2 month old bedtimes

[rachelsnyder]

Hey everyone...I have a 2 month old daughter who sleeps with us in bed and she is typically going to sleep around 10 pm...it seems like other mamas have their babes going to bed much earlier...like 7 or 8...how does that happen?  Right now my little one sleeps a lot during the day, so it seems strange to me to be putting her to bed so early....should I be??? Any thoughts?  

[Knitting Mama]

For us, that early on, sleep was after 60-90 minutes of awake time regardless of the time of day. So if she last napped at 6 pm, she'd go down around 7 or 7:30. If she last napped at 8 pm, she'd go down around 9 or 9:30. I encouraged her to sleep more at night by nursing side lying and not getting out of bed. I think it was around 4 or 5 months when she started sleeping solidly at night-- but of course soon after we got into teething, crawling, regressions, etc.

We still do not have a set bedtime at 9 months old. It really depends on how much sleep she's gotten during the day and how active we were that day. For example, she's nursing down right now at 8:20, but yesterday she went to bed at 7:00 and the day before it wasn't until 10:00.

But please keep this in mind-- for most kids, sleep begets sleep. So even if she slept a lot during the day she should still be sleeping at night!

[rachelsnyder]

Thanks, that helps.  I also nurse laying down in the night which definitely helps her to stay sleeping in-between...maybe tomorrow I will try and take her to bed a little earlier then usual when she gets tired and see what happens...that way my husband and I can have some alone time together ;)  

[Knitting Mama]

Totally, I often would get Cecilia down for a nap before she actually showed tired signs, and that is when she slept best. At that age I often relied on the clock-- after 60 minutes I'd try and most of the time she would go right out. Also, do you have a swing? Around 3 months or so Cecilia reliably started taking naps in her swing, for the first time. It was so weird to not have her sleeping on me! I actually missed it, so for a while we did part time swing, part time on Mama. These days she naps in our bed and sleeps there in my arms at night.

[tzs]

that 7 or 8:00 bedtime doesn't come until later. i can't remember exactly but i think it was 4 months???? at least that's what the sleep "experts" said and funny enough, at around that age she just started not being able to stay up past 8ish. so i think it might just develop naturally.

before that she was going down at 10 or 11 which i also thought was really late (but also based on older babies' early bedtimes) which is totally normal for a younger babe.

[rachelsnyder]

We do have a swing and she often does fall asleep in that...it took me a while to be okay with that because I felt like I was a bad mother leaving her in a mechanical "contraption" :p  Also, I missed the nap snuggles...

I'm not one to impose any kind of schedule, so I will just keep doing what she seems to want to do and hopefully (by 4 mths) she can't stay up past 8...haha ;)

Thanks ladies :)