I have got myself into a sleep situation with my 7 month old DS which is slowly driving me mad. Literally - along with some other factors (unexpected death of DF 3 months ago, just so as not to drip feed) I can feel myself sliding into depression. That's an issue by itself and I'm going to start addressing it in the NY, but I desperately want to change the current sleep pattern.
There's 2 key problems really.
First is how late he is going to sleep, the consequential late waking. It is playing havoc with my own sleep patterns. He goes down sometime between 9-11pm, it's usually a battle to get him off (fought with breastfeeding, rocking, singing and a bit of pick up put down)
So he doesn't wake to start the day until anywhere between 8-11am Because of co-sleeping (see problem 2) by this point I'm exhausted and just want to stay in bed - most mornings my DP is able to take him for a bit, which gives me a break, but I wake up somewhere between 10-12 feeling like a grotty failure before my day's even begun.
Second problem is co-sleeping. We fell into this, although I didn't plan to, and for the first 4 months or so it worked great - I could feed him whenever he woke up, barely having to move or wake myself. Since he started to get more wriggly it's been less effective for all of us, and me and DP have managed to get him to consistently go down in his cot for the first part of the night. However, like clockwork, DS will wake and want a feed between 2-3am, and from then on he's back in bed with us. DS and I wake each other up all through the rest of the night, usually with a bonus proper waking up at fussing around 6am, and he gets settled on the boob and doesn't want to move away.
With the co-sleeping, I can see the answer is to do those 2/3am and 6am feeds and then put him back in the cot, but when I've tried that more than half the time he will wake (after feeding to sleep) and after a couple of attempts I can't face it and just flop us both back into the bed - at that point broken, wriggly sleep seems better than no sleep. And the 6am one is such an awkward bloody time - a little earlier and it would be properly worth going back to sleep, a little later and I could face getting up for the day.
So my real question is how do I move the whole sleep routine forward? My dream would be to have him going down around 8pm, which would hopefully make those night feeds around midnight and 4am and waking for the day between 6-8am.
For adults, I understand the best way to change your sleep routine is at the morning end - force yourself to get up early, then you'll naturally want an early bedtime. Is that what I do here? Seize the 6am wake and get us up then? (I honestly haven't been able to face that yet - the idea of it not working and an even more overtired baby come the evening scares me!)
Or else it's tweaking naps, which currently look something like this:
9am: up for breakfast (porridge, fruit and water from sippy cup), followed by bottle and playtime with DP (& family-in-law over xmas)
11am: Breastfed, rocked or in sling to sleep for morning nap - anywhere between 30 mins to 2 hours.
Upon waking, another breastfeed and time for playing and/or going out as the day dictates. Most days he'll have a bit of lunch now too - some steamed veg, solider of toast or something nibbly.
Anywhere between 2-6pm is afternoon nap time - the later this happens, the later bedtime is. Every afternoon I start to get edgy and try for an early afternoon nap. One day before xmas he napped 3:30-4:30 and then was in bed by 8:30. I baked mince pies and danced round the kitchen with joy! I've never managed to recreate this - he just doesn't seem to get tired until it's too late.
So say 6:30pm: Dinner (more or less doing BLW, so plain, steamed version of what we're having, followed by fruit and yoghurt if still hungry) then bottle. I'm positively itching to put him to bed at this point, but he's usually bright-eyed and bushy tailed, so he'll stay in his highchair with something to play with, or more food to pick at as we eat, until he starts to rub his eyes or show any other sleepy signs.
9:30pm+: bath (2-3 times a week) and upstairs for quiet time, breastfeeding and bed.
So, wise MNers, is anything jumping out at you about how I can change this?
On Tuesday we're back to DP working and come Feb I'm returning to my 'work' as a PhD student, kicking off with an academic trip to Boston. Honestly, the idea of me presenting research, running workshops and talking in any kind of intelligent way is laughable. I'm currently starting most days with my head under the pillow, sobbing to my DP that I can't do anything and that DS is trying to break me. I know he isn't, but I have to make things better, please help!
Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler.
Sleep
How to move a sleep routine forward?
PerpetualStudent · 01/01/2016 11:29
What l did with both mine is have 'big sleep' cues. So for us it was bath downstairs, feed in bedroom and then put down drowsy (sometimes asleep). I think the key is they need to learn to self settle so after his middle of the night feed he can go back in his cot and go off to sleep.
Dd1 was bf so night feeds were longer but l stopped NF at 6 months and made sure to give her plenty of bf during the day. Even if she didn't want it.
The night routine needs to be consistent so if it's a warm bath (we use j&j lavender also) then it needs to be every night. Even when you can't be bothered sorry!
We travel a lot including long haul and the routine always helped dd1 to know it was bed time where ever we were. I'm really hoping it's the same for dd2 when we start again!
FATE should be along soon and she is a wealth of knowledge. But l just wanted to tell you what works for us. Because as you've probably been told, every baby is different and you'll have to tweak to suit your family. 
Good luck, it's bloody hard work!
Good for you for noticing you are slipping into depression and being proactive to help yourself by stabilising your sleeping patterns. 
I would just set the alarm and get you and baby up. It's what you would have to do if you were at work or had other children to get to school. It'll also be good for your own HM to have that control over your mornings. Set he alarm for, say 7.30am, wake baby up with you and both get up.
You would need to give getting up consistently early some time to settle-in before you can say how it effects your routine, it won't necessarily change anything straight away. So set the alarm every day for 2 weeks but continue the 'go with the flow' routine you have.
Re-assess after 2 weeks to see how things have changed and what tweeks are needed. I would be aiming for 2 or 3 naps at 7 months old.
Starting between 9am/10am - for 90-120 minutes
Starting between 12pm/1pm - for 90-120 minutes
The sometimes a 4pm no more than an hour nap (I would wake baby by 5pm if still asleep). But only on days when other naps were shorter or earlier.
That should allow for a bedtime between 7pm-8pm and a wake up between 7am-8am
Such good advice here I have nothing else to add, except... I found it useful to set myself a guide time for how long it will take to 'work', and what 'work means. Otherwise I get disheartened too quickly, can't make good judgements because of tiredness and then disrupt my plans by giving up/in/just sleeping
I found with the babes when they were younger that I could usually crack an amended routine in 4-6 days. If I knew the first few of those days might be quite hard going, but that then I'd see an improvement and ultimately get closer to where I wanted to be, then I'd find it easier to deal with the tiredness and grottiness.
I'm just embarking on new sleep routines for the older DSs and DC3 (3months) so I'm with you in spirit. Good on you for a) spotting what's a problem for you and b) changing it. 
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.