the route is long enough as I am calling in anywhere. So maybe either another brief nap before bed, or an earlier bedtime, is worth trying.

The different night time behaviour does sound like separation anxiety to me (my DS is just starting this).

I would say the crying at night is separation anxiety (age-appropriate, not due to starting nursery). With the clocks about to change I would definitely bring her bedtime back to 6pm. At this age DS used to have a half-hour nap around 5:45pm on the way home from nursery and it didn't affect bedtime (ASAP after getting home) at all.