Sleeping FAQ: 9-12 months

One month ago I went to Italy to my parents' house; my son had no problems in setting for his naps but at the lunchtime nap he began to wake up crying loudly after 1 hour or max 1 hour and 30 minutes (before he was sleeping for 2 hours and he woke up very happy and singing). I made sure of the fact that he was not hungry, thirsty or uncomfortable. I thought perhaps that some new sounds could be upsetting him but he woke up also when there was no sound at all. Now it is already a week that we have been at home (in Ireland) and he continues to wake up crying after 1 hour and 15 minutes. Yesterday I tried to let him cry (I went to his bedroom to reassure him after 10 minutes and then every 15 minutes): he cried for 1 hour and and half and he was more and more upset. Today it was the same. I do not want to let him cry again if I am not sure that this is a solution (and the only solution).
The worst is that it is very difficult to convince him to have another nap before dinner; if he has no late nap he has some difficulties to settle for the night and he wakes up earlier in the morning.
Usually he goes to sleep happy and smiling and he sleeps all the night without any problems.
My son is on 3 meals a day and drinks 180-210mls formula at 9.30am, 4.30pm and 9pm before he settles for the night.
He wakes at 8am, naps at 12-12.30pm and 3-4.15pm. He settles for the night at 9pm.
Team Response

My son who is now 10 ½ months old has started to wake up early since he began crawling, which was about 8 weeks ago. He wakes at 5:10am and starts chatting to himself, but then becomes very noisy. I have to give him his bottle by 6.30am. I don’t think he is waking through hunger since he eats well in the day.

I have tried to follow the advice given to parents with similar problems of early morning waking however the situation has not improved. I don't really know what else I can do. I have tried to change his routines slightly over the last couple of weeks just to see what works best for my son. He still keeps waking up too early.

Feeding details:
6.30am 200 ml formula

8.00am baby cereal with banana or mango, Redbush tea

10.00am oat biscuit

12.00 7 cubes protein lunch e.g. chicken, lentils or fish with carrots and potatoes. Yoghurt and cheese stick. Water or orange juice

3.00pm Fruit mixture; apple, banana, pear or some toast, water

5.00pm 5 cubes of carbohydrate tea such pasta bolognaise, sultana bread, cheese stick, oat biscuit. Redbush tea

6.15pm 200mls formula

My son naps at 9-10am and 1-3pm. He is settled at 6.50pm
Team Response

My son has been a CLB since starting the routine, slept through from 10pm feed at 9 weeks and dropped the 10pm feed at 16 weeks, and continually slept 7pm till 7am. We obviously struggled with the lunchtime sleep but solved that and never had any sleep issues either day time or night time until around 8 months old. We started to experience the occasional night waking maybe once a week and so when he woke we gave a milk feed after leaving him for around 30-45 minutes to settle. He would then seem to settle so we though he was genuinely hungry, this has carried on for around six weeks with it gradually getting worse in that we were taking him out of his cot and cuddling him and then still giving him a feed. As my son eats well during the day I saw no reason for these wakings and decided to look at other factors. I had kept a diary so looked back on what happened during the day to cause these night wakings. It became apparent that my son only seemed to wake on days that he was at home with me having a 9.30-10am nap and 2hrs from 1pm. He has never slept well at nursery. On average 20 minutes in the morning, 1hr at lunchtime and another 20mins in the afternoon. On a Tuesday he sleeps well at his grandmas around 2 - 2.5hrs, and he has never woke on any of these nights. So I felt after putting a post on the forum that he was having too much day time sleep on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and decided to try and reduce it to less than 2 hrs per day and this seems to have had a disastrous effect. I was giving 20 minutes at 9.30am and 1.5hrs to 1hr 40min at lunchtime. We are now in the situation of him waking most nights, plus sometimes also waking to start the day at 6am, crying after 30 minutes into the lunchtime nap and then settling but for only 40 minutes, waking after being in bed after 30 minutes. I feel I am in the situation of I am not sure which way to turn to solve these problems and feeling very exhausted as I am by myself during the week. I would just like my happy little boy back. For additional information he crawled at 9 months and this week is pulling himself up on furniture etc. I have not given a milk feed for over a week if he has woken up in the night and stopped getting him out of the cot, and do not go to him until he has been crying for around 20 minutes and then only visit once and have left him to cry and settle which he does do up to 1.5 hrs later.

My son takes 5-6ozs milk from a beaker at 7.15am followed by 1 weetabix with 3ozs milk, fruit and toast. 10am 2ozs of juice, rice cake or biscuit. 12midday, 1 portion of a recipe from the Weaning Book and 1 fromage frais, 2-4ozs juice. 3.00pm 2ozs juice, sometimes a small snack such as cheese but not always. 5.00pm normally jacket potatoes, soup and sandwich, 3ozs milk from a beaker. 6.30pm 6ozs of juice from a beaker.

