When do they "organize" their sleep? How much should I interfere?

[penstamon]

DS2 is 2mo and the only regular time that he is asleep is 11P-5:30A (with 1-2 feeds).  Bedtime can start anywhere from 7:30P to 11P and wake up is anywhere from 5:30a-8:30a.  His naps are also variable- generally 4-7 throughout the day, varying lengths and times.  With DS1, I didn't start getting on a real schedule until 3mo or later, but he was (is) a frequent waker- as in every hour from 3 mo- 15mo.   We went crazy over sleep issues for a long time.  Our struggle with DS1's (now 2 yrs) sleep has made me wary of trying to impose anything on DS2 and I feel like I should follow his cues, but I would like to promote more night time sleep on a regular basis.  DS1 sleeps from 8pm-6am (with 2-3 wakings) and I would love it if DS2 could have a similar plan.  However he just wont go down at 8 every night and its hard to not let him nap when he wants even if it is 7 times.

What did you do?

[lkvosu]

I pretty much followed ds's cues about sleep. Still do now at 9mo. Honestly, though, I did/do that mostly because I wasn't (and still am not) aware of any methods of sleep training/adjusting that work without CIO. Your ds's schedule sounds very much like ours was around that age. Sometime around 3mo it all went to hell, though, and he started waking up as often as every 30 minutes. He still wakes up every 2 hours every night, but every week is a bit different.  Moral of the story, your baby is still really young and it is likely that he will go through many sleep phases until...well....I don't know when. People tell me around 3 yo kids start sleeping more regularly, but that must vary so widely from child to child. I wouldn't worry too much if things aren't as you would like them to be right now, because it's almost a guarantee that it will change...soon and often! I know it can be frustrating, though, so I totally understand your desire to make it easier.

I'm not sure this would work on a baby so young, but have you tried making a bedtime routine? Like going on a walk, then bath, then nurse, etc every night at the same time to establish a nightime ritual that he would recogonize. We did that with limited success at first, but slowly I think it did help some. We started out keeping with his natural bed time, but began moving our routine back a little bit until it was closer to a bedtime that we prefered. It worked...kind of. A more laid back baby might take to it better than my ds did.

Good luck!

[Jayray]

My little guy is almost four months, but he started going to bed earlier around 2 months--like 7:30 pretty consistently.  He now--of his own accord--goes to bed between 6 and 6:30.  That's just when he gets tired.  I pretty much determine when he goes to bed by when his latest nap is.  At this point he can stay awake (happily) for about an hour and 20 minutes.  I can push that last amount of time before bed to almost 2 hours, but he's really fussy and ready by then.  I know a lot of moms here have late bedtimes for their babes, but I'm really a believer in early bedtimes.  I think they sleep better and longer with earlier bedtimes.  And I really want some baby-free time with DH in the evenings.

As far as naps and such, I agree that you should just go with his cues.  I feel like DS1 didn't really have regular naps until about 6 months.  DS2 still takes 4-6 naps a day depending on how long they are. 

Anyway, I'm sleepy and not sure if I'm saying anything helpful. :)  Basically "they" say that they organize night sleep by around 4 months and then they start organizing day sleep.  The day sleep organizing I can attest to.  But it took DS1 a full year to get anything organized about night sleeping. :)

[sosurreal09]

My DD is almost 2 and she still doesn't seem to have any regular rhythm...I will say I tried to do the "non CIO" baby whisperer and it was huge epic fail and a ton of my time and energy wasted as well as a miserable baby. I tried to just do a regular schedule...failed miserably....and even now I try to implement a bedtime of 8/8:30 and most nights I am lying there with her for HOURS still!

Now I would totally try and see if you could do a flexible routine, but just know it may not work out for every child. Hopefully he is an "easy baby" and can adjust easily. I think the "experts" say between 6-7pm is most babies natural bedtime but IDK b/c it never worked for us!

[PPod]

I'm not good at routines, so apart from bedtime we followed DS's cues. We started a regular bedtime from about 4 months & that has worked fairly well for us in terms of getting him to sleep at the same time each night. It did take about 2-3 months until he was really accepting of it though; before then he would have occasional evenings where he took a lot of settling and really resisted falling asleep. We comforted him in arms whenever he cried which could last for up to half an hour. Now we can put him to bed and he will usually roll on his side, have a chat to himself and happily fall asleep.

