My LO just turned 1 last week.
From the age of 4 months she is going to daycare. At first for a full day (I know, horrible), but from the age of 11 months I'm home from work for 3 months. Because of stranger anxiety (much better now) we decided to bring her to daycare even during those 3 months, but only in the am till 11.30am (I still have to work a bit from home), and when she will be 14 months she will have to return to full days at daycare.
The daycare is very structured. We don't have much choice in our country (and certainly not in our city), so there is no option of switching to another centre. Nap-times and feeding-times are very strict. They put children in bed all at the same time, but they let them sleep as long as they want. Feeding is at a set time, they begin with the youngest and then go on to the older children. We cannot bring or pick up the children between 11.30am and 2pm because all of them are (or should be) asleep.
Feeding schedule ("normal" schedule in our country):
morning: bottle of milk at home
11am-11.15am: vegetables
3pm-3.15pm: fruit
auround 5-5.30pm: going home, bread with cheese or fruit
evening: bottle of milk
Nap schedule:
when they get to the centre (between 7.30 and 9am): morning nap
11.30am: big nap
4.30pm: afternoon nap
The littlest children have 3 naps, the toddlers only sleep at noon (11.30am-2pm). The children in-between (7-18 months) mostly have 2 naps: some of them at 7.30am and 11.30am. Others, arriving much later, have naps at 11.30 and 4.30pm. Transitioning to 1 nap happens between the ages of 12-18 months, depending on the child.
A typical full day for my daughter starts at 8am and ends at 5pm.
At first, when my daughter was younger, she quickly adjusted to sleeping again around 8am till 9am, while waking at 6.30am. She managed to stay awake untill 11.30am, and the afternoon nap was also at a good time.
The afternoon nap was dropped a few months later, which made for an early bedtime (6pm).
Because of the early morning nap, without any time limit, our daughter while getting older learned to wake early (first at 6am, now 5am or 4.30am). So her schedule looks like this now:
5am: awake (won't go back to sleep, signs "ready" (baby signing))
5.15am: bottle of milk (signs "milk", wich is very understandable because she refuses her nighttime bottle now)
7am: breakfast cereal
8am: arrives at daycare
8am-10am: long morning nap (they won't wake her!)
11.15am: vegetables
11.30am: I pick her up from daycare
12.15am-1.30pm: short midday nap
3pm: fruit
5.15pm: getting tired and fussy
5.30-5.45pm: bath
6pm: she completely refuses her nighttime bottle for 2 weeks now (even when I don't give her anyting to eat after 4pm)
6.15pm: fast asleep
In 6 weeks, when I get back to fulltime work again, it should ideally be looking like this (if she could handle 1 nap by then):
7am: awake
7.15am: milk and breakfast
8am: arrives at daycare
11.15am: vegetables
11.30am-2pm: big nap
3pm: fruit
5pm: picked up from daycare
5.30pm: bread
6.30pm: bath
7pm: bed
I have no idea how to adjust her sleeping schedule when I'm so limited with the daycare centre.
I could leave her at home for her morning nap so it would be shorter (8am-8.30am) and bring her to daycare around 9am.
But how can I push back the nap further away, hoping that she would wake later, if I can't coordinate it with daycare?
Should I leave her at home for the entire morning to be able to adjust it myself, and bring her only in the afternoon? That looks more confusing to her, I would think.
How many weeks would it take to adjust her schedule?
And how do I know whether she is ready for just 1 big nap? (she has always needed a lot of sleep, so I thought she would need 2 naps at least until 15-18 months).
(the other children at daycare don't have that problem, somehow they just take to the 1-nap schedule very quickly and some very soon (around 12 months), probably they are getting very tired in the late morning at first but nobody seems to have a problem with that?)
(I work from 8.30am to 6pm. If she keeps on waking early and going to bed early, I won't be seeing her any more at night (DH picks her up), only in the very early morning... maybe that's the way it should be then??
)
