EW for 1 year old

[eml2512]

I don't know if this is the right place to post or EASY but I'll give it a go here.

DD has been waking 1 hr early for ages. We've never gotten her to sleep 12 hours, the best has been 11 hours. DH is full time dad and I'm at work. The plan is I get up early to get ready for work. i have to leave about 8.10, so she's meant to wake up at 7.30 so I can give her a bottle and say hello then hand her to DH so I can go to work. When we started this routine, she was sleeping 3 - 3.5 hours in the day (split over 2 naps with 3 hrs A time) and would go to bed at 7.30 pm. At the time she was about 7 months old.

But really quickly she'd start waking at 6.30. There was also a last bottle issue as she'd hardly take any milk and we felt that maybe she was too full from dinner at 6. So we started putting her to bed at 8.30, with dinner at 6.30 when I got home. This worked for a few weeks and then around 9 months she started waking at 6.30 again.

Reading on here, I thought, maybe she's going through the 2-1 transition so DH tried reducing her naps. But now she's on about 2-2.5 hours (split into 2 naps) and still waking at 6.30! He's tried everything, shifting the times of the naps so that the later one is earlier or later, but nothing seems to work. It's still a gamble as to whether she takes a good last bottle (she's moved to cow's milk now as she's 1) sometimes if she's more tired at night she'll take more milk, but that doesn't always mean a late wake up.

Any ideas?

[becky1969]

The average amount of sleep at night for a 1 year old is 11.5 hours.  So most babies this age are already shortening their nights.  If she's been an 11 hour night girl for most of her life, that's where she's comfortable! 11 hours is still considered a really good night.  10 hours is when we start to look at routine tweaking.

The way you know they're in the 2-1 transition is they start to have trouble napping.  If she was napping fine on the 3-3.5 hours/day and her nights were 11 hours, that's where I'd stay! 

Also, if you shortened naps and she's STILL at a 7:30 bedtime, then you may be having her be a bit more tired at bedtime than she should be.

We can look at specifics if you want! Post your EASY and we can look.  How long ago did he shorten her naps?


I'm also not sure about this bottle issue? Do you mean she wouldn't eat much at bedtime? If so, that's normal for this age too.  She's 1, so most of her nutrition is going to be from her solids now.  She should really only be getting 24 oz of milk max in a day.  She may be ready to reduce that before bed feed.  At this age, is doubtful the amt of milk/BF she takes before bed will affect her sleep.  And like I said, 11 hours is a perfectly good amt of sleep. 

[eml2512]

i held off responding as we decided to try getting her to bed at 7.30 again instead of 8.30. It worked the first time after a DF at midnight, but not really since. Albeit we haven't been sticking to 7.30 like clockwork due to other family commitments.

A typical EASY goes something like:

6.30 - wake
6.45 - morning bottle (cow's milk, she usually takes 5oz)
9.00 - breakfast
10.30 - nap
11.30 - wake (crying)
12.30 - lunch
3.00 - afternoon snack
4.00 - nap (time can vary, it might be brought forward if she's showing signs of tiredness or she only did 30 mins at 1st nap)
5.00 - wake (crying)
5.30 - dinner
7.00 - bath, pjs
7.25 - night bottle (cow's milk, try to get 8 oz into her, but can be as low as 4oz sometimes, it's gotten better since we dropped her mid afternoon bottle)
7.30 - bed

When she was on 8.30 bed time, dinner was pushed to 6.30, then everything else pushed back an hour too.

The thing I'm most worried about is next week the clocks go back and I don't want to get up at 5.30!

[ikesmummy]

Hi there, our little ones are a really similar age (Keaton's birthday was the 18th September).

When you say wakes crying, are you waking her? Does she quickly seem happy or does she not perk up? Does she still seem tiered?

Her last A time is pretty short now (only 2.5 hours) what a lot of people do when the LO seem to need to cut back on daytime sleep in the build up to switching to one nap is have a shorter and longer nap each day so either a long am nap followed by a catnap in the afternoon or a catnap in the afternoon followed by a longer nap after lunch - you have to find what works best for your LO but if they are happy going down for a morning nap with a relatively short first A the catnap in the morning often seems to work well.

