What does your 17 mo's day look like?

[*Liz*]

I mean in terms of naps and feeding times. If it is working, of course  , SO many Mummies on here struggling at the moment  .

My issue is EWs and final A to bed. I have got my long naps back after pushing the morning A time, and therefore am out of the UT/OT loop we were in for ages around Christmas. But I can't seem to nail the final A to bed.

My other theory is that he might have got his body clock stuck on a 7pm bedtime, and have switched to 10.5hr nights. But he is so tired at 7pm that he cries, climbs the stairs and stands in front of his cot with his arms outstretched.

Food wise - I think we need a tweak now the nap is later to move lunch and the snacks about but I am still a bit lost  .

Thanks ladies  .

[~inbalance~]

Liz, last week was our most perfect week yet and it looked like this:
6:30/45 awake
7:30/8 breakfast
11:30 lunch
12:30-2:30 nap
2:30 snack
5:30/45 dinner
7 bed

Nights were good, occasional brief NWing but that's it.  Now naps are shortening and NW/EWs creeping in, but I'm going to try to stop it today! 

Meal times are very consistent here, almost always around the same time and it seems to work well.  T is a consistent eater, doesn't always eat a lot but eats something at every meal. 

[*Liz*]

Hey Martina - I need more details  . Does T have a morning snack and where do you fit his milk in?

[mmom]

Well, you know I am a mess in terms of sleep, so I am no help there.  Unlike Martina, my LO's eating habits fluctuate depending on how hungry he is.  He gets 4 ounces of milk when he wakes and my LO doesn't eat right away.  It can vary between 1/2 hour and 1 hour later.  If he is going down for a nap at 11:30, I still try to give him lunch at 11.  But often he will only eat a few pieces of fruit and then eat lunch after the nap.  Lately, even with a 12:30 nap, he still won't eat lunch before.  The past few days he has only eaten a banana and then eaten lunch after.  So I think that he is just not hungry enough yet.  Plus, when he is tired, he won't eat much anyway.  I still try and give a normal lunch every day.  But most of the time he throws it.  He does get another 4 ounces of milk right after his nap, which never effects the amount of lunch he will eat shortly after.  Dinner is always around 5/5:30 and then another 4 ounces of milk before bed.

Are you worried that J isn't eating enough?  You know he is napping well, so it is not like he is waking out of hunger or anything.  What is your concern with the eating schedule?

[Me.and.my.two.boys]

my weekdays are different to weekends because DS goes to nursery during the week. on a nursery day its as follows

7.30/8am - wake & milk from sippy
8.30am - breakfast
9.30am - snack at nursery
12 - lunch
2pm - 2.30pm - nap (very short!!!!)
3pm - snack
5pm - dinner
7pm - milk from sippy then bed

[Me.and.my.two.boys]

on a weekend its like this:
8/8.30am - wake (sometimes even later!) & milk
9.30am - breakfast
12 - lunch
1pm - 3pm - nap (sometimes longer!)
3.30pm - snack
5pm - dinner
7pm - milk and bed

he has long naps when he isnt at nursery to catch up on the sleep I think. Even on the days where he only sleeps 30mins, at bedtime he is tired but doesnt seem OT and we dont usually have any NWs.

[Mashi]

Things seem to be working well here and for the past 4-6 weeks we've been on this:

wake 700
sippy with milk and handful of cheerios watching morning tv.  some days he drinks 1/2 ounce of milk, other days 6 ounces.  could eat one small handful of cheerios, could eat 4 large handfuls.  
Bkfst: about 8ish I make him toast or pancakes - how much he eats depends on his cheerios!
Snack: about 930/945 we have a piece of fruit
Lunch: 1100ish
Nap 1200-130 OR 1230 - 200.  The timing doesn't affect the length or his bedtime, really.
Snack on waking, tends to snack until about 300ish, so two or three small things, really
Dinner: 430
Bath 600
Bed 730

I have recently moved the bath up to 600 instead of 45 minutes before bed which is what we always did. DH prefers it that way, but I find that the A time from nap to bed is very long.  He won't sleep much earlier though, so instead of trying to force an earlier bed I've moved bath earlier and it keeps that last 90 minutes low key and calm.  Having some issues coming to agreement with DH on it, I think it is because he does bath and bed and he feels that an hour and a half is too long for him to be "stuck with" DS. He would deny that but it is what I suspect.  Doesn't really make a difference to me as the 6pm bedtime has made nights so much easier so we are sticking with it!