He weighs around 24lbs.
Team Response

We have just returned from a holiday to the US (Florida) and we are now having big problems with my 9.5mth son sleeping between about 8pm and 11pm. He was a very good sleeper before, going through or occasionally waking at 5am for water. Whilst on holiday he slept well also but we have been home a week now and do not know how to solve this problem.
All his day naps are now back to normal but when we put him to bed after his usual night time bottle routine he goes off to sleep no problem then stirs at around 8pm and we then are up and down to his bedroom for the next 2 hours. He falls straight back to sleep on us but it is like he only goes into a shallow sleep and cries every time he stirs. We don't want to get into a bad habit but he does not seem to go back to sleep without us. We have resorted to giving him a little more milk at around 10.30 pm sometimes with a 1/2 dose of Medised and he then sleeps though until morning but we then have to wake him at 7.30am.
In the beginning the time he was awake seemed to make sense with the time difference but 7 days on this cannot now be the reason.

My son feeds at 7.30am 6ozs formula, bowl of porridge, 12midday 4 cubes of meat or fish with potato and vegetables, yoghurt. 2.30pm 4ozs formula, 5pm, 3 cubes of meat or fish with potato and vegetables, fruit puree pot, 6.30pm, 8ozs formula. My son weighs 21lbs.

He naps at 9.15-10am and 12.30-2.15pm. He settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My 11-month-old son has slept through since I began the routine when he was 2 months old. He has always seemed very happy in the routine. However since last week he has been waking up at night and wants to play. He will not go to sleep until I give him some milk and on some days even this doesn’t work. I have increased his solid intake and have cut down his daytime sleep to 10 minutes in the morning and 1 1/2 hours at lunch but this still has not worked. He has a varied and healthy diet and eats a meat lunch and a vegetarian dinner. He has cut 2 teeth and I do not think he is teething at the moment.

My son takes 210mls in the morning followed by 1 weetabix, 1 pot of fruit puree, 1 pot fromage frais. At lunch he would eat spaghetti bolognaise [lamb mince] and a fruit spoons of fruit puree. He will have snack of 2 rice cakes or 1 cocktail sausage and his dinner is steamed mixed vegetables with a few spoonfuls of fruit puree. He takes a further 210mls formula before his bedtime.
Team Response

My daughter has slept through from 10pm untill6.30-7am since 9 weeks old. She then slept well after dropping the 10pm feed. During the day she also slept well although not always for 2.5 or 2 hrs recommended. She had gastro -enteritis in September followed by a bad cold. Her daytime sleep continued to be alright but at night time we had to help her. Since then she wakes erratically in the night, eg 3.30am for 1.5hrs or 11.30pm for 2 hrs. We cannot settle her despite controlled crying, feeding, medicine, water, cuddles etc. Since going to nursery, two months ago, her daytime sleep has not been so good. She will not sleep in the morning and has about an hour at 12.30pm although she has had less and more! She does not show tiredness until too late and she fights sleep. I have looked at all the subjects on the site and in the books and feel that this is a combination of too many subjects for me to make sense of it. I want to try and sort this out before it gets any worse. I can't understand why she won't settle in the night on the nights she wakes. She has woken the last 2 nights but before that slept through for a fortnight.

My daughter eats three meals a day. She has a fairly small breakfast taking around 2 dessertspoons of cereal, followed by toast.

She takes about 8-10 tablespoons of a protein meal at lunchtime and the same amount of a vegetarian tea followed by yoghurt or a fruit pudding. At teatime she can be irritable if tired but will eat well in the end. She drinks 8ozs of formula at 6.45pm and is settled at 7pm.
Team Response

My daughter was a totally contented baby until solids were introduced. Since then we have had periods of sleeping through the night and periods of regular night time waking. She is a dedicated breast feeder, who from day one rejected a bottle. She initially refused but using the books and case studies (esp. Daniel), I now have a baby who eats well. At 11 months I decided to get tough. Together with my partner I stopped feeding in the night and he settled her back to sleep with cuddles or just by tucking her in and turning on her musical star. I have followed Gina's advice on stopping breast feeding, cutting out one feed at a time, but my daughter drinks very little milk from her cup. Even hinting at stopping her bedtime breast feed results in hysterical fits. She is now back to waking twice in the night. She is easy to settle but we are exhausted and she is waking up our 2.5 year old who is very difficult to settle. We are second time parents and our daughter has had the right sleep associations from day one. We have tried leaving her for up to 45 minutes but always need to settle her in the end. Even if just to say "shush" and strike her forehead.
She has three good meals a day. In the morning she will take 2-3 ozs of formula from a cup and has a breast feed at bedtime. During the day she will take water or well diluted juice.
Team Response

