How many day sleeps should a 13mth old have?

[Hunni2]

My little 13mth old is not a great sleeper (you may have seen my earlier posts), I have been told maybe he shouldn't still be having 2 day sleeps. He is up at 6-7am, then he sleeps 1 hour in the morning 9 - 10am. This is the easiest sleep time we have with him. He is very tired (probably because he isn't sleeping well through the night) and nods off while being rocked in about 5 minutes.

Then he sleeps in the afternoon 1-1.5 hours 1.30-2.30ish. We never let him sleep past 3pm. He is harder to get to sleep then, but we have skipped this sleep on the odd occasion and it hasn't made a difference to his night waking - just a bit of an horrendous afternoon!!! And he is a bit easier to get to sleep at 7pm, but still starts the waking from 11pm.

Should he still be having 2 sleeps in the day?

[Biene]

When my daughter was 13mths she still had 2 x day sleeps and continued to do so right up until around 20 mths, she is now 2yrs and has dropped to 1 x day sleep 11-1pm.

IMO the main thing is that they get enough sleep, not when they do it. I had a sleep whisperer come to help me with my dd, when she was 13 mths and from memory I think she said they should be getting at least 13 hrs at that age.

[Lollie86]

My DD is 13 mths and only has one day sleep which goes for 2-3 hrs.

She is in bed by 9.30pm and wakes up at 9.30am so its a little different to your sleep times but Im pretty sure its normal to only have 1 day sleep at this age.

[babygiggle]

my son is 13 months... he sleeps from 7:30pm - 7:30am, then has a morning sleep around 11 for 2 hours, and an afternoon sleep usually 4pm for 2 hours (sometimes more if i forget to go wake him up!)

[Jenko]

My DS is 13 months and still has 2 day sleeps most days. Around 9am and 1pm. He sleeps between 40mins and 2hrs. He usually has one short sleep and the other is a longer sleep.

But, if we go out in the morning he sometimes misses his morning sleep, so then goes down around 11.30 for a few hours. If he is up by around 1.30pm I don't bother giving him another sleep.

I remember reading your posts...Is your DS still waking alot at nights?

My DS can sometimes sleep through the night, maybe once a week. Some nights he sleeps thru to 4am, but then it takes 45mins to re-settle him and he only sleeps for another 30mins or so, so he's up about 5.30am. Some nights, like last night he needed re-settling at 11pm and 3.30am, but then slept into 7am. His sleep patterns change every blOOdy night! :rolleyes: So not really a pattern at all :eek::laughing:

[sloaney]

Go with your gut instinct about what he needs - my son dropped down to 1 sleep at about 12 months, but until 18 months would have a real energy dip in the mid-a.m., sometimes I'd let him have a quick catnap in the pram on our morning walk to help alleviate this.

Some kids need 2 sleeps for a long time, other mums I know see that it's fine for their child to have no day sleeps at all past about 18 months. Whatever works best for you :)

[Hunni2]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Its interesting to hear what other little ones do, they all seem different!


I remember reading your posts...Is your DS still waking alot at nights?

Hi Jenko, Yes he is still waking every hour or so every single night!!! He has never slept through. At least my DS is now deeply settled in a pattern which I think helps me cope - as I know exactly what to expect each night. He still sleeps with me which seems the easiest on us all (poor DH is now on a mattress on the floor) although this isn't going to help me wean him, as the only way he will settle is to attach to my boob every time....oohhhh - I'm a giant dummy :rolleyes: . We have the option of me sleeping out of the room and DH settling him, which if we tried for at week I think might work, but I need to move back to the room and I'm sure once I'm back in the room he would start again un-doing all the hard work DH put in.. but we haven't tried this, I suppose I just don't want to put him through a tough week if he will revert back at the end of the week when I'm in the room again..... oh what to do..... we actually want to try for another baby this year - so I dunno how thats going to happen!! ( & surely you can't get 2 in a row that sleep this little??!!)

[Hunni2]

my son is 13 months... he sleeps from 7:30pm - 7:30am, then has a morning sleep around 11 for 2 hours, and an afternoon sleep usually 4pm for 2 hours (sometimes more if i forget to go wake him up!)

Wow babygiggle.... your so lucky, I'm sooooo envious!!! Wish you could wave your sleep wand on my DS :wizard:

[bAaM]

My DD needs to have 2 sleeps

We get up at 4:30am to take DF to work, so she is up for half an hour then back home to bed then i normally have to wake her at 8am to take DS to school.

She has a morning sleep at 10ish for about an hour then most of the time she has a sleep at 3 till 4 then bed at 7:30 -8

[MissEdwards]

My DS is 2yrs n 4mths and he has a 2hrs nap most days around 12ish. but he is in bed between 7:30 and 9latest which is normally a friday as i have netball. he gets up in the morning between 7:30 and 9am.
I lived a home with my parents and we shared a room for 13mths and everynight he would wake atleast once. but since moving in with my DF he hardly ever wakes. on the odd occassion mayb once now.

My mum baby sat him for a night and she said never again he woke at 2.30am and stayed awake till 5.30am.

[Cordelia]

DD is 15 months and still has 2 day sleeps.

This Ngala page is really helpful:

http://www.ngala.com.au/docs/Secrets%20of%20Good%20Sleepers.pdf

[Hunni2]

DD is 15 months and still has 2 day sleeps.

This Ngala page is really helpful:

http://www.ngala.com.au/docs/Secrets%20of%20Good%20Sleepers.pdf

Thanks for the link Cordelia, its really good.

[ikis84]

My 17mo DD has only recently gone down to one (blissful) long sleep in the day... I just had to wait for her to be ready. I had tried to get her to do one sleep in the past, but she would be so grumpy and tired by 10am that it just wouldn't work.

Sounds normal to me...

[pookiesossige]

Both my kids started having just one day sleep from about 10 months of age, their choice.

I loved it because that one sleep was longer and finally they stopped their 40 minute cat-naps and went down for 2 - 4 hours.

With the night waking, I tend to think that maybe your bub is building up to a bit of a growth-spurt... do you think?