Silja's Sleep Diary: eleven months old

Silja is eleven months old today, but it's not a very happy anniversary for her. She started to walk last week and is very happy and proud of her new skills. The rest of us live in mortal fear of her somehow getting into the stairs despite the newly installed stair gates.

However, she's had a baby cold: a very runny nose for the past two days and it makes her very uncomfortable at night when she's lying flat. Right now she's taking her morning nap in her cot and snoring awfully - I think yesterday was much better when she napped in her buggy and I could keep her propped up at a slight incline.

I've been told to lift up one end of the cot, maybe by putting some books under the feet, but I find that she just slides to the other end.

Silja's baby sleep schedule at eleven months old

Silja is still taking two naps a day, and practically never misses the morning nap between 9 and 11am.

She might take an afternoon nap at around 2 to 3pm, but if she misses she's now not so likely to nap later in the afternoon. However, she likes to take a little rest and maybe nurse a little at around 5pm once she's had her 'afternoon tea'.

She seems to want 4 solid meals a day - at around 7.30am, 12 noon, 4pm and 7pm, and nurses about three times during the day, plus once or twice a night.

Getting her to sleep in the evenings is perfectly uncomplicated, unless she gets too overexcited in the bath - she just loves to splash around. However, she's definitely not interested in going into her cot before she's very tired, nursed herself to exhaustion and almost asleep. I should probably give her a bit more practice in this, but have been too busy with all the normal detail of family life to remember to focus on it.

Now at eleven months old she still has the annoying habit of waking up a couple of times in the very late evening, and then she's mostly after a cuddle or a little bit of nursing - just to check it's still there, I suppose. I'm starting to think of weaning her off breastfeeding, but will probably not rush it anytime soon.

Once she's properly asleep after 11pm she will now mostly sleep through, or wake once. It's a bit difficult to know for sure, as if I pick her up I mostly fall asleep with her next to me. It's lovely to wake up in the morning and find her snuggled up next to me, especially now when she's a bit bigger and I don't really worry about rolling on top of her any more.
However, I still think I sleep better when she's in her own cot, and prefer her to start her nights there.

All that sounds very nice and quite tolerable for an eleven months old, but in reality last night I was sitting in the bathroom with Silja at 3am, running the shower as hot as possible to make steam to relieve her congestion ...

About an hour before, my husband had very politely excused himself and toddled off to the spare bedroom to get some sleep. Obviously, we're very lucky to live in a house and be able to run the shower at any hour of day or night (not allowed in Swiss apartment buildings) and to have a spare room for storing tired husbands.

Still, I'm now off to join Silja for a little nap myself - after the PTO lunch - and hope she'll feel better already tonight!


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