My son had a cold 2 months ago. Since then he has not slept fully through the night. He wakes up 2-3 times per night, usually suffering from a blocked nose or phlegm in his throat. We have tried Olbas Oil & Karvol, but they seem to have little effect. We have tipped up the head of his cot, to elevate his head and that hasn't helped. He struggles to settle himself if left, so we have to settle him ourselves. He suffers from infantile eczema but I don't think the two problems are linked. He sometimes rubs his nose, so I wonder if he has an allergy to something. Up until this time, he followed Gina's routines well and slept through the night from 10 weeks and 7pm -7am from 4 months. We cannot manage to get through a night now without Alexander waking up.
By day he sleeps from 8.50-9.20am and 1.30-2pm. He is settled by 7.30pm. He eats three meals a day and drinks 18ozs of milk.
Team Response

My 10-month-old son is really good all day, but is tired by 7pm and goes straight to sleep in his cot. He is awake when he goes in, but very dozy and goes to sleep straight away. He may cry out once but that is all.
In the night he often wakes between 10pm and 3am and will not settle himself or go back into his cot if I take him out. He just screams and screams. I have tried everything: giving him a bottle, giving him water, giving him a cuddle, controlled crying. I gave up on this after 1hr 20 minutes at 2.30am. I have started to bring him in bed with me, where he sleeps very well. On some occasions he will sleep all the way through from 7pm to 6 or 7am. There does not seem to be any reason or pattern as to why or when.
His daytime sleep is erratic. On the 3 days he attends nursery he generally does not sleep there. On the days he is at home he will sleep for 1-1.5hrs at around 10.30am and possibly have another 20-30 minutes at about 4.30pm.
What should I do when he wakes in the night to get him to settle? Or should I be doing something in the day to get him to sleep through the night.
He takes 2x 8oz bottles at 7am and 7pm. He eats three meals a day and drinks a small amount of juice with his meals.
Team Response

My problem is night waking. My son was a good sleeper (12-13 hours a night) up to the age of seven months when he began teething. He is now nine months old. He has never been a good daytime sleeper and I have always struggled to get him to fit in with the routine fully, but generally he has a morning and an afternoon nap of anywhere between 1¼-2 hours split between the two. He always settles well at 7pm and I do not believe he has any wrong sleep associations.
I think that teething is the main cause of his night time waking. He seems to be in pain and is constantly trying to bite my face when I pick him up. (He is also quite grizzly during the day.) However, in Gina's books she says that she has rarely found teething a problem in the hundreds of babies that she has cared for. Am I wrong about this? Do other parents have night time waking due to teething? He is getting harder to put back in his cot and we have even resorted to taking him into our bed on a couple of occasions because we are so tired.
Sion sleeps in a sleeping bag and has three milk feeds a day and three good solid meals. He was 10lb when he was born and is now 24lbs.
Team Response

Hi! I am desperate for a full night’s sleep. We have 2 girls – Ella, 21 months and Megan, 9 months. Ella has pretty much always slept through (except when there is a full moon!)
Megan is a different story. At seven months she was diagnosed with reflux (prior to this, the doctor and health visitor ignored it - then we insisted on seeing a specialist privately). Symptoms were: a very strong cough, sick a lot, slow to take a bottle, can't eat lumpy food (only very puréed).
She wakes up EVERY night at 4am screaming and rigid. We have tried cranial osteopathy, homeopathy, more protein, protein before bed, carbs before bed…
To fill you in on Megan: she currently weighs 20lbs. Feeding times are: 4 am bottle, 8am breakfast, 11am bottle, 12.30 lunch, 3pm bottle, 4:30 tea, 7pm bottle. Bottles are all 8oz and she doesn't always take it all. She takes about 15 minutes to finish a full bottle. She is on SMA Gold (tried SMA staydown before she was prescribed Gaviscon), teat size 4 (Avent).
Solids - all she can eat is puréed food (she has a very strong cough from the reflux so anything lumpy she coughs and rejects). Breakfast - Weetabix mixed with lots of milk and fruit purée. Lunch and tea are puréed versions of whatever her sister has (pasta, fishfingers soup etc). Waking time - I put her to bed every 2 hours. At nursery she has much less sleep (about 1 hour a day). At home for 4 days a week she has a 2 hour sleep in the morning then one after lunch and then a nap at about 5pm. She settles herself to sleep and her bedtime routine is bath at 6:30pm and bed by 7pm. She always wakes at night between 4-4:30am. She wakes up screaming, arching her back and is inconsolable until we give her a bottle then goes straight back to sleep in her cot. We have tried everything from leaving her to scream to rocking her. She is rigid and now we can only assume that, as it is almost the same time every morning, that it is just when her stomach is empty acid comes up.
Please help! We have had about a week’s full night’s sleep since she has been born. She is the most gorgeous happy little thing apart from at 4am and the odd day here and there when the reflux is bad through the day.
Team Response

