How long is your 12 month old awake before bed?

[becky1969]

We're going thru an adjustment period, I think. My LO just turned 1 year old on Thursday (yay!), and while his naps remain great, bedtime is starting to be a little bit of a struggle which always means it's time to adjust A time.

I'm confused as to how long he should stay awake before bed. WE usually aim for 3 hours, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's not enough. We also may be moving to 1 nap. I'm just not sure. Usually his AM nap is 45 minutes-1 hour (down from 2 hours 1 month ago), and his PM nap is around 2 hours. Today I postponed his AM nap and sure enough he slept for 2 hours exactly. Now he's awake at 1:15, and I'm wondering how we're going to make it to bedtime! He won't be sleepy until 4:15 at the earliest, but obviously I don't want him taking a long nap at that hour. Guess we'll take a catnap. But I'm tempted to see if he can make it to 6 and have bedtime then. He's sleeping 12-13 hours at night, so he'd be up at 6-7 am instead of 8 am to start his day.

Any ideas here? Should I continue to have him take a short AM nap and longer PM nap until he starts refusing a nap? How long can most babies this age make it before bedtime?

[KellyC]

Hi

If he's still happy to take 45 minutes at the earlier time and then 2 hours in the afternoon I'd stick with it!  If the pm nap becomes a struggle you can shorten the am nap even further - we were only doing 15/20 minutes before we dropped the am nap altogether.  If Owen's waking at 1.15pm from his one nap it's a long time to wait until bedtime.  Zander's A time before bed was around 4 hours at 12 months and is now 5 hours at 15 months.

HTH
Kelly x

[becky1969]

Thank you! That helps immensely!

Do you think, then, that 3 hours A time before bed is too short? That's what we're doing now. He seems to relax and want to sleep, but then kind of rolls around fussing for 30 minutes (which is unusual for him - he usually goes straight to sleep for naps and bedtime). I've been thinking it was overtired behavior, but now I'm thinking maybe it's undertired.

I just love having him asleep by 7:30, so I've been reluctant to increase A time, since he doesn't get up from PM nap until 4:30 (and I usually have to wake him then). Maybe I could wake him a bit earlier and see how that goes?

[KellyC]

Hmm, difficult one.  I wouldn't want a bedtime past 7.30 either but 4.30-7.30 probably isn't enough A time by the sounds of it.  What time are his other naps?

Kelly x

[becky1969]

Well, I answered my own question last night! I put him to bed after only 2.5 hours A time, and he went right to sleep. He also had a fabulous night sleep with one wake-up when his Tylenol wore off. I gave him some more and he slept 6.5 hours without a peep! Woohoo!

He's teething again, which may explain why he needed less, not more, A time. He's always super tired when teething.

To answer your question, his naps are typically 10:30-11:30, and then 2:30-4:30.