Anyone else put their baby to bed at 6pm??

[Gab3478]

Hi everyone, have posted on here a couple of times and have had great support so just looking for some reassurance.
My DD is now 10 months and always been a terrible sleeper day and night. Things have improved massively but I can always guarantee at least two wake ups a night.
She is pretty much always in bed by 6/630pm and everyone keeps telling me this is top early. Her pm nap usually ends around 230pm and by half five she is wiped out. She is going through a stage of waking at 530-am so now I'm starting to doubt myself and think maybe I should be stretching her out - however I'm not sure if it is teeth as she doesn't seem happy to be awake so early iykwim?
Does anyone else put their LOs to bed early? Do you think I'm wrong? I'm also starting to panic about the clocks changing in oct, how do you deal with time changes? Do I just suck it up and put her to bed at new time of 6 and hope she deals with it! Dreading the 530 wake up becoming 430!
Thanks all

[MrsJamin]

You are mad putting your baby to bed at 6 and having a wake up at 5.30! Of course put bedtime back. 7pm is pretty standard in the UK.

[MrsDavies]

Personally I play it by ear, if my DS isn't too tired and has slept well in the day then I will start his bedtime routine of bath, feed, bed at 7pm. If he's tired earlier I start it earlier. I say do whatever is best for you.

[Ragwort]

I don't think it is too early, I am amazed at the number of babies that seem to go to bed so late, or don't even have a routine . My DS always went to bed at 7pm from the day he came home from hospital (6 days old!). Do whatever works for you, and who on earth asks another parent what time they put their baby to bed at it. .

I don't think the clock change should make any difference, she will still get the same amount of hours' sleep.

[Bunbaker]

DD cluster fed all evening when she was tiny, so a 7pm bedtime was a pipe dream! Sometimes she would feed until the early hours of the morning before she would go to sleep.

[Ethlinn]

No such thing as TOO EARLY bedtime . DS is 7mo goes to bed at 6:30pm now. He wakes up early anyway (between 6 and 6:30) and moving bedtime later actually made it even worse, even earlier that is. He only catnaps during the day and 5:45 he is starting to seem tired. Bath bottle sleep it is then and it saves my sanity (and my relationship too I think).
I wouldn't worry about clocks change yet, there's a good chance that your DD's sleeping habits will change by then (and my DS's too) they're still babies!

[Gab3478]

I should add to the first point that she has only started waking 530 the past week or so (and is a grumpy so and so therefore clearly shouldn't be awake so early). "Normally" she wakes 6/630 (on a few occasions 7am - that actually felt like a lie in!). 6am wake up is fine for us as dh gets up for work then anyway. My friend puts her baby to bed at 830 and he gets up at six so not fully convinced on a later bedtime..?

[nextphase]

The 5.30 start is quite early but what happened in this house for 18 months
We got it one (spring) clock change by moving everything by an hour - so rather than breakfast at 6, breakfast was at 7, lunch move to 12.30, and bedtime to 7.30. It took a while, but wakeup gradually crept to a blissful lie in at 6.15.

The other way is to shift your day - DH and I both work flexi time, so we are at nursery for opening, and then at work before 8. That means we can leave early, and have some evening time with the kids before they crash out. Only problem is it makes going out in the evenings an effort, as I'm so used to early to bed, early to rise.

Tesco is deserted at 8am on a Sat!

[filee777]

I put them both to bed early tonight because they are being awful. Usually it's seven

[Flumpyflumps]

I used to put dd in her cot about 5pm for a quick ten min nap, got her through til 7, might help?

[Queenmarigold]

Me. Had enough by then.

[HairyPorter]

I did. Because ds naturally it tired and cranky by 6. Even if we pushed bedtime later he was up at 6 anyway. Even now (2.5) he's sometimes in bed just after 6 if hes had a tiring day. Most days he sleeps 6.45 till 7 now. But as a baby he'd sleep 6 - 6.30, and have a couple of short naps.

[scaryg]

DD's bedtime is 6pm. She's had this time since she was quite little (she is now 21m). She's never slept well during the day so by 5pm she's knackered. She's happy to go to bed and drops off quite quickly (she's also still fedto sleep). Usually she sleeps till 9pm when I go to bed (we co-sleep). She wad waking at about 6.15am but I was happy with that now she's sleeping until 7pm. I get some time in the evening. So it works for us.

[blibblibs]

I found that it didn't matter if I put DC to bed later, they would still wake up at their given time - usually 6/6.30 and be grumpy the next day if they hadn't had their full 12hrs.

Even now at 4&5 if they are tired and need more sleep they have to go to bed early because they can't seem to sleep later. Tonights bedtime was 6.15 and I don't expect them to wake until almost 7am tomorrow.

