Later bedtime, more sleep?

[Tway]

We've been noticing, on occasion, that DD seems to sleep longer stretches, wake up less often, and sleep less restlessly on nights where she's put down past her bedtime. Last night, for example, I came home at 10 and nursed her (after DH had tried in vain to put her down), and she slept 6 hours, woke for a feed, slept 3 more, fed, and then woke at 9. Wow!

Usually we bath/read/feed by 8 and DH shushes and pats DD to sleep (which takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 40). But then she tends to wake sooner and more often, and wiggle a whole lot.

Is there a connection between a later bedtime and better sleep...? It's not like we put her down at 8 and she fights us till 10. She goes to sleep pretty easily, but it doesn't seem to "stick" as well as when she's just plain old exhausted...

[ssh]

Maybe Your DD isn't tired enough to sleep long periods unless she goes to bed at 10 or after. My DD used to treat any sleeptime that happened before 9:30 like it was a nap. She would sleep 2 or 3 hours and then she was wide awake for hours. We just never let her go to sleep between the hours of 5 and 9:30 when she was still a toddler. After about age 3.5 late naps stopped effecting her ability to sleep at night.

[akayerich]

We seem to have the same situation with my DS. He used to go to bed around 10ish, but we started having trouble getting him to go to sleep. It was taking like 2 hours some nights. So, after reading No Cry Sleep Solution, we tried putting him to bed earlier. It actually worked for getting him to sleep more easily at bedtime, but he started waking up a LOT more at night, and also wanting to stay up for a few hours. It was like he thought the 8 o'clock bedtime was just a really late nap or something. So, anyway, now we're trying 9 o'clock as a bedtime. Last night was the first night for this, but he did sleep much better. I've got high hopes for tonight!

[ASusan]

Yep. If he goes down before 9:45, he's up 20-30 minutes later. Then several wake-ups throughout the night. If he goes down closer to 11, he sleeps til 1, goes back to sleep easily, then sleeps til 6ish for a quick nurse and sleep until 9:30.

That's gotta change. But for now, those types of evenings work best.


If he were to go to sleep before 9, he'd be up so much by midnight it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

[Tway]

We got a mixed bag last night. We went out and put her down at 8:45, and it took 30 minutes to get her down. Then she woke at midnight, fed, then slept till 6, fed, then was up at 8. Plus she wasn't really restless. Hmm... other than the long time it took to get her to sleep, it wasn't so bad...

I'll keep tabs and see how it goes. Thanks mamas for your input!

[MamieCole]

DS1 has never gone to bed before 9:30pm, even as a newborn. Lately his bedtime has been around 11pm. He sleeps through until 8-9am.

DS2 falls asleep for the night between 8:30-10:30pm, wakes to nurse a couple of times and almost always wakes for the day between 8:30-9am.

We've never tried to set a bedtime for them, just follow their cues. Works great for our family, but I could see how it wouldn't for others.