LILY’S EATING AND SLEEPING SCHEDULE: 15 MONTHS OLD
I’m back with a schedule update for Lily who will be 15 months old tomorrow. The last time I wrote one of these she was still having two naps and 4 bottles a day. Feels like a lifetime ago, which is crazy.
So before we get into it, you may want to check out these other posts for reference:
At thirteen months, it sort of feels like everything changed. All these huge changes seemed to happen right around her injury which I think is partly because of her age and partly because the affects of the incident.
The first major shift, before the injury, was early morning wake-ups. Since 4 months old, aside from a few regressions here and there which you can read about in the above posts, Lily was a 7pm-7am sleeper. Then all of a sudden, we got hit with early morning wake-ups. I’m talking in the 4’s and 5’s. She would wake up crying really hard and we had to get her right away because we were living with my in-laws and they could hear everything. They were more than happy for us to leave her in the crib to try and settle but we felt bad anyhow and would still get her when she woke, which meant our days were starting at an abnormally early hour.
We tried for a week or so to help her sleep in. We made sure the room was absolutely pitch black. We capped her day sleep (2 naps) at 3 hours total max. And finally, we made sure she didn’t sleep past 3:30 so she was tired enough at night. I honestly can’t remember if it helped or not because this whole time period is a bit 0f a blur for me haha. But I know that’s what we did to try and get rid of early mornings.
Then, Lily got injured by burning her hands on patio furniture. As you can see here, we were in and out of the hospital and her hands were completely bandaged up. This basically changed everything with her sleep routine and it’s all been whack ever since.
For the first few days after her procedure, we ended up co-sleeping for almost all naps and night sleeps. We both equally needed it. She needed to be soothed and I needed her near me to feel calm. Eventually once the bandages were off (and truthfully she probably already forgot about it all), the co-sleeping became a bit of an issue. She would fall asleep on her own and then wake up in the middle of the night knowing I was going to get her and bring her into bed with me. Not even exaggerating, she would be screaming at 3am and I would go in and pick her up and she would then laugh and point in the direction of my room knowing we would have a sleepover. But neither of us slept well together. I would be up all night and then she would wake up around 4:30/5am ready to play. It wasn’t a good situation for anyone.
Another issue that stemmed from her injury was that she lost the ability to sooth herself. Lily always sucked her index and middle finger to fall asleep. When the bandages were on she wasn’t able to do that. I figured she would start again once they came off, but she never did it again. I tried to get her to do it, literally shoving her fingers in her mouth to remind her and still she doesn’t do it anymore. I’m sure it’s a blessing in disguise but I still wish she was able to self-sooth with her fingers, especially as more teeth come in. (And by the way, tons of teeth are coming in so I’m sure that also has a lot to do with her nighttime wake-ups).
So after a few months of early morning wake-ups and midnight cries, we finally and very reluctantly switched her to one nap. We were not at all ready for the one nap ourselves but it looked like she was. Her morning naps went from 2 hours to less than an hour and she was basically refusing her second nap altogether. I was scared to make the switch because I didn’t understand how she could just one day go from sleeping at 9am to 12pm but we sort of just did it cold turkey and it worked. We just kept her up until 12pm the first day, or maybe 1130, basically as long as we thought we could stretch her. There was no magic formula.
The first week or so of the transition to one nap was a little rough. A few times she fell asleep in her stroller in the morning and then refused to nap at all in the afternoon. The naps were also really short at the beginning, around 65-70 minutes. But after 2 weeks, her naps are consistently 2-3 hours. We just don’t ever let her sleep past 3:30pm. I know a lot of you are currently transitioning or about to transition to one nap so my tip is to just watch them for sleepy cues. Keep them up as long as you can and try to put them down for a nap when they’re tired but not over-tired and past the point of no return. I wouldn’t get stuck on numbers and wake windows etc. Every day will be a little different but it really wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be.
Middle of the night wakings and early morning wakeup’s are still an issue. We implemented the rule that we won’t go into her room until 6am. So if she’s up before, she’ll hopefully settle herself, play a little or maybe even fall back asleep. Obviously if she’s crying really hard, or we sense something is actually wrong, we go in. But to sum up this entire thing, she is still waking up in the 5’s and we are still spending many all-nighter’s with her. Basically we’re tired.
So, to spell it all out for you, even though it’s far from consistent, here is a sample schedule:
6:00 am – wakeup (that’s when we actually get her but she’s likely up before)
6:15 am – 8oz bottle of homo milk
7:30 am – breakfast
11:00 am – lunch
12:30pm – 3:30pm – nap
5:30 pm dinner
6:30pm bath + 8 oz bottle homo milk
7:00pm bedtime
There are also a ton of snacks in between meals. She’s just like her mama and also loves to graze all day long.
I know so many of you are also dealing with the early morning/middle of the night wakings and I wish I had an answer but hopefully there is comfort in knowing you aren’t the only tired mama out there.
Hopefully at the next schedule update we’ll all be sleep[ing again!