Creche EASY routine for a 9.5M old - need some new ideas!

[jennyandgraham]

Hello,
my LO has been at creche in the mornings (8:30 am to 2pm) since she was 6M old and we'd been doing ok with more or less the 4M EASY routine in the book.  She has only just started to eat an appreciable amount of solid food in the last few weeks, she feeds herself fingerfoods and spoon feeds herself (no way is anyone else allowed near her with a spoon).  The increase in solids, coupled with her starting to move around and getting another tooth has really put her off her napping routine. 

She has always been very variable in her napping especially at creche where is is noisy and not as dark, 30 min - 50 mins is normal but 1.5- 2.5 hours is not unusual.  However, going to sleep on her own (even at creche) has not been a problem till now.   

Last week's EASY:
7am : get up (4-6 oz bottle) (she sometimes wakes at 6-6:15 but usually goes back to sleep)
7:45 : off to creche and Daddy plays with her before dropping her off at 8:30am
9am : breakfast
10am : nap for ~1h 9very variable in length)
11:30am : bottle (4-6 oz)
12:30am : nap for ~40 min
1pm : lunch
2:15pm : pick up
3:00 pm : bottle (4-6 oz)
4:00 pm : 40 min nap if she has not slept much earlier
5:30 pm : dinner
6:30 pm : 1/2 bottle
7:00 pm : bath then 1/2 bottle (7-8 oz in total)
7:20 pm : bed

It was a bit of a hectic napping schedule and she's struggling to take the morning nap now and we've dropped the mid day nap.  We put her down to sleep and she shuffles round the cot, sits up, sings etc...  I think she's getting her breakfast too late so she is still high on breakfast when she's supposed to sleep now that she's started eating well. 

Is an 11am nap and a 3:30pm nap routine a sensible option for a 9.5M old?
When can we start to think about getting rid of 11am and 3pm bottles; she's rubbish at drinking from a cup?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
Jenny

[Chicane]

Hi Jenny

There are some sample routines here that might help you out a bit. At the moment it does seem a bit hectic. Have a look at these samples and see if anything jumps out at you. http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164253.0  Have a look at both the 9 and 10 month old routines. There is also some good info about increased mobility and how to deal with it etc. Also a read of this might help too http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=145285.0

At first glance I would say you may need to start increasing A times. The first A is only 3 hours so that could be effecting the rest of the day. the next A is really short so could be why you're getting short naps and struggling to sleep. You could try to slowly start aiming for A times that are between 3.5 and 4 hours long and see what kind of naps that yields and if you can consolidate into two decent naps at good times of the day.

As far as drinking from a cup...she will get there in the end, take it slow and give her lots of practice time. I have given my LO a cup (empty) to play with so he can get used to holding it in his hands. You could also try a few different kinds of sippy cups with handles and a variety of nozzles (some you suck others are just holes -the sucky ones might be good for your LO)  - there may be one that suits her.

let us know how you go
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