Nearly one and still not sleeping !!

[A VERY TIRED MUMMY]

Please Help 

My little man is 11 1/2 mnths and has a bad history of poor sleep however we adjusted and accepted the fact we had a baby that needed a small amout of sleep. Our New Challenge is early morning wide awake and ready for the day!

A brief bedtime routine:

Bath, Bottle and down to bed between 6.30 pm - 7.30 pm ; It takes about 1/2 an hour to finally get him to sleep with lot's of him standing up and us lying him back down!


He will then sleep through till approx 11.00pm and then he will wake for a feed between 11.00pm - 4.00am every night is different.

After the feed he goes straight back down no problem, plus always drains the bottle.

Then wakes between 4.40am - 5.00am ready and wide awake for the day
we've tried everything we can think of ; letting him cry,feeding,PUPD nothing seems to work. We then result to taking himm down stairs and he's then very happy. He doesn't go back to sleep til about 2- 2 1/2 hrs after this waking.


He's only ever slept through the nite once 7.00pm till 4.30am, it's like his little body clock is set to wake at 4.30/5 am no mater what time he goes to bed.

What can we do to teach him it's too early to get up!!

[Katet]

What is his daytime routine like, how much sleep does he have in the day & what are his meals & activities like.
The day & night sleeps are related & my thought is the day sleep is "robbing" from the night.
Given his age, he should last 3 or 4 hours from his morning wake up to his first nap, given he lasts 2-2.5 hours, I think his first nap "belongs to the night sleep.

Can you post your day routine, so I can give suggestions as to how to make that nap become part of night sleep... it could take 2-3 weeks & I won't say it will be easy

My 2yo still has an awake time around 5am... he talks for 10mins or so & goes back off, but there was a time there he wanted to start the day then & it took us almost 3 weeks to get him consistently sleeping that longer stretch

[A VERY TIRED MUMMY]

He has two Routines Nursery and Home

(He's at Nursery 4 days a wk)

Nursery

5.00am - Wakes crying in his cot and stands up screaming.

5.30am - Milk feed if the night feed was early in the night then breakfast   at about 6.30- 7.00am, or if the night feed was later just breakfast at 6.30-7am.

7.30am - Nursery

I believe he has a few naps but not for very long usually about 40mins - 1hr  twice a day. Am and PM sometimes will have a short 1/2 hr nap as well.

8 - 9 am Snack - Toast, Biscuit, fruit and water

11.30 - 12.00 - Lunch main and pud + water

Pm - Snack - Fruit and water

3.45 - 4.15 - Tea - Main. Yogurt and water

5.30 - Collect form nursery - Usually tired

6.00 - Supper , weetabix

6.30 - bath, wind down and milk

6.30 - 7.00 - Bed, usually fights it but eventually goes down between 10 - 30 mins. 

Wakes for feed anytime between 11.00pm - 4.00am every night is different! sometimes just wakes and needs his dummy.


Home

The same meal times however he will usually sleep a little better usually two naps a day 1 - 1 1/2 hrs each AM and PM. its always a battle to get him to sleep unless were out and about as he loves the car and buggy.

He's always had trouble sleeping and it's only been since he was 6mths we finally managed to get him into his cot!

We have spells of really bad nights which he wakes nearly ervey hr but thankfully  they usually coincide with teething or illness.

I'm sure it's some fault of ours and I'm sure he's not getting enough sleep but it's so difficult to have this constant battle!

[Katet]

Ok Firstly it will be hard work, but I think I can help you get your lo starting the day at a more reasonable time.

I think the main thing here is at your lo's age about 10 -11 hours of sleep at night is pretty much the normal & about how long you can expect them to go without food. So part of the problem could be the 6.30 bed time.

If you want a later wake up than what you have, you probably need to shift it a bit later & also make sure that the first nap does not occur before 9.30am ( 1 hour max)- no matter how tired he is, keep him up until that time(this I'm guessing to be about 2.5-3 hours after the time you would need him up in the morning to get him to nursery on time, adjust if needed) & then you would want to have a 2nd nap sometime around 2pm earlier if needed, but not before noon. Now if he is having poor naps, you might like to throw in a 3rd one to delay bed time, esp as he has long days at nursery with lots of stimulation... I know when my ds#1 was at childcare at that age, he was always over tired & that doesn't help early wakeups either.

I'd also offer protien at supper time, to give him more chance of making it through the night, cereal is good, but it is not as filling as protien, either meat or cheese is a good idea

Finally the hardest part... only offer water at the morning wakeup before 6.30am & don't leave the room before that time either... you stay in there & try & get him back to sleep. if you feed before 6.30, you are encouraging him to wake up & also disrupting the body clock. Now on the days he isn't at nursery, you want to make sure you keep to the same routine as nursery as much as possible, but also get him as stimulated as possible, Active play, in the am, try to limit time in the car/pram in the am... If they are most active in the morning, it can help extend the morning sleep
 HTH