# Is my baby just a night-owl?



## Grace24 (Mar 9, 2007)

My almost 11-month old has had a regular bedtime of around 10 p.m., sometimes later, for months now. For awhile, around 4 months, he was suddenly going to bed at 7 and waking up at 5 but then after a month or two of that, moved it gradually back to 10:30. This is ok with me because I'm a night-owl too and like that he usually sleeps til at least 8 or 9. (I'm a musician and I work at night.)

However, during sleep regressions he pushes bedtime later and later and gets up earlier, sometimes waking several times. This happened at 9 months for a couple weeks, then again a month ago... or did he never really snap out of the 9 month regression? Not sure.

Now he has a cold, which is complicating matters and making him wake even more. Last night he was up til midnight, waking a couple times, and up for the day at 7:30. He is clearly sleep deprived at this point, throwing tantrums and cranky and fussy. I think DH just finally got him down for a nap. He usually takes a late-morning nap of 2 hours and a late afternoon nap of about 45 minutes... sometimes he skips the second nap.

Also, in case it's relevant, he just started walking last month, at ten months old. We thought he'd settle down into a better sleep pattern after that but it isn't happening.

So anyhow what I'm wondering is, is this just a normal sleep regression or is he really getting to bed too late on the whole? And how to get him to bed earlier when we're trying to follow his cues as to when he's tired, which seems to be around 10?


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## srs (Nov 8, 2007)

He may be ready to go to one nap. My night owl DD did that same thing around his age. Bedtime got later and later until she started just taking one long (2 hr) nap, and then bedtime settled in around 10pm again. Hang in there and good luck. Once she went to one nap things got a lot better, both for the quality of the nap and for the rest of our day.


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## TinyMama (Sep 4, 2007)

Personally, I would ditch the late afternoon nap and move bedtime up by an hour or so. It doesn't sound like you want his bedtime to be early, but if you want it earlier, I moved my dd's by waking her up earlier in the morning, so that she would nap earlier, and thus go to bed earlier.
Sleep regressions are soooooo hard, aren't they?


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## closedaccount15 (Dec 25, 2007)

My daughter started taking one nap a day around 10 months. She still goes to bed at 10 and sleeps until 7 and I am getting at least one day a week she won't nap (today it was 2 days in a row) but if she naps longer than 2 hours, she is up until 10:30 or 11 or later, which then screws up her whole day because she still gets up at the same time and seems cranky the next day. I think he might need to skip the afternoon nap, too. My daughter starting by taking one nap a day really early, and then it got later and later

He might be trying to transition out of the 2nd nap himself, too.


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## Grace24 (Mar 9, 2007)

Thx all. We were down to one nap for awhile (our sleep regression lifted briefly for two weeks there) so I think you're on to something. His second nap seems to be falling asleep ON someone for a half hour to an hour, so he will no longer try to take a second nap anymore. He's just down for his first nap of the day now, at 4 p.m., but did sleep on his dad for an hour this morning. Everything's all up in the air right now!

Someone (a friend who doesn't have children) cautioned me about bringing him to bed with me in the middle of the night because he's "getting what he wants". I about bit her head off! I said "Well I can either spend three hours trying to get him back down in his crib at 3 a.m., or I can take him to bed at 3 a.m. and we can all sleep." I mean seriously, you do what works.


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