We are having problems with our 9-month-old girl, Molly, and her sleep routine (or lack of!). We have two boys aged 3 & 6 who weren't great sleepers either. Molly was born at 7½ lbs and has maintained a healthy weight gain since then. She has been in hospital a couple of times as a small baby with suspected infections that were never conclusive. A doctor also thought she had 'silent reflux' and put her on renetadine medicine. Molly has been quite behind on her solids.
This is her feeding routine at the moment:
4.30-5am - bottle, 6oz
7-8am - cereal, 5/6 spoonfuls.
11.30am - lunch 1 jar (4 month size).
2.30pm - bottle 5 oz.
5pm - dinner, as lunch but with ½ jar pudding.
7pm - bottle 7oz.
10pm - bottle 6oz.
1-2 am - bottle 6oz.
Sleep-wise she settles well at her 7pm bedtime and is happy to fall asleep by herself. But in the day she is less happy to fall quickly to sleep and can just fall asleep with exhaustion. This is also the case at 1 or 2 in the morning when she often cries for 1 or 2 hours! We have tried several times to drop the middle of the night feed but she cries for 2 hrs. She is now crawling and I feel she should be having more solids but she just won't eat more, sometimes she cries all the way through the feed. Any advice? We would be very grateful for any tips.
Team Response

My son of 10 months had been waking at 5-5.30am, troubled with a persistent cough which has now been treated with antibiotics and an inhaler. He now wakes at 6.30am but does not seem hungry.  How do I get him back to sleeping until 7am?

He is not yet crawling and hates being on his tummy. He does enjoy time in his walker or walking holding my hands and is generally a happy child.

In the past two weeks he has gone off all solid meals and cut back on his bedtime milk on some evenings.

Below are the amounts of food he was taking up until two weeks ago.

7am: 5- 6ozs of formula from beaker, 1 weetabix, 3tsp fruit puree
10am: 4ozs water from beaker
12.00: 2 cubes chicken, 2 cubes potato, 4cubes mixed vegetables, 2ozs water          
2pm: 3-4ozs water from beaker
5pm: 7-8 cubes vegetable soup with bread, mini sandwiches, pasta shapes and vegetable sauce. Finger food.
6.15pm: 4- 8ozs formula from a bottle.

Daily milk intake14ozs

My son naps at 9-9.45am and 12.20-2.30pm. He settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My 9.2-month-old daughter has been sleeping 7pm to 7 or 7.30am since she was 10 weeks old. Just recently though she started waking at 6.30am and now she is waking every morning at 6am which is making her very tired in the mornings, until she's had her early nap. I don't usually pick her up until 7am or so and then I give her breakfast straightaway. Can you suggest anything that could help with the early morning waking?
At present she naps 8.30-9.15am, 12.30-2.00pm and 3-3.45pm.
Team Response

My 10.5mth twins were born at 34 weeks. We have attempted to put them on the CLB routine - bearing in mind their prematurity - but have adjusted it from 6am to 6pm to fit in with the time my husband gets up to go to work.
One twin is consistently waking between 4am and 5.30am. Which is obviously too early for any of us and it wakes his twin brother. He has always woken earlier than we would have chosen but used to get to 5.30am regularly, now it is nearer 4.30am. I have cut back his first nap to half an hour (from 8.30am to 9am) and his second nap starts at 12.30pm and can be anything from half an hour to 2 hours long.
We are desperate to get him to sleep 6pm to 6am.
He goes down very well at 6pm, usually talks to himself for 10 minutes and we don't hear a peep until around 4.30am when he starts talking again and this rapidly changes to crying which wakes his twin.
The room is pitch black, not too hot or cold, there are no external sounds waking him and he doesn't appear hungry. We try to leave them until 6am and then go in but this can be hard as they are both wailing pitifully.
He eats well during the day and drinks his first and last bottles completely, since changing his milk into a beaker at 2.30pm he has less but still drinks some.

Please help we don't know what to try next and we are all exhausted. This is especially affecting his twin brother, who loves his sleep and would gladly sleep later if given the chance. The boys share a room as there is no where else for them to go.

