Sleeping FAQ: 9-12 Months – Daytime Sleep

When at nursery my 11mth daughter only sleeps 45minutes at lunchtime. This makes her overtired and hard to settle some evenings

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.

It is always difficult when you have to make decisions about choosing a nursery as all will have some negative as well as positive points. Since your daughter does seem to enjoy her time there, you do need to reach a compromise between the routines at home and the nursery if you are going to resolve her disturbed sleeping patterns.

Many babies of this age who attend nursery full time do not have the full two hour sleep at lunch. Getting her to have an afternoon nap is the best way for her to catch up on her daytime sleep. If you find she settles easily at 4.30pm and is willing to be woken at 5pm/5.15pm then continue with the way you have been structuring her naps. This seems a more sensible approach than for you to let the staff begin to rock her to sleep.

As the nursery does not have cots it is probably not possible for the staff to give her a proper rest time around 3.30/4pm. You may be able to suggest to them that they try to build one or two quiet times into her day. At this age a baby can become overtired if she is constantly crawling, cruising or walking around and may need just a ten minute break, perhaps spent on someone’s knee looking at a book. Ask your key worker if it would be possible for this to be part of your daughter’s day. A baby who is newly mobile won’t always stop and rest of her own accord.

Make the time after your daughter’s bath as quiet and calm as possible. Try to have her in her cot within half an hour of her coming out of the bath. Moving her bedtime earlier by 10 minutes may mean she is less tired and, therefore, more likely to settle. Depending on the amount of sleep she has had in the day you may need to adjust her bedtime by a small amount on a daily basis.

When a baby first begins at nursery it is not uncommon for her to catch a lot of the viruses and infections going around. In the long term it helps your daughter build a good immune system but it is worrying if she seems to need antibiotics to clear the infections. You may like to discuss with your own doctor the need for her to be given a children’s multi vitamin on a daily basis. These can be helpful, especially during the winter months when a baby attending nursery spends a lot of time in a dry, warm room with several other children so making the spread of infection more likely.