I have a one year old who isn't on a schedule, and he's VERY strong willed. I wasn't concerned about it until recently, and now I think I may have put him at a disadvantage.
I've tried to get him into a schedule, mainly so that he'll go to sleep at night, but he's not into it and it's been a huge issue. Most nights he's up til midnight, and gets up at 8.
I also tried to switch him to whole milk, and he ended up throwing up giant curds of milk, so is he allergic? This was after he'd eaten and he still only threw up the milk.
I just found out I'm pregnant again, so I'd like to get him a little more on a routine. Any advice?
A great book to get is Healthy Sleep Habits, happy Child by Dr. marc Weisbluth
The key is to be consistent, but this book will get your whole family well rested. Lord knows you need it with another one on the way. Good luck!
I know it all sounds hard and overwelming! When my pediatrician advised I get my 1 year old on a sleeping/eating schedule, she said when the child is wanting to 'snack' or 'graze' between meals and snacks, distract her, but don't ignore her. I wrote things down as a day went on to build a schedule that worked for us. It really wasn't so hard and it worked!
Try and stay home and get him on a schedule for 1 week during the day! I did a log to see what my 1 year old was doing at about 6 months and we went from there. Here is our schedule:
7-8am? wakes up
8am breakfast
playtime or errands
10am or 10:30-12pm am nap
12:30 lunch
playtime or errands
3pm- 4:30pm pm nap
6pm dinner
whatever
8:30pm - 9pm bedtime
If he doesn't like the milk wait a week and then try again with a little at a time up to half form. half milk do that for 2 weeks and then slowly decrease the form. You also could try soy milk and see how that goes and then ease to whole milk. Remember not too much change at one time!
Good luck!
Change might not be good for him (concering the milk issue), start gradually with the switch to whole milk, mix half and half (half of the formula/breast milk & the other half whole milk). That should help.
Start gradually with a routine with him, the first thing is to start a night time routine, warn him at a certain time say 8Pm that in a half an hour its bedtime, brush teeth, wash hands/face, bring him to his room, change him, cuddle and read a story, put him down for bed. If it requires a beverage in there, make sure to brush the teeth after he's had a drink. Whatever routine you create for bedtime, do the SAME thing in a shorter version for naptime. You can do most of the routine you do at bedtime for nap as well, just omit the brushing teeth or reading a story or cuddling, whichever you choose. It will difficult but you need to start now, otherwise you have your hands full when the new baby comes. Stick to it, and also think about what you will do when he's crying at night because he doenst want to go to bed, will you let him cry it out? or console him, you may want to read a book or two on this to familiarize yourself.
During the day, make a mental schedule of what you would like for him to do.
Heres our schedule (flexible of course)
6:00 am wake up
7:00 am Breakfast
10:15 morning snack
11:30/12:00 lunch
12:30/1:00-3 nap
3:30 snack
5:00 dinner
In between we run errands, play toys, listen to music, go outside for at least 30 minutes, color, arts and crafts, read books, he helps me sweep. We allow no more than 2 hours of the TV actually being on during the day, he plays and sometimes tunes into the TV and will sit for about 10 minutes and actually watch the TV. I try to very the activities, going into different rooms of the house, we usually allow one activity at a time because our little guy gets overstimulated very quickly.
I hope some of this helps, but start slowly, the better you are during the day than he will learn to follow the schedule and will be hungry/tired at the expected times. Our schedule does get off whack a lot, so as long as you do some of the same activities, or tasks throughout the day he should be fine. Don't make a big deal out of it, just start gradually and he will follow, let him know whats coming next.
Congrats on baby #2
