fix this sleep schedule

[Anonymous]

13mo with an early waking habit that I can no longer endure. She is exhausted and goes to sleep easily about 7/7:15 pm independently, with a sleep sack, white noise machine on all night, and very dark room. Rarely wakes in the night, until about 4:45am when she is UP FOR THE DAY. Been this way for a few months already. She is perfectly happy when she wakes and plays in her crib for awhile, babbling to herself. Usually by 5:30 she starts to get irritated that I haven't come to get her and I try not to give in until 6:00. She is taking two naps/day. Usually about 9-10:30, 2-3:30 though second nap sometimes shifted a bit earlier, and we almost always have to wake her from her naps: we cap the naps at about 3 hours total over the course of the day. problem seems to be that her first wake is the longest of the day, but the internet tells you not to let them nap before 9am, but boy is she ready for that nap! I think she would happily take a very long single nap if we let her, but I can't figure out how to time it so that she is not overtired/untired for bedtime, and I'd really love if she slept closer to 11 hours/night. thoughts on how to fix the sleep schedule?

[Anonymous]

You have to push the nap later, you can do it slowly like 30 minutes a day. I would honesty cap her daytime sleep to 2.5 hours at this point- she’s probably waking early bc she is getting too much day sleep. She may be ready for 1 nap in the middle of the day but don’t jump to that. Start by pushing that morning nap to 10am, cutting it off at 11:30am, and then only letting her nap in the afternoon for an hour (I would do around 2:30-3:30) with bedtime at 7:30. Try that for a week or so and see if she shuffled her sleep and starts doing 11 overnight with the added sleep pressure. If not, consider continuing to slowly push to one midday nap around 12 and bedtime around 7.

[Anonymous]

She’s hungry. At that age I would get a cup hanger to hang from the side of the crib rail. Right before I went to bed for the night I’d fill a zippy cup or bottle with ice and milk and leave it in the cup holder. The early waker would drink it ans go back to sleep for another hour or two. Also but that age I kept the naps to one longer one in the early afternoon.

[Anonymous]

PP here and for what it’s worth, my DS only needed 13 hours of sleep total by that age on 2 naps. He switched to one nap right around 13 months and went up to needing more like 14 hours again for the transition (2 hr nap and closer to 12 overnight at first) but ultimately settled back at 13 hours total for the day (2 hr midday nap and 11 overnight). You might just be expecting too much sleep for her - if she’s napping 3 hours, she may not need 11 overnight. It’s a puzzle though bc every baby is different.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the typos….small buttons on my phone.

[Anonymous]

This may sound crazy but try moving up her bedtime even earlier. I have read that early bedtimes help early wakings (from Taking Cara Babies). Try bath at 6:30, jammies and bottle (if she's still having a bottle at 13 mos, not sure), then lights out and down by 6:45 at the latest.

Because the naps seem fine. You're right not to reinforce the early waking by moving the first nap up. FWIW, my 10 month's schedule us:

Night sleep is roughly 7-6:30
First nap is 9-10:30
Second nap is 1-3.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

sleep begets sleep...do not cap daytime sleep to encourage nighttime sleep. It's actually the opposite - early bedtime to encourage sleeping later, keeping daytime naps to encourage night time sleeping. Waking kids up from naps is just going to make them lousy sleeping.

[Anonymous]

Cut a nap

[Anonymous]

How long has she been doing the early wake ups for. May need to wait it out. Also try bed time at 6:30 for at least a week and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

I would try shifting her down to 1 nap and letting that 1 nap be as long as she wants (not ever waking her)

[Anonymous]

Too much nap time. She should go to one longer nap per day (might have to keep the morning nap as the long one for now and gradually shift it back.) But if she can move to one long nap and let her sleep don’t wake her, then try to skip the afternoon nap. This way she can have an earlier bedtime (like 6 or 6:30) and she will sleep the full 12 hours at night.

Both my daughters shifted to one nap shortly after 1. If you can shift down to one nap by gradually shifting the morning nap later while at the same time shortening the afternoon nap and putting bedtime earlier, I think you’ll get to a more humane waking time in the mornings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sleep begets sleep...do not cap daytime sleep to encourage nighttime sleep. It's actually the opposite - early bedtime to encourage sleeping later, keeping daytime naps to encourage night time sleeping. Waking kids up from naps is just going to make them lousy sleeping.

This isn’t a universal truth. That adage is way over used. Look at sleep averages for 1-2 year olds. It’s 11-14 hours total in a day. Meaning napping for 3 hours with 2 naps, your kid has to be on the high end of average to still need 11 hours overnight on top of that (like the OP is hoping to shift toward). She already has a very reasonable bedtime of 7-730.

I capped my DS’s naps starting around 10 months when he started rising earlier in the morning, and I needed to add some more overnight sleep pressure but he wasn’t ready for 1 nap yet. Basically went from 3 hours of naps to 2 hours of naps over the course of 2-3 months before he was ready to drop to one midday nap (at which point I didn’t cap sleep at all). And guess what? He’s remained an amazing sleeper. I can count on one hand the number of times he’s woken up overnight or before 6:30am since we sleep trained at 6 months, and he’s now 2. And he takes a 2-2.5 hour nap everyday.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried feeding her at 4:30 ? My DD also wakes up at around 4:30ish. I nurse her and she goes right back to sleep until about 6:30

[Anonymous]

give her a bottle, change diaper, and close the door no matter what. No interaction, no eye contact, no light.

[Anonymous]

At that age my kids were taking one nap from 1-3pm and then bed at 6:30pm and waking at 7am. I also would make sure they eat a lot when they are awake.

Pretty much my kids are non stop while awake and then slept hard.