does this easy sound ok for a 11 month old spirited baby

[emmalou76]

Hi all i am wondering if my 11 month old's routine could do with some tweaking as he normally goes to bed between 7.30-8pm and wakes up at 7am but, cant stay up in the morning longer than 2.5 hours as he is normally back in his cot by 9.30am and would sleep for 2 hours in the morning if i let him, but will only have a short 45- 1 hour nap in the afternoon here is our routine
W@7am
E@7.15 am breakfast normally fruit + milk
A@7.30AM plays with toys are walks around
S@ 9.30am for 35 minutes (if i wake him)
A@ 10.05 plays till lunch time
E@ at 12.30pm has lunch
A@ at 1pm till 2.15pm
S@ 2.30pm after small bottle of milk
A@ 2.55PM till dinner time
E@ 5.30pm has dinner

A@ 6.30PM has bath
E@6.45pm has last bottle (10) oz
S@ 7PM till 7am
please note he has trouble eating all his dinner as he spends half the time rubbing his eyes so doesn't a;ways eat much of it, so i am wondering is he waking at 7am because he is so hungry he really seems to need his morning sleep even though he has only been up about 2 hours what would you suggest?
thank you

[*Liz*]

Sorry - I don't quite understand your nap times - could you clarify?

If you LO sleep at 9.30am how long is that nap and when is the afternoon nap and how long is it?

I have a few ideas that might help but just want to see if I have it straight first 

[emmalou76]

yeah sure the morning nap is anything from 30 mins to 2 hours i try to wake him after an hour so he sleeps longer in the afternoon, but if he sleeps for a long morning nap he sleeps no longer than 40 minutes in the afternoon and is still tired. Would you leave him to sleep for 2 hours in the morning?? do you think he needs it?

thanks

[*Liz*]

No - I think your LO is getting OT at bedtime and actually needs a better afternoon sleep. To do that you will need to shorten the am nap down from 2 hrs so he is tired enough to take a proper pm nap.

I think it if fine for the am nap to stay at 9.30am really - that is just a body clock thing as he has slept at that time for so long now.

If you cap the am nap at 1hr what happens to the pm nap?

[emmalou76]

Hi i tried cutting the morning nap to just 1 hour yesterday and after his lunch he slept for 2.5 hours and was more awake at dinner time so ate more and went to bed at 8pm and slept till 7.30am which is great so he got nearly 12 hours sleep. I woke him up from his morning nap at 10.30am and will do lunch at about 12.30-1pm i try to put him down for his nap at about 1.30-2pm

[*Liz*]

Great - I think that is the way to go then - and when the pm nap starts getting shorter and more difficult again you can cut the am nap to 45 mins. But 1hr served you well yesterday so try that first  .

[emmalou76]

thanks i think so, i was wondering if it meant i should cut out his nap in the morning he has done it sometimes and been ok but not always ate all his lunch  x

[*Liz*]

Nah - we just slowly reduce it iver time so it is 1hr, then 45 mins, then 30 mins, then often we can go to 1 nap then. Whole process seems to take about 3 mths for most LOs.