They feed at 6am, 7ozs formula, followed by cereal, toast and a piece of fruit. Lunch at 11.30am is protein based such as beef casserole, chicken and pasta, lamb hotpot. My son takes about 4 tablespoons. Followed by yoghurt/fruit/rice cake. He drinks water from a beaker.

2.30pm 7ozs formula from beaker, does not always take all of this.

Tea at 4.30pm is carbohydrate based such as cauliflower cheese, pasta and sauce, cheese sandwiches. Around 4 tablespoons taken. Followed by yoghurt/fruit/rusk.

5.45pm 7ozs formula. My son weighs 20lbs.

My son naps at 8.30-9.00am and 12.30-2pm.
Team Response

My son is now just over 10 months old. We introduced the CLB routine when he was 3 months and it worked beautifully for us, and has done until recently. Since he was 8 or 9 months old, he's been waking early, and it seems to be getting earlier and earlier. He was consistently sleeping until 7am until that point. I have ruled out every possible cause of the early waking - his room is blacked out completely, he gets plenty to eat and eats according to the weaning program laid out by the book (has his protein at lunchtime, fruit in the mornings, vegetarian dinners etc). He never refuses his food and he eats a lot of it. I still breastfeed three times a day - upon waking, after the lunchtime nap, and after his bath, before bedtime. He's not a large or small baby - basically right on the 50% mark in terms of size and weight.

When he wakes in the morning, I've been leaving him for 30 minutes or so (he doesn't cry, just grizzles, but will work himself up to crying if I leave him longer than that). He doesn't go back to sleep. I usually end up giving him one breast's worth of a feed, and put him back to bed, treating it as a 'night' feed like I did when he was much younger. He'll usually go back to sleep, though some days he won't do that either, just lies there grizzling again. If he goes back to sleep, I let him sleep until 7.10, then get him up and give him the other breast, then breakfast, then we continue the day as usual. At the moment he's waking at 5.30/6am. I'd really like to know how to stretch him out until 7! He sleeps for 30 minutes at his morning nap, and 2 hours at lunchtime. Both of these nap’s are pretty consistent and no trouble. We put him down to bed between 6.45 and 7pm - we tried earlier so that he wouldn't go to bed exhausted and end up in a deep sleep early. Nothing is working though. I'd love any suggestions! I don't want him to become one of these toddlers that is awake at 4am every morning, and I feel like that's what I'm looking at if I don't fix this. He's a very active baby - crawling, pulling self to stand, constantly on the go and loves to go out and look at everything (overtiredness and over stimulation were our main problems early on!).

My son feeds at 5.30am 1 breast for 15minutes, 7.10am one breast, 10 minutes. Breakfast at 7.30am 3 tablespoons baby muesli with apple, half a small banana mashed with formula, 10.30am two fingers of toast, butter and jam, water from a cup. 11.50am, 4-5 tablespoons of vegetables and meat, homemade, always including a carbohydrate such as potato, small baby yoghurt or custard, water from a cup. 2.45pm, breast feed, both sides for 20 minutes. 4.15pm water from a cup, 5.00pm 4-5 tablespoons mashed mixed vegetables, sometimes with an egg yolk always containing carbohydrate such as potato, rice and pasta. Small baby yoghurt or custard. 6.15pm breast feed, both sides.

My son weighs 9kg [19lbs 13ozs].

My son naps at 9-9.30am, 12.30-2.30pm.
Team Response

My 9.5mth son is a great kid but he is waking now for 2 weeks at 5.30 am. I am trying everything. We have now got to the point where he only gets 15min sleep between 9-9.30. He then sleeps at 12.00 for 1.45 min....and then is up till 6.30 - 6.45.
If I give him longer in the morning then he cuts his afternoon sleep. If I let him sleep more in the afternoon I am afraid he will wake up earlier.
I have tried to leave him to cry in the morning - but he is very distressed as his nappy is leaking poo. He seems to mostly poo at night which means that his nappy is overflowing in the morning. I have bought him a bigger nappy but that does not seem to work. There is so much of it - he is teething but he is not ill.
I know that going in at 5.30 might start a routine itself - but he is terribly upset (not just moaning)
Once I have changed him - he is full of beans although I know that he is tired as we never get to 9.00am for his morning sleep it is more like 8am.
I am due to go back to work in Jan (I am setting up my own business) and I am desperate to change this routine as it is really making it difficult for me to get through the day.

My son drinks 16ozs milk a day, taking 8oz in the morning and evening. For breakfast he will eat 1 weetabix with half a banana and full fat milk, lunch is chicken or beef with vegetables and mashed potato, all home made. He takes a little yoghurt for dessert. Mid afternoon he has a beaker of undiluted juice and a rusk. Tea; if protein has been given at lunch then he is given vegetable puree and mash, then a dessert. If he had a vegetarian lunch he will have beef, fish or chicken at tea.
Team Response

I have looked at the forum and case studies for a solution but although my problem looks fairly common on the surface (my baby is in the habit of eating at night) there are a few issues which make it unique, hence my request for help.