Naps were completely unpredictable until DS was well established on 3 solid meals a day (around 7 months). Now at nearly 9mo he has two predictable naps during the day. Night-time is a bit more challenging - he sleeps 7:30 til 5am / 8am (depends how many times he is up overnight - he wakes a couple of times between 7:30 and 10:30, then sleeps for 3-4 hours, then wakes every 1-2 hours for the rest of the night). He is slowly, slowly learning to sleep in longer & more predictable blocks. I don't think there is anything we can do to help him figure this out, but I am sure he will get there in his own time and in his own way. Last night he slept from 7:45 til 4:45 and I feel amazing!

I only have one babe so hardly an expert, but I think you could try establishing a schedule with DS2 even though it didn't work with DS1. From what other mums have told me, you can try an identical approach with all your kids and they will all respond differently; so it could be worth a try. But I wonder if 2mo is still a bit young?

Good luck!

[Skippy918]

My DD's schedule is currently all over the map.  Although yesterday and today, she's been wanting to nap about an hour or so after she wakes in the morning.  Last week she was only taking one big nap and little cat naps through-out the day.  Bedtimes vary too.  I'm finding that even though I try to put her down around 8 or 9, she'll wake every 30 mins or so to feed and then she's finally down for the night around 11.

[BabySmurf]

If I remember correctly my DS's night time sleep started to get more organized around and he had a built in "bed time" by 4 months....and then hit the four month sleep regression, lol.  His self identified bedtime (8pm) has stuck through pretty much everything until now (8 months). Nap times for us have been a mess all along...I generally just wait for his sleepy cues, then bring him to bed and nurse him to sleep.  He is starting to stretch his awake time a lot more now, but he would generally have two hours of awake time between naps, but his naps would be anywhere from 20 min to 2.5 hours.  He seems to go through short nap time phases and long nap time phases.  I would watch for your DS's cues and try to set up a routine, rather than a set schedule.  You can try to keep things so that he expects what is going to happen, but not worry if it goes out the window for a day or two or if you need to adjust things you can. 

I have also heard that if a baby needs a nap sooner than an hour after waking for the day, he probably wasn't ready to geet up.  (something woke him from the light sleep).  this seems to be true with my DS who has been plagued by a daily 7am wake up poop since about 2.5 months old.  For us DS has always done best if he is able to get 12 hours of night time sleep, with a good 3ish hours of nap times during the day, and this has been true up until about 7-8 months for us.  (which meant that he would sometimes take a cat nap as late as 6 pm and still go to bed at 8).  also for my DS, keeping him up later did not work to make him sleep later in the am...he might of though if his poop alarm clock did't wake him up!

[remymom]

Hi,

I'm joining this discussion kinda late. Your comments are both refreshing but also makes me realize there's no simple answer. All the moms I know seem to have their babes on schedules. My son is almost 6 months and has a sort of loose schedule but it's more a routine. We started off cosleeping but as of 4 months he started sleeping in his crib. He still comes to bed for nursing and mostly spends the morning as of 5 in our bed. Ever now and then I try to write down his nightly sleeping and naps to see if I can find a schedule but I end up more confused than anything. Basically he's on a 3-3.5 cycle of eating, napping and playing. He generally goes to bed at 8-8:45 but his waking up times can vary from 6-9 am (9 being rare...:)). I'm trying to cut out one nightly feeding so he'll eat at around 12, my husband tries to get him to go back to sleep without feeding at around 3 and then he usually wakes at 5-5:30 for another feed. I think this tactic is working; I guess we'll have to give it another couple days. Good luck to you all. Let me know if you have any suggestions for helping baby to fall asleep on his own. I don't mind rocking or nursing him now but I'm not sure I want to be stuck doing that for years. I'm also definitely not ready to try "CIO" method but don't read or hear of any alternatives....

[Blanca78]

My DD is almost 15 weeks. When she was 2 months, I was driving myself crazy worrying that her bedtime was too late (it was between 10 and 11 p.m.). So I tried moving it forward, but whenever we did it would backfire and she'd wake up within the hour or less, and it we'd have to start over getting her to sleep. However, sometime between 10 and 12 weeks her bedtime started moving steadily earlier. We weren't even that conscious about it; it just seemed to happen that way. Now bedtime is generally between 9 and 10, but closer to 9:30-ish. A "late" bedtime is now 10 p.m., whereas before a "late" bedtime was 11:30 or 12. She still seems to be moving it earlier, as well. I think 8 p.m. is early for a lot of 2 month olds--I bet he'll nudge it earlier soon enough. Good luck!