William is 18 months old. Yes that’s right- he’s already 1.5 years old! I haven’t been on in awhile to give an update, because well… life! So I have a ton of new things to share with you all, in addition to our 18 month old sleep schedule.
Our last update was when William turned 1. He was not yet walking on his own, but super close. Now he’s running. That cute little baby run!
These last few months have been kind of surreal to be honest…
At the end of January, my family took a trip to Orlando. My husband has a yearly conference, and when it landed in Orlando this year, we planned a trip to Disney World. Caroline is 5 and we knew she’d just love it. William, having just turned 1, could definitely appreciate some things at Disney as well.
It was an amazing trip. We were able to have my husband’s family all join us, and it made for an incredible time. Little did we know, it was right before this pandemic hit, and we’d all be forever thankful to have squeezed in the extra family time and Disney trip before everything closed down!
Shortly after we got back from our trip, William started walking! He started right on Valentine’s day. He just literally decided it was the best thing ever and started doing laps around the kitchen island. It was adorable.
The next month, Covid-19 shut us all down. We’re all still in the middle of it as I write this update, and I know I’ve been quiet over here on the blog. Caroline’s last day of school in person was on March 13th. William had just started a 1 day a week program as well, and that obviously stopped that week too.
We’ve been doing PreK with Caroline at home with her teacher sending distance learning packets each week, and just in general staying home. The kids and I stayed at home (no more than a walk in the neighborhood) for 70 days straight. We’re well on our way to another long stretch like that even with things starting to slowly open up. We’re just playing it safe because we can.
Our small outing was to my husband’s work (outside far away from others on a golf course). And we’ve done one drive thru ice cream pick up. But other than that, we’ve been home not taking any risks. My husband has been going to work through most of this, and doing grocery pick up. It’s worked out well.
My first time out driving with the kids will be next week for William’s 18 month well check. It will be my first time having to wear a mask and be out in public. I’m so proud of our family for being able to isolate so well. It’s been weird for me to see what’s happening out there from a distance, without seeing it in person. Reality hasn’t set in yet!
Through all of this, my time to myself has been limited, but there has been so much to write about! So, here’s the huge 6 month update in one!
18 Month Old Sleep Schedule
As William started needing to make the transition from 2 naps to 1, we really struggled fitting the schedule together. Caroline had school from 1-3:20pm. It was the worst time possible when considering a 1 nap schedule for William. He’d end up having a super short nap if it was during that time, and it would be way later than he could handle.
As a result, for months we just kept going with 2 naps. Then, when the naps suffered enough, we had to make the switch. He ended up having 1 short nap and it was so hard on him. He went with the flow and made it work. He’s such a trooper and so flexible. But I knew it wasn’t ideal. My hands were just tied with the school drop off and pick up times.
Well, the pandemic came along and shut down schools. From the perspective of William’s schedule, it was perfect. We could finally do the perfect schedule!
The 12 month update shows the 2 nap schedule we were having to do to work around school drop off and pick up times. We kept that schedule for awhile.
When forced to make the change because of naps really taking a hit, we squeezed it in from 1:20-3pm. He’d often fall asleep on the way home from school drop off, I’d transfer him, and then I’d wake him at 3 to go pick up Caroline. It was really hard on him, but working better than 2 naps at that point.
Now, we are doing the ideal 18 month old sleep schedule with no interruptions:
7 am wake
8 am breakfast
11:30/12 pm lunch
12:30/1-3pm nap (I let him go no later than 3:30pm)
5 pm dinner
7 pm bedtime routine starts
7:20/7:30 in bed sleeping
Eat
William gets offered whole milk twice a day. He gets a glass of milk first thing in the morning, and a small glass around 6:30pm before bed.
Other than that he’s on all normal foods. Whatever we eat, he eats. But gosh is he PICKY!
For breakfast, I can reliably get him to eat raisin toast and fruit. He also loves oatmeal and yogurt. And just this month he’s started getting cereal. Obviously he’s a fan of Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs as we all are! He does incredible with his spoon!
Lunch is brutal lately. He was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Now he won’t touch them. He was eating quesadillas. Now he won’t eat it. He sometimes eats chicken nuggets. He just won’t eat much. He will eat his fruit, crackers, and cheese, however. LOL
The same pickiness happens with dinner. Sometimes he won’t even try something. Just turns his face and refuses! I think a lot of it is teething pain (he still only has 3 and a half teeth through and is working on so many), but most if it is just stubbornness!
He’s good at telling us he’s all done, and asking for more by saying “p” for please.
He’s gotten great with his fork and spoon.
Wake
I always feel so bad for William. He just doesn’t get attention the way Caroline used to. Life is so much busier now. While we’re all around, we aren’t often focused on him. I’m making a meal, or cleaning up, or helping Caroline with something. It just isn’t that focused one on one time that I could give Caroline at that age.
He loves playing hide and seek. We say “Where’s William,” and he runs and hides behind a bookshelf or behind some curtains. He laughs so hard and just gets a kick out of it.
Wrestle time is also a favorite of his. And chase. Chase always gets him going!
Just this month is the first time I’ve seen him interested in looking at a book or a puzzle (any focused play like that).
He really just enjoys watching and figuring things out. He’s very good with his body and focused on movements and fine motor skills more than anything. He watches as I put a piece of furniture together, and knows exactly where a bolt goes. He’ll grab it and put it in the hole. He sees my hand motion with the screw driver and tries it himself.
