SOS sleep 🫠

Omg my daughter is exactly the same! I’m considering going to sleep school because I’m running on 3-5 hrs sleep a night. Sorry I don’t have advice but I’m in it with u 😞

I would start capping the nap. I also have a low sleep needs baby, and since 13 months we've been doing a 1 hour nap, made a huge difference.

He was sick recently so of course we let him nap longer, but that resulted in him being awake from 2-4am talking 😩

She's running out of sleep pressure at 3am (that's why she needs an hour then to build it up again) so I agree with others try capping the nap to 1hr or so. It might be that some days she needs a 2hr nap and some only a 1hr is enough. You will need to experiment a little to see what works best for you.

If she doesn't have enough sleep pressure, she will continue to wake up at that time.
My 18month sleeps 9pm-6.50am and only has a 40min nap otherwise he'll be having parties all night.

The Mama and me resilience method was a life saver:
https://www.wholeheartedfamilyhealth.com/mama-and-me-resilience-method/#:~:text=the%20mama%20%26%20Me%20resilience%20method,a%20transformation%20in%20your%20situation.

she’s fell asleep at 12:30pm and will wake her at 1:30pm, but don’t know what time to put her to sleep? Anything before 9pm results in her waking very early.

I don’t know what time to put her to bed without her waking up very early considering she only needs 9 hours of sleep a night? 🫠

I also don’t want her to be overtired when putting her to bed which will lead to multiple wakes 😤😓

I think you'll just need to experiment a bit here and follow your daughter's tiredness cues. With a shorter nap she will likely need an earlier bedtime than normally. So whatever time she normally goes down, you're likely going to have to bring that forward a bit.

An 8am wake-up is really late so I suspect that her sleeping in so late is taking a lot of sleep pressure off for the nap and/or impacting on night sleep, even if you take into account a 1hr sleep deficit when she's awake in the middle of the night.

If she is happy with a 1hr nap only then she should be ok to go to sleep around 7-8pm and I suspect last 10hrs at least so you'd be looking at wake-up around 5-6am or later. I prefer 8:30-9pm bedtimes for my kids as that gets them through until 6-7am.

unfortunately my daughter doesn’t show any cues :(
She can go for 8 hours without any signs so then we have to pretty much work out when she’s due to to down.

Is there a reason why 8am is a really late wake up? 5/6am is very early and doesn’t work for us.

If we were to do 7am wake - what time do you think her nap ought to be if she is napping just one nap? Sorry for all the questions. Sleep is not easy with this one!

8am is late just based on my experience and others who had babies of that age that I know but you can certainly try to retain this time if that's what you want. It's just that bedtime is likely to be quite late then, if baby only sleeps around 10hrs at night. If you want an earlier bedtime, you'll likely get an earlier wake-up.

I think your toddler is struggling with having just one nap and is chronically overtired, hence the constant wake-ups at night. It's always tricky to know if bub is undertired or overtired as often the signs are similar (frequent wakings). Generally though an undertired baby falls asleep but wakes soon after (minutes later) all happy and energetic whereas you're getting the wake-up much later in the middle of the night, which suggests to me over tiredness. You're also likely getting a too long awake window between the single nap and bedtime.

If a 7am wake-up works for you then I would aim for a nap around 12:30-2:30, then 8-9pm bedtime. If needed, cap the nap to get that bedtime.

I really really appreciate your time and effort that you have out into responding to me, it truly means a lot so thank you 🩷

I will take everything on board and give the 7am wake a go. Do you suggest a 2 hour nap from 12:30 - 2:30? How would you decide on a bedtime between 8-9pm? x

As mentioned above, the course I linked u to explains everything about child's sleep needs based on their circadian clock and how it reflects on their melatonin and amount of sleep they require.
One nap at this age is also fine and would not cause over tiredness.
The course explains exactly how to adjust their sleep along with when to add micronaps in their day etc.

Night wakings will still be normal but in order to avoid them having "parties" at night, the course will also explain what changes can be made.

I spent a fair bit of $$ on the course otherwise I'd be happy for u to msg to explain further. Andrea also goes into much more detail in all scenarios and also covers many other things...

Hope this helps

At that age if you're just doing 1 nap, I would try to make it a long restorative one so something like 2hrs so that your baby can last until a typical bedtime rather than get overtired or go to bed very early (bringing wake-up early with that). See how you go with a 2hr nap so eg. you could try 7am wake-up, nap from 12:30pm-2:30pm, 7:30-8pm bedtime. Generally the first awake window should be shorter than the second so you might need to play around with the window duration. It could be that your daughter is ready to start her nap even earlier eg 11:30am-1:30pm, and go to bed at 7pm. In some cases getting very good quality sleep during the day, triggers better sleep at night so don't assume that the only way to improve night sleep is to have one short nap during the day. I know it's all a bit confusing, and I initially suggested capping the nap (which still might be the best solution!) but I think you might just need to try a few things here to see what works best. Good luck!