My son is 9 months and still wakes in the night. He shares a room with my three-year-old. She cries out in her sleep or has nightmares or gets up for the loo several times a week which wakes him (and not really her). If she does not wake him he will usually wake anyway between 4.30 and 5.30am. He does not cry, but squawks louder and louder until I go in (sometimes I leave him squawking for up to 30 minutes before I relent). He usually needs to be fed to settle. He drinks 7/8 oz in 5 to 6 minutes (compared with his day time feeds which are smaller and he is far less enthusiastic about them). He does not fall asleep on the bottle (and never has done). When he has eaten and has been winded he goes down fully awake, chats for a few minutes then settles himself no problem at all. He will then sleep until 7.30 to 8am.

My son has never been particularly keen on milk. It is a struggle to get his daily 18-20oz into him. If he does not want to eat there is nothing you can do to persuade him. He hits the bottle away, gags and screams if you try to insist (so we don't!). Sometimes he refuses to drink his evening bottle and his intake at 6.45pm varies between 1oz and 8oz. Even if he drinks 8oz he usually needs to feed again at 5am.

My son's daily food intake is as follows: if he feeds at 5am, then I give him breakfast at 8am (cereal with 2oz milk and 2 cubes fruit). He then takes a nap around 9am (sometimes later if he has slept until 8am). This nap can be anything between 30 minutes and 1 hour 15 (but is usually around 45 minutes). He has a 6oz bottle at 11am. Often he only drinks half of that. The rest of that bottle goes into an organic cereal pudding made by Heinz or Hipp which we give to him after his lunch, so that we know he has had his full 6oz milk. Lunch is at 12-12.30pm. He has around 5 cubes of protein and vegetables (such as fish and sweet potato), 3 cubes of fruit and the cereal and milk pudding. His lunchtime nap varies as his sister needs to be in school at 1.15pm making nap time tricky. We live in an upstairs apartment so we cannot leave Harry in the buggy to nap. This means that if Harry has an early morning nap he usually has another hour before the school run (from which he is woken) in which case he will have a third nap of 45 minutes at around 4pm) or if his morning nap was later he will fall asleep on the school run and will sleep approx 1.5 hours. His overall daytime sleep, whether 2 naps or 3, rarely exceeds 3 hours. We do not do a 2pm bottle (this is why we kept the 11.30 one) as Harry is often asleep due to the school run issue. Dinner is at about 5pm and consists of 5 cubes of vegetables and potato/pasta, followed by a yoghurt or some more organic cereal with 2-3oz milk, depending on how much milk he has taken during the day. Bath is at 6pm and his evening bottle is usually at 6.45pm. He is often exhausted by then and falls asleep immediately by 7pm. As mentioned before he often does not take much of that bottle (especially if he is very tired having not had a third short sleep at 4pm), making it hard to avoid feeding him in the night as I think he is genuinely hungry. He weighs 10 kilos (22lbs).

A few questions: how do I encourage him to eat enough food in the day to make sure he is not hungry at night? In particular, how can I make sure he will drink that important evening bottle?

Am I giving him the right amounts of solids and the correct balance of proteins and carbohydrates at the right time?

Given the school run issue, if his daytime sleep is causing a problem how can I change that? Is it affecting his night sleep to have a nap as late as 4pm (he really still seems to need that given the earlier sleeps are sometimes cut short)?
Will my baby eventually become a deeper sleeper? When he wakes he does not wake my 3 year old who can sleep through anything.

Is it normal for my 3 year old to have nightmares? We leave the door ajar and the hall light on for her. What can I do to alleviate this problem so that she does not wake my baby? Do I need to separate them for a while and try to get them to share a room later on?

Please help - I work full time and have a demanding job which is tough to do when you are up 2 or 3 times a night with one or other child.
Team Response