[MamaTo3Boys]

All 3 of mine have gone to bed at 6pm from being only a few weeks old. I don't think it's too early at all. Babies need loads of sleep.

However, mine didnt/don't sleep much during the day. DS3 (8mo) will have approx 1 hour in the afternoon but thats it.

[filee777]

If we put the kids to bed at 6pm every night my husband would never see them. He only gets home at 5.15!

[noisytoys]

My 2.11 year old still goes to bed at 6. If I keep her up later she seems to get a surge of energy and can't sleep but if she goes to bed that little bit earlier she sleeps right through until 7am

[teacher123]

For his first year DS had his bath at 5.30 and was in bed by 5.45! He never had his third nap once he got into a daytime routine so he was always knackered by then. It gradually moved back to bathtime at 6 and It is literally only in the last couple of weeks (he's 17mo) that we've moved it to 6.15. He has his milk and a small snack downstairs then bath and straight into bed. Until we lost his morning nap at 15mo he would wake between 5-5.30. Now he wakes usually between 6.30 and 7. Putting him to bed later has made no difference to his waking times, re jigging his daytime sleep is what solved that for us.

[davidtennantsmistress]

My 2 yo is 6-6.30 and 7 yo is 7 the younger goes until 5-5.30 with an hours nap 1-2 elder until 7.30 both of them need 12 hours a day. And both need a good structured routine.

Xh keeps ds1 up until 9/10 at night thinking hell sleep in, however, he ten wakes at 5 and is ratty as hell all day you just can't do anything with either of them.

[blackteaplease]

Mine have on occasion gone to bed at 6 when they have been a nightmare. They currently have a bath at 6pm, then ds 1 year old goes to bed at 6.30 and dd 3 year old gets to stay up if she has been good (ie, not got up at 5am). The last 2 nights dd has been asleep by 6.40 due to pre-school going back this week, she is knackered.

Also, by that time I am ready for some peace and quiet!

[davidtennantsmistress]

Oh and now reading you op, my 2 yo has only been sleeping around like that the last 2 months or so, we finally worked out, he only needed 12 hours each did, didn't matter how much by day but a 3 hour nap by day meant waking loads by night, hence the one hour rule I set with nursery.

Ds on those days would wake up at 4.15 or 4.30, as well, was a killer. I say do what works for you.

[NoComet]

DD2 has never ever gone to bed a second before 8pm in her entire life.

Any attempt to do so resulted in tantrums, tears and vileness until she flaked out at 9.30-10pm.

At 8pm a switch flicked to, I'm tired it's bed time now and off she'd go no trouble at all.

DD2 went to bed at the same time as her big sister, because she refused to be treated as little. I was fine with this as otherwise DD2 got up at 6am.

As DD1 and I hate mornings, we didn't appreciate this.

[LynetteScavo]

It's not wrong if it works for you.

Does she have a morning nap?

I would expect her to sleep 11 hours during the night (not necessarily without waking up at some point), have a short morning nap (one hour), and a longer afternoon nap (2 hours +). But I'm basing that on my own DC.

[theignored]

Our 8 month old goes to bed at 6pm, he too is a bad sleeper during the day and often gets woken from naps by his siblings.
Come 5pm it's a struggle to entertain him much longer, so he's in the bath by 5.45pm
He wakes up a couple of times a night and is up between 530 and 6, I accept the early mornings though as we have our evenings together and its obviously his required sleep pattern. I just go to bed earlier!
I don't understand why people say putting them to bed later means they will get up later, this was never the case with our three.
The two older children (3 & 4) now go to bed between 6.30 and 7 and get up at 6.45 thanks to their gro clocks, but we've only been able to alter their routine as they have got older.

[sillymillyb]

My 18mo ds goes up at 6 every day! He gets up at 6ish no matter what time he goes to sleep so I figure I may as well have an evening, and because hes a crap sleeper during day, he's knackered by 5.30ish.

I've put him up 5.15 a couple of times, which feels weird, but is what he wanted!

[Gab3478]

She has a morning nap afternoon nap. Her natural wake time seems to 3/3.5 hours, so morning nap is around 9ish and can be anything from 45mins to 2hrs, but normally Is an hr to 1.5hrs.Afternoon nap around 130 and this one is always a struggle as can last 30 mins to an hour, she has never slept longer than an hour in the pm. She has always been a short napper and these are vast improvements!
Thanks everyone for replying, I think I just need to go with the flow, like someone else said they change all the time. Dh doesn't get time with her but he does v long hours with a long commute and doesn't get home till 8/9pm anyway!