At what time do you put your sleepy baby to sleep versus down for a nap? We'd been doing our bedtime routine with her after her 9-ish BF'ing session, meaning she was often asleep, swaddled in her bassinet by 10:30.
However, recently when I've put her down for a nap in the swing around 7, she has seemed like she's been going into a deeper sleep than just a nap, and I've had to wake her a few times to bring her into the bedroom and into PJ's.
Should I try putting her to bed at 7? Or will that mean she wakes for the day at 5am instead of 8?
How old is your babe? I've noticed only a mild correlation between late bedtimes and late waking times. My daughter was a 9pm bedtime baby and then it just gradually moved earlier and earlier. She now goes to bed at 6:30pm because she's totally exhausted. I say try it out for a few days and see what happens. FYI, when DD transitioned to a much earlier bedtime there were a few weeks where she was up for the day at like 5:30am, which was KILLER. But now she goes down at 6:30 and is up for the day around 7:00. She's 13 months old now, but we've been on this schedule since around 7 months and I really noticed her pushing bedtime earlier by even four months.
FWIW, all the sleep books recommend earlier bedtimes for later wake times. It sounds weird and counterintuitive, but that's also been my friends' experiences as well as my own, with the exception of those few crazy weeks.
As nursing infants I feed when they are hungry and if they fall asleep on me I lay them down. Or if he's doing a tired cry. After weaning and switching to their own bed at 2 years or so, we do more bedtime routine and a certain time to aim for.
My ds is 7 months he usually takes a pre bedtime nap from 8- 9, then down for bed at 10, 10:30 and he usually sleeps till 10 am..... He's my only late waker, all my other babies have been early birds. I personally love it!
Well at two months I think he was still getting up at 10 a.m. but I can't remember when he went down at night. Maybe its just an individual thing, some ppl are morning ppl, others aren't. I guess that goes for babies too.
So, I put her down in the dark bedroom presumably "for the night" at 7:45 today. We'll see what happens! She's still fast asleep at 9:15, so it's looking like she may have recognized this as more than just a nap.
So not bad. She woke up at 2:30 and for a while, I thought she was going to be up for the day and I panicked, but she finally fell back asleep at 5 'till 8.
I think we'll keep up this bedtime and see if she gets better about going back to sleep after waking to eat.
I hate when they wake up in the wee hours of the morning and think its play time. I usually stay in the bed in the dark, they seem to realize its still sleep time that way and go back to sleep quicker. Unless of course, they're being loud and might wake up DH, then I'll go in the living room but keep the lights off. I'm sure your LO will settle into a schedule soon enough, until then rest when she takes her naps so you don't get too sleep deprived.
I put my 3 month old down at 5:30 (his call I had been trying to do 6:30) he will wake between 12 and 1 and then around 3 and up at 5. But the whole family gets up around that time so no biggy there.
Cynthiamoon, I hope it works for you! In our case, she definitely learned pretty quickly that the middle of the night was not play time, so hopefully any mid-night play episodes are short lived. Enjoy the extra time in the evening while you have it! I hope it sticks.
This seems to be my LO's choice, and she's about 5.5 months! We used to try to put her to bed around 7 but it was miserable for her to stay awake that long. So she's early to bed and early to rise...If only I could get myself to go to bed at 6:00 pm, I'd be a lot better on sleep!
We're back to sleeping at 10ish but I kind of prefer it. She just suddenly stopped being tired early. But If we go to sleep at the same time, I get way better sleep than otherwise and she seems the same, so yay.
sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 my 8 month old will throw himself at me, eyes shut, rooting around for a boob. That is bed time. Up until that moment he's impossible to get to sleep so we let him call it.
I like this thread. It's great to hear how diverse our babies' sleep schedule are. They are individuals, just like adults.
Up until about 6 weeks/2 months my daughter went to sleep with us, which was between 11PM and 8PM depending on how tired we were that day.
Then she switched to wanting to go to sleep around dusk (6:30PM here) give or take an hour...now with the time change her self-set bedtime is 5:30PM, give or take an hour. I try to be home with her by this time to help her go to sleep.
For the past couple months she gets up for an hour or two at 11PM... we think this is because her dad gets home from work late and she hears him talking and wants to hang out with him. Cute. So I go to bed, and she and daddy hang out - from what I hear from the other room, he sings to her, they walk around, they watch Youtube videos together, etc... He loves it cause he gets that special time with her when he's just relaxing before bed anyway, and she loves it because she gets her time with him. She's almost 7 months old now.
We all wake up in the morning around 7 or 7:30.
It's what works for us. That seems to be the theme of this thread- whatever works for the family. Love it.
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