My 11-month-old daughter settles well at 7pm. She goes down awake but is deeply asleep within seconds. She has now started waking up at 5am. She does not go back to sleep although I leave her in her cot until 7am. She will cry a little and talk a bit. She has a light projector that plays music and shines on the ceiling; this sometimes get her back to sleep but more than anything it keeps her quiet. She has a dummy (or 5) which she has always lost in the morning and wants to find it.
She is always really really hungry in the morning and once she is taken downstairs she cries until she gets her milk. She can stay awake from 5 till around 9.30 but then has a big sleep of around 2 hours. That will then be her only sleep for the day, however some days she is tired after 2 hours, has a 1 hour sleep then another 30 minutes in the afternoon. I have to wake her up after each nap so that she will go down at 7pm. She eats 3 meals a day and has around 18oz of milk. For breakfast she will eat 1/4 weetabix and 1/2 slice of toast. Lunch is a homemade main meal with a portion size about the same as a 4 month jar followed by yoghurt. Tea is a lighter meal such as vegetable pasta or cauliflower cheese with a yoghurt or fruit puree. She takes a 7oz bottle at 7am and 6.45pm and 6ozs at 2.30pm.
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My son wakes in the morning between 5.30 and 6.00 am, which is too early.
I leave him until 6.45. He has no morning nap, as he has been waking from his midday nap after 1 hour since he was around 9-months-old. He is very tired around lunch time and has started to fall asleep during his meal. He always falls straight to sleep after finishing his bottle at 7 pm. He refuses his bottle if he is held by myself or his nanny. He therefore lies in his bed, when he drinks it. He is very active during the day. How do I get my son to sleep nearer 7am?
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My 10-month-old son has been waking early - about 5.30am - since back from our holidays over 2 weeks ago. He was unwell when we returned from holiday, with a high temperature and off his food, then that got better after a week. He stopped being interested in his 2.30pm feed before we went but whilst we were out there he wanted it again, so I started giving it to him again. When we came back he had the 2.30pm feed on the days that he was off his food. Once his appetite come back I would still offer it to him, and he could take it or leave it. Yesterday he had 4oz.
He wakes at 5.30am and seems hungry - taking 8-9oz milk - and sometimes goes back to sleep until about 6.30am, or plays in cot till 6; gets bored and then calls for me. He has breakfast – he has only started getting interested again lately - then goes for his morning nap (9-9-15am) and seems to want an hour. He is grumpy for the rest of the morning if has less .
Lunch is about 11.30-11.45 - usually ok - and has water, then plays until his afternoon nap anywhere from 12.30-1pm, depending on when woke up (if he had less than 1 hour, the nap will be about 12.30); he usually has 1-1.5 hours at this nap and normally stays happy till his 5pm tea (I sometimes give it at 4.30pm if he had a 11.30am lunch and didn’t take any milk at 2.30-3 feed) .Bedtime is at 7pm.
This 5.30 am waking as seems to be a habit now - despite one day having an ideal "Gina"-day of 30 minutes in the morning and 2 hrs from 12.30 (although he woke after 45mins, I could shush back to sleep) and I thought this might have made a difference, but he still woke at 5.30am next day.
I’ve tried increasing food but can’t force it ! What else can I do?
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My son has been a very contented baby. From 6 weeks he has slept through the night from 7pm until 6.30. For the last couple of months he has started waking about 5am and is fully awake. I have been leaving him until 6.15am, at which time it becomes unbearable. He is on 3 balanced meals a day, 3 bottles of 7oz and a bedtime bottle of about 8/9 oz. I just can't seem to get him to sleep longer. He is sleeping 1 hr in the morning at about 8.30am, as he has been awake since 5am, and 2 hrs at 1.30pm. Please help as I am now so tired after getting used to sleep again. I work three mornings and need some help.
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My 10mth daughter loves the routines and has slept through the night since a very young age. She is a very contented baby through the day. The problem I have is that she will not easily fall asleep in my arms or in the pushchair, although she will sleep in the car.

We are going on holiday soon and I am worrying how I am going to get her to sleep during the day. The flight is only 4 hours but the whole journey will take all day.

In the past when we have been out and she has not been able to sleep in her cot, she will just not sleep until she gets very overtired, has a screaming fit and then falls asleep. On very rare occasions she has managed to fall asleep in my arms or in her pushchair.

My daughter naps at 9.15-9.45am and 12.30-2.30pm.
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My son for the last two weeks has been crying and screaming every time I put him in his cot. He has moaned in the past but settled himself. Only on occasions would I need to go in to quieten him by turning him on his side, readjusting blankets and then leave. He has never been a crying baby and to now have him screaming with tears and sobbing is distressing. It started with one or two naps (can't remember exactly which ones) and now it's every time he is put down. He has cut 5 teeth in the last three weeks and I have given him paracetamol on occasion (doesn't help settle him but keeps him asleep). This week he has woken one out of every two nights and been unable to settle himself. He is pulling to stand on the cot now and can't get himself down. One night he was awake and screaming on and off for four hours. He settles if I stand next to the cot with one hand on his bottom. As soon as I move to leave he screams. Where do I go to from here?

