13 month old early wakening

[Caroline5555]

My LO is 13 months old and things are finally much better sleep wise than they were. He goes to bed around 7pm-ish, murmurs at 11pm (but puts himself back to sleep) and sleeps through till 6am-ish. His daytime naps are 9-9:45am and 1-3pm.

Now I know it doesn't sound like I have a big problem but I still really struggle with winding down and getting to sleep myself at night, and rarely fall asleep before his 11pm grizzle as I'm lying in bed waiting for it. Silly, I know, as I rarely even need to get out of bed whem it happens, but that's Mother Nature for you!

So I'm rarely asleep before 11pm and then he wakes at around 6am. I feel it's gradually getting earlier as it used to be around 6:20, then it was 6am and today it was 5:45am. I have just returned to work as a hospital doctor so really need to be on the ball and not tired! I'm desperate to get him to sleep till 7am.

Any suggestions?!

[creations]

Maybe you could shave off some of that morning CN so he naps 9.15-9.45 instead?  Losing 15 mins in the day can mean gaining more at night if you already know he can do a longer night when tired enough.  Some people successfully shave one on the naps this way over a long time period so that eventually it is only 10 mins and then down to zero, it's one method of nap dropping.

Another option would be to drop the CN and move to one nap  (you'd bring the nap earlier, say 12-2pm).  It can be messy for a while when they drop to one nap (not for everyone but ours was messy) which would lengthen the night in the medium-longer term but in the short term can cause OT waking at night and some LOs wake even earlier if they are OT.  The early evening OT NWs I think you could handle as you are already staying awake until 11pm, after that he should be fully settled for a long sleep, but you might really feel the EW if it went that way, yk?

A third option would be to keep the naps the length they are and accept a shorter night until he's a bit older and can cope better with the drop to one nap.  You can move both naps a little later and move BT a little later too which will in turn lead to WU being a little later - same amount of sleep for him for at a better time for you.  It may not sound appealing to you for him to go to bed later, I know I didn't like the sound of it when my DS's BT move to 8pm but yk we got used to it pretty quickly and when his routine changed again and he needed BT at 7pm it felt ever so early and we missed our time with him.  Pros and cons of a different BT I suppose.

it is not unheard of for LOs to drop to 1 nap before they are 1yo so it wouldn't be at all unusual, but many continue on 2 naps also.

I also couldn't settle until I knew my DS was past his night time groans and shuffles and possible NWs. I tended to stay up until midnight as I could deal with his NWs really patiently if I was still awake but I found it so so hard if I had fallen to sleep and then was woken an hour later, I was like a zombie and just couldn't deal very well with it.  So I do understand why you are not getting to bed earlier yourself

[Caroline5555]

Thank you so much for your speedy response! They all sounds like sensible options. I think I'll give the first option a go, cutting his morning nap, and see what happens.... Fingers crossed! Nice to have other options up my sleeve too, so thank you!

[creations]

You're very welcome.

Let us know how it goes.