How to improve sleep?

[Raquelx]

Hi there
just wondered if anyone had any advice for me.  Before i start i must say i know how lucky i am really to have my DS sleeping as well as he does but i just wondered if there is anything i can do to help him sleep as he used to.  He is just over 12mths now and has always slept well throughout the night until recently.  His routine is as follows:
wake 6ish
milk at 7ish (8oz full fat cows milk)
breakfast (toast followed by fuit) at 8ish
activity time til 9ish (wind down before nap)
sleep at 9-9.30 (depends how tired he is as he has just started crawling a few weeks back)
10.30-10.45ish activity after he wakes
11.30 snack (sometimes give him this whilst at the park)
12.30-1pm lunch
1.30-2pm sleep
3-3.30 activity time (try to get out again to give him fresh air and to get some errands done)
4 - milk (only 2-4oz which he is refusing of late)
5.30 - dinner
6.30ish bath
6.45 wind down and milk (8oz full fat cows milk)
7pm bed. 

He normally settles himself and sleeps all night, well til lately.  He used to sleep til 7am but then it started to go to 6.30am then the clocks changed and its now gone from 6.15am to 6am.  I have tried to put a curtain over his blackout blind (which doesn't blackout all the light) but this doesn't seem to be helping.  To be fair when DS wakes he does play nicely in his cot cooing etc so i don't ever rush in but if i don't hear him wake and put him down late for his first nap then this has a knock on effect for the rest of the day.

Is there anything that anyone can see i'm doing wrong or anything i could try - is he sleeping too long in the day?.  Again i know that i am lucky and i don't want to sound ungrateful as i know some people have real problems with early wakings but i just want to try to nip it in the bud really before i end up with 4 or 5am wakings.

thank you
x

[Colin Macs Mom]

Hi Raquelx -

I'm splitting your post off and moving it to toddler sleep so you get the best audience.

Wondering though if maybe your A times are not quite long enough.

[Raquelx]

ok sorry and thank you.

how long would you recommend my activity times be at this age.  have always seemed to have a problem with pigging activity times :-)

thank you for your help with this its like a minefield being a mum.  You get it right one day and so wrong the next ha ha

xx

[skatty]

He may be starting the 2-1 transition, early waking are one of the signs. We also have blackout blinds that seep light around so we started pinning black material up arond the windows at night and it works a treat 

[Raquelx]

well we have a blackout blind and i have pinned another curtain over the top.  He slept for an extra 15-20mins this morning (woke at 6.20ish) so thats progress but not sure its totally his problem though.

i do want to gradually start to push back his morning nap and head toward a 1 nap but wanted to take it really slowly.  i have figured that if i shorten his afternoon nap he settles better at night. i am finding that if he sleeps past 3pm then he just won't sleep come 7pm ish. 

any advicre is gratefuly received though.

thank you

xxx

[Colin Macs Mom]

Thinking back to when Colin was 12 mo.... I would suggest you adjust to something like this.

wake 7ish
milk at 7ish (8oz full fat cows milk)
breakfast (toast followed by fruit) at 8ish
activity time til 9:30ish (wind down before nap)
sleep at 9.30/10
11.30-11.45ish activity after he wakes
12.30 lunch
2.30-3pm sleep
4-4.30 milk and activity time (try to get out again to give him fresh air and to get some errands done)
5.30 - dinner
6.30ish bath
6.45 wind down and milk (8oz full fat cows milk)
7pm bed

[Raquelx]

that is the routine i was on, but he started waking earlier so i am having to put him down for his first nap earlier otherwise he gets overtired. 

I am hoping to head back towards that routine though.

thanks

[Layla]

At 12months we actually didn't have as much daytime sleep as your lo. Our morning nap was only 45mins and the pm nap was 1.5-2hrs long.

So our day was something like this:

6am - wake
9.30-10:15 - morning nap
1:30-3pm - pm nap
6.30-7pm - bed & asleep within 5mins or so

So the early wakings could be because of too much daytime sleep . Could also be related to teething? I remember we had 5am wake ups around that age due to teething molars.

hth a little
Layla

[Raquelx]

Don't you just love the teething stage........ :-)

Why is mothering such trial and error ha ha

thank you to you all, shall try to cut back a littleon his daytime sleeps and see how we go.

x