The sleep summary at the end of this page was yesterdays, at all times I had to assist to get him to calm down. (Stand there with hand on bottom)

He breasts feeds at 7am, 2.45pm and 6.30pm. He eats three meals a day, 3oz of millet or oats with milk and 1-2ozs fruit at breakfast. 2oz protein, 2ozs carbohydrate, 3ozs vegetables, 2-3ozs fruit at lunch, 1oz protein, 2oz carbohydrate and 3ozs vegetables at teatime.
He naps from 9.15-10am and 12.55-2.55pm. He goes to bed at 7pm.
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My 10mth old baby has started to fight his morning sleep and I would appreciate guidance on what age he can drop it. He currently wakes about 7 - 7.30am and I put him down about 9.45am (I've pushed the routine back by 30 minutes). Some days he'll cry for 10mins and sleep and other days he will not settle unless I rock him to sleep on me. As I want to put him down for his lunchtime sleep about 1pm (to fit in with play group pick up) I haven't let him go all morning without a sleep yet. Can you please advise what age a baby can go without this sleep? We go on holidays in 6 weeks time and I would like to get him settled into a new pattern (if possible!) before we go. Some days I wake him after 20 minutes and he lasts okay until 1pm.

My son sleeps at 10-10.30am, 1.15-3pm and is settled by 7.30pm.
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My daughter has been a perfect contented baby since birth and followed all your books. Any problems that have arisen have been solved by reading on of your guides.When I returned to full time work when my daughter was six and a half months old she settled well into her nursery and continues to enjoy being there.

The nursery is a local SureStart nursery and is very friendly and definitley the best in the area, I wouldn't have been happy sending her to any of the other nurseries. It really helped knowing she was happy and settled when I returned to work.
There were two things I didn't like about my nursery. The first was that there are no cots for the babies, they sleep on the floor on cushions in a quiet room (which is also used as a sensory area at one side of the room) and the staff seemed astonished to discover that she just needed popping in her sleeping bag and she would go to sleep. All the other babies were rocked, cuddled, sung to etc The second thing I didn't like was the demand feed/sleep attitude of all the staff. They did however say that they would do as we wished and in the beginning they did.

Our problem is that she will not have a full two hour lunchtime nap at all at nursery. She has cut out the morning nap and just about makes it until after her dinner. She will have about 45 minutes, not usually more than an hour. Her night time sleep hasn't really altered. Sometimes she will have another short nap at nursery but not always. They have tried to put her down again at 4pm but she cries so now we make sure we pick her up earlier, which can be difficult sometimes with work. We usually give her a nap until 5pm when she gets home, which can be anything up to an hour long but usually 30 minutes by the time we get home etc. She usually goes down well at 7pm but sometimes whinges when overtired for anything up to twenty-thirty minutes. We tried moving bedtime forward to 6.30pm and cutting out the 4pm nap but she wakes up between 6-6.30 am and then can't make it to her lunchtime nap, besides we need her to sleep to as close to 7am as possible as we get ready before she gets up and we couldn't face getting up before 6am everyday! The nursery have offered to rock her to sleep etc, but we said no way and besides she would probably scream at them as she likes to be left alone to get comfortable and go to sleep, She'll only sleep on a person if poorly. Can you suggest how we could structure her sleep taking into account the fact she won't sleep very long at nursery at lunchtime?
My daughter has had an overwhelming amount of colds and coughs and in four months has had five lots of antibiotics including a trip to children’s ward, I believe that this is because she is so run down and tired. I'm not happy with the amount of antibiotics but feel we haven't had a choice as we have seen different doctors and they all have said she definitely needed them.
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My son is now just over 10 months old and I am considering dropping his morning nap as he takes a while to settle, doesn't always sleep for 2 hours in the afternoon and is often awake and playing at 6am. Would this be the thing to do?
Also how do I manage his routine when British winter time kicks in at the end of October? That means we gain an hour in the morning. Do I ignore this change and continue things with the new times or do I make some sort of adjustment?
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I really need to know how to rearrange the routines for my 10-month-old baby. Once a week my hubby and I go to a religious meeting in the evening between 7-9pm. Normally the baby falls asleep on the way but as she's getting older it's getting harder and harder to keep her asleep. We usually put her in the car seat, she falls asleep on the way there and then we put the car seat on the pram and leave her at the back where she sleeps peacefully till we get home and transfer her to bed.
As she's getting older, however, she's falling asleep on the way there but the noise wakes her after 45 minutes, and she wants to know what's going on around her! There's no way I can keep her asleep so I need to know how to restructure her routine for one day a week so she can stay up in the evening. She is almost out of her car seat and we are going to have to get a big one for the car and I know we won't be able to take her in and out of it without her waking up!
How can I re-arrange her routine on that day so she won't be too cranky if I keep her up? Please help... I'm getting desperate!
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