The past weekish we have had some 615 wake ups but I really do believe they are habit.  He was sick with a cold a couple of weeks ago and it started then, and hasn't broken.  He wakes at 613 (as opposed to his usual 704 on the dot!) and can't get back to sleep. The other morning I happened to wake a bit after 5 and so I did W2S and he slept until 704, so I think it is just a matter of me setting my alarm a few days in a row to beat it.

About once a week he does a 7pm bedtime - I do think his A times are a bit long, but it takes a week or so to catch up to him and just needs one night of an extra 30min at night to get caught up.

[KathrynK]

Alex is 16mo but has always had long A times for his age, so thought I would post...

6.45ish (15 mins either way) wake- the kids come into our room & have milk, he has it from a sippy and has about 4-6oz usually

then we get dressed by 8am

on nursery days we are out the door at 7.55 and the kids have b'fast there. But the food/ sleep routine is pretty much the same as at home, so..

8amish breakfast - usually a bowl of cereal, weetabix, porridge etc. He has a huge handful of cheerios to snack on while I am getting breakfast ready. Then toast after. Usually eats half a slice. Sunday morning he ate 2 weetabix and a whole slice 

9.30-10am small snack. I have to be careful with snacks as if Sophie snacks too much she is difficult at meal times, but I can't give Alex one and not her. Usually it's fruit at this time, usually an apple or pear, cut up and they share it 2/3 Sophie & 1/3 Alex

1130amish lunch. Usually a cold lunch, sandwich or wrap, chunks of cheese, veggies like cucumber or pepper strips, some crisps perhaps. I find a little bit of a few things goes down better than one big sandwich, kwim? Then a yoghurt or fruit for pudding
12.15ish nap. If he has woken late (7.30) in the morning then nap can be nearer 1pm, if he has done a EW (5.30am- but rare) then I put him down by 11.45. He will sleep for as long as I let him, he is a great napper and I usually have to wake him. I tend to let him have 2hour, he mostly wakes around 2.30pm
2.30pm snack- He has to have something substantial between 2 & 3 or he is hysterical by 4pm. This varies depending on how organised I am and whther I have been shopping for some nice snack things, or whether I have not, and then he has a piece of cheese and some toast/ banana/ biscuit/ sausage roll (he loves them)/ scotch egg (ditto) etc
5pm dinner- a hot meal. You won't believe how much he eats, he can really put it away. Hot meal can be anything, pasta with bolognaise/ cheesey sauce, salmon, chicken, sausages, potatoes, veg, baked beans, fish pie, etc etc. I always do loads of veg as he will just keep picking at it while he is waiting for me to get his yoghurt for pudding
6pm up the stairs & run the bath., I give him his milk at this point, he carries his sippy around like a handbag and generally has about 3-4oz before his bath and the rest once he is in his jammies
6.15pm in the bath
6.35pm out the bath & jammies on
6.50pm in bed & asleep by 7

hth!
xxx

[~inbalance~]

I did include a snack on there.    T gets a snack after his nap around 2:30.  As for milk, it's kind of an ongoing thing throughout the day.  He doesn't sit and drink a whole bottle at once.  I grab it for him in the morning, he'll have a few oz, then just sips throughout the day.  He gets a few oz in a regular cup at meals.  I pretty much just let him have a cup of milk all day and he drinks when he wants.  Sometimes I have to remind him.  lol  We don't have bedtime milk really, I just offer it before bed and he might drink an oz.

I guess cause he was never a bottle baby, sitting and finishing a bottle or cup of milk is not something he will do.  He is a sipper.  I give him his smoothie in a sippy in the mornings and he'll drink a good 5oz of that quickly, but that's about as fast as he drinks!!  Otherwise it's an oz here, and oz there, etc.  

I noticed other moms do a mid morning snack.  I don't bother around here.  Breakfast is usually T's biggest meal and he's fine to go for lunch.  Besides, he would be a chronic snacker if I let him.    So I find he eats more at lunch if he doesn't get a morning snack, and even then lunch is his smallest meal.  After nap he gets some raisins or an apple, crackers or a cereal bar, and that's enough to get him to dinner.  I used to let him snack A LOT throughout the day, but then he wouldn't be hungry at mealtimes!!

[mmom]

Martina, we don't aim for a mid morning snack either.  My LO won't eat meals if I let him snack too much.  The "meal" before his nap just sometimes turns into a snack because he isn't hungry yet or he is too tired to eat.  It is kind of the same with the afternoon snack - that is lunch a lot of the time and he eats that is is ready for dinner a few hours later.