We are having some problems here at the moment with EW (5.30ish) but prior to that our day looked something like this

A - 6.30ish
S - 9.30ish for 30 mins (I have to wake him and he sometimes needs 5 mins or so quiet time cuddling with a book but then perks up.
A - 10ish
S - 12.30/1ish (for between 1 1/2 hrs and 2 hrs)
A - somewhere between 2 and 2.45
S - 6.30ish

I believe having a catnap (less than a 45 nap cycle) should keep them going a bit longer but isn't fully restorative so the following A time is shorter than it would be after a normal nap not sure on routine ideas for doing the naps the other way round.

Do you think something like this would be worth a shot?

[becky1969]

2nd nap may be mistimed.  You've got 5.5 hours in there, and in the morning she only handles 4.  Does she fight a nap earlier in the day? Or is that just when you put her down? I'd probably try a nap at 3:00-4:30 (hopefully!), and then you won't be able to put her to bed until 8:00 or so because of how late the nap is.  I agree with PP -- 2.5 hours before bed is going to be difficult.


What we want to see at this age is a 1 hour AM nap and a 1.5 hour PM nap.  Then, to go through the 2-1 transition, that AM nap gets later and later, shorter and shorter.  Once that nap is at 11:30 and/or 4.5 hours of A time, then you're there and can just jump to 1 nap.

An 11 hour night just really isn't a problem.  But her napping I think is.  It sounds like she's unhappy when she wakes, so she may not be getting enough sleep.  I wouldn't wake her.  I'm not sure what that will do except make her grumpy.  You can' fix an 11 hour night -- its a natural length for the age. 

As for the time change, don't worry! What you can do is push bedtime a bit later -- by 30 minutes or so -- and then even with the time change she'll be waking at 6 at the earliest.  Then the next day you do the same (push day by 30 min), and voila you're back at your normal wake/sleep times.

[eml2512]

thanks for the advice about the 2-1 transition. We werebn't really sure how to do it. We don't wake her during her nap, she does it herself. Some days she can last an hour, some days it's less. But she always wakes crying. Should we push her morning & time or are we going too long already? until about 8 months she was on a good 3 hour A time and could sleep 2 hours on 1st nap and 1 - 1.5 hours on 2nd nap.

[ikesmummy]

Oh I'm not sure what 1 hour naps indicate?? Never had 1 hour naps here (sure others will have an opinion on whether this is ikely to be OT or UT) so wouldn't know whether it is worth trying the nap slightly earlier or later

What we want to see at this age is a 1 hour AM nap and a 1.5 hour PM nap.  Then, to go through the 2-1 transition, that AM nap gets later and later, shorter and shorter.  Once that nap is at 11:30 and/or 4.5 hours of A time, then you're there and can just jump to 1 nap.

I also hadn't read this anywhere before I don't think, our naps are much less even than this (around 30 mins and around 2 hours) so Bcky1969 may be better able to advise.

[eml2512]

it's not just ew but nw too. Every night for the last couple of weeks she's been waking in the middle of the night. She's wide awake for about an hour. Dh does the night shift and he'll have to give her milk to help get her in the mood for sleep.

this morning she woke at 6.

[eml2512]

Please help, the nights are getting worse!

yesterday looked like this:

Wake: 6:00
Breakfast: 9:00
Sleep: 10:15
Wake: 10:45
Sleep: 11:00 (on DH then just our bed)
Wake: 12:30
Lunch: 13:00
Play: 13:40
Sleep: 16:20
Wake: 17:20
Dinner: 17:50 (we were out house hunting yesterday at this time but came back and did her bedtime routine)
Bedtime routine: 19.50
Bed: 20:25
Wake: 0:30
Sleep: 1:45
Wake: 5:40

There's obviously something going on as she's not normally so bad. Apparently the night before she was awake 5 times in the night. I'm pregnant and work full time and DH is the full time carer, so he does the night shifts and it's getting really bad on him. I'm sure it's her routine but I don't know where we're going wrong. Any ideas??