He is focused on going up and down steps without using his hands on the ground. He’s gotten the hang of stepping down off of the porch this way and back up. He’s so proud!
He just realized he could climb the ladder to the slide and up to the top bunk in his room (he sleeps on a mattress on the floor still). He not only climbs it well, but climbs down unassisted as well. I stand ready to catch him, but he never needs it. He holds on and reaches a foot down until he feels a step. He then focuses in on moving his hands down, etc. He’s very determined and hard working on things like this.
He LOVES dancing. He twirls and squats and just lights up when we tell Alexa to play anything.
Lately he’s been playing dress up with Caroline (rather Caroline has been dressing him up) and having a lot of fun with that.
I retired a raised garden bed to be his dirt box. He plays in it for so long. He could stay there for hours.
He also likes to come help me in the garden, and is FASCINATED watching us use any kind of equipment- the lawn mower, the trimmer, etc. He gets up on the mower and has a huge grin. I am betting money he becomes a golf course superintendent like his daddy.
Anything water he also loves. He gets a lot of baths since he’s always in his dirt box. He splashes and plays and laughs. I finally gave in and bought a water table. I’ve been wanting one of these for Caroline for years, and kept telling myself we could just fill up buckets and save money.
Well I finally decided the $39 was worth it, and bought one. It’s so much fun. Now, instead of playing in the dirt box, William is always soaking wet from the water table!
He also has a blast going for walks and feeding the neighborhood horses. We bought some horse treats, and William has gotten really good at feeding them! He also walks pretty much all the way there, which is great exercise for him!
We pretty much spend the first half of every day outside, and then often are outside again in the evenings.
William is also just really helpful. He sees it’s time to clean up, and he joins in and helps. He helps unload the dishwasher every morning, and helps feeds the dogs every evening. He really enjoys being able to help in his own ways.
And in his own unhelpful way, he loves hiding things! Every day it feels like he hides something from us. Incredible the places he finds to put things. We are a family that counts pieces when we put them away, so we know when 1 piece of a toy set is missing and try to find it that day. He has really stumped us at times! LOL
Talking
I think our kids just talk late LOL! I don’t know when the milestones are for speech exactly, but I remember when Caroline was 23 months thinking to myself, “I’m going to have to bring this up at her appointment next month.” Then, in that next month her talking exploded. William is following suit. He gets his point across, but doesn’t have many words.
Here’s what he is capable of saying:
All done – he says “a da”
Up- he says “uppa”
Please – he says “p”
Daddy – he says “Dada”
Mama- he used to say it, now he does not use it at all
I did – he says something close LOL
There- also pretty close “tha”
Yeah- he says “yeah”
Apple- he’s pretty close “appa”
He has no L sounds yet.
No one else other than our immediate family would have any clue what he was saying. He tries really hard, but just not a lot of sounds happening right now. Knowing what happened with Caroline’s explosion of speech as we got close to 23-24 months, I am not at all worried about this. I remember feeling worried with Caroline, but I am not at all this time with that knowledge under my belt!
Potty Training
William was doing early potty training. I wrote about the steps we were taking in month 7. Long story short, he was an obvious pooper and it was so easy to put him on the toilet. Suddenly that stopped. I could no longer tell when he was pooping! His face never changes. So, early potty training got put on hold for a long time!
He’s now starting to show some interest. So, while we aren’t officially potty training him yet, I think it is soon to come. He asks to be put on the toilet often right now. He never gets anything in it, but the interest is enough to move forward with it soon! We potty trained Caroline at 18 months and I love our method… we’ll be doing it again!
Sleep Habits
Gosh we had a hard run for a long time. When we went on vacation, William got all out of whack. He was up every night and it was hard to get him to go back to sleep. He tried so hard, but ended up being awake for awhile.
Then we got home and he was starting to walk a few weeks later. Those weeks were brutal. He woke up every night still.
I’ve seen this happen with learning new skills often. So, we practiced and practiced his new skill.
He finally moved through that, and his naps were still not where they needed to be due to school timing with older sis.
And so, wake ups continued… not every night, but a good 50% of the time because I just couldn’t get his daytime sleep perfect.
Then it was more teeth. He started cutting the top two teeth. More wake ups.
Now the great part, is that other than around our vacation, his wake ups are fast and easy. He wakes up, I go in and put him back to bed (he’s no longer in a crib), and I leave. That fast. But it’s still disruptive to both of our sleep.
Finally, he’s had a nice long stretch of consistently sleeping through the night again. His sleep is very easily impacted by his daytime sleep, and easily disrupted by learning skills. And even a 2 minute disruption at night of having to get up and put him back to bed, is not, in my opinion, sleeping through the night. So glad to be past this issue though since we were able to implement an ideal 18 month old sleep schedule.
He also does a fantastic job of two things- putting himself to sleep, and when he wakes up early (from nap or in the morning) he grabs a book, “reads” and stays in bed. He waits for his my tot clock to turn yellow. When it does, he knows it’s time to get up and I’m on my way up to get him!
Favorite Items
Dirt box – for us it is a raised garden bed with dirt, but obviously a sandbox works for this age as well.
Water table – such a great purchase. I waited for years to get one of these for our family. It’s such a a great toy, though. Worth the price!
Chalk – William actually really enjoys chalk right now. And putting it in his mouth won’t hurt him, so that’s a plus!
Buckets, shovels, rakes, etc. Things to play in the dirt with.
Swing set- this is the one we got on amazon, and it’s been fantastic!