[becky1969]

Have you checked for teeth? The 1 year molars typically come in about this time.  The molars take a LONG TIME to fully come in -- a month or more for some babies -- so she could just be supremely uncomfortable.  I'd try some Motrin before bed just to see; those teeth start to hurt long before you can see them busting thru.

She's VERY sleepy right now, which is what makes me suspect teeth as well (besides her age).  She slept A LOT yesterday!  She got 2 hours ini the AM and then another hour in the PM!  That really says teeth.  She even went to bed 3 hours post nap, which is quite remarkable at this age -- super early.  So! I'd say teeth.  Medicate her before bed (since she's sleeping fine for naps -- I think the reason she woke 30 minutes in on AM nap was she was OT from being awake 4h15.  Her happy spot the rest of the day was around 3 hours.



In general, tho, we like to see the loooong nap happen in the afternoon.  It helps them keep from being OT at bedtime (which can cause EWs).  so what we typically advise is waking after 1 hour in the morning and then letting them sleep as long as they like in the afternoon.  Routine would look something like

6 am wake

nap 1  9:30-10:30


nap 2  1:30-3 or 3:30


Bedtime 7:00


She'll be stretching that first A time after those teeth are done.

[eml2512]

Thanks Becky

We've wondered about teeth as she's been drooling for ages. She's had 2 teeth since 7 months, but that's it, so they could be coming through, though she perks up when we come in and becomes playful (could be wanting comfort?)

We'll have a look at what you said above and see where we go from there

[becky1969]

Yes, just because she perks up doesn't mean she's not uncomfortable.  Also they are more easily OT when teething, which may be causing the NWs.  Try the Motrin and see what happens! 

[becky1969]

Just wanted to add that those toothless wonders at 1 often get a TON of teeth all at once, which is no fun.  It can take weeks for the buggers to bust thru, esp. when they're working on multiples.  I think we have an explanation! Your baby isn't crazy, she's teething! 

[eml2512]

ok. So 2 nights ago we gave her teething stuff: gel and paracetemol which helped her get back to sleep. Then woke up at 6.15. The day looked like this:

wake: 6.15
sleep: 9.45
wake: 10.15 (she was crying  but dh couldn't get her back to sleep)
sleep: 2.30
wake: 4.30
bed: 7.30

she slept all night, didn't need  any teething meds but woke up at  5.50 and wouldn't go back to sleep. So far she's been awake 3 hours and seems tired but not necessarily sleepy.

[becky1969]

Oh, you're almost there!!!  She had a 10 hour night, and that means she was OT at bedtime usually, although in this case what may have happened is that she felt her teeth annoying her at the light sleep phase that comes around 10 hours and that woke her up.

I see nothing wrong with the 30 min AM and 2 hour PM.  That's the way her naps *should* be structured!  I can't argue with going to bed 3 hours post-nap! That's super early, and the fact that she went to sleep and slept all night says she is super duper tired from those teethies.  The only other thing I can suggest with that EW is give her some teething medicine, soothe for 30 minutes and then see if she won't drop off again.  Just because they seem perky and awake doesn't mean they won't go back to sleep.  My son was always like that at EW -- he'd be jumping up and down in his crib with a big grin, but I'd say "It's sleepy time, love!" and we'd rock in the rocker for a good 20 minutes and he'd start to relax again (keeping room dark).  It's worth a shot.  Worse that can happen is you waste 20 minutes and have to start your day; best case she goes back to sleep and so do you!

I guess what I'm saying is you may be stuck with an EW or 2 while she's working on teeth.  Her napping routine looks awesome, so there's not much you can change there. And I don't see *how* you can try to put her down for bedtime earlier since you're already at 3 hours A time!  I suspect teeth are bugging her at that 10 hour window and that's what wakes her up.  Try the meds and cuddles and see if that helps her go back to sleep.