Is it bad/odd that 4-month-old doesn't have a 'bedtime'? (also: please help!)

[nosleepnosense]

DC2 is 4.5 months old. He naps quite reliably in the day, usually after being awake for an hour and a half ish - although the number of naps depends on how long he's slept for, which is often only 30 mins then he wakes up, often still tired but with nothing working to get him back to sleep.

Anyway any attempts to put him to bed early evening (6, 7, 8 or 9ish) mean he just naps for 30 mins or so then is awake again. He won't go back down so in order to get anything done in the evening or eat dinner he's often down with us (with lights off/low) usually being held by one of us. Then trying to get him down after an hour or two can take literally hours of him getting sleepy then grumbling and squirming, crying etc until we pick him up and rock him etc. I don't feed to sleep as he doesn't really go in for that.

Is it weird that he doesn't go to 'proper' night time sleep until at least 10pm most nights? Honestly can't think of anything else to do short of driving him round in the car. Evenings are a total write-off and I'm permanently shattered.

We've definitely seen the '4 month sleep regression' too as his night sleeping has become terrible, going from a couple of wake-ups to waking every 3 hours or less. But that's something I'm hoping will improve. Any advice or help please?!

[Thatsnotmypresident]

My baby was exactly the same, he kept the same hours as me until he was about 10 months old. It suited all of us at the time and we'd had the same battles to try and get him to bed earlier and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I started putting him down at 7:30 at 10 months in preparation for returning to work and found it much easier at that age. Do what works for you x

[CanaBanana]

Mine is the same age and doesn't have a bedtime. I'm not willing to go to bed ridiculously early myself, and 4 months is too early to put him to bed alone. He won't sleep in the living room while we're still up and about. I take him to bed with me around 10pm, feed him and he dozes off.

[Thatsnotmypresident]

Also - sleep goes up and down, it's not a linear improvement generally, just a succession of phases.

[letsallhaveanap]

not weird at all!!
At that age my son was being put to bed when we wanted to go to bed which could be as late as midnight some nights...
Otherwise non of us would have ever slept!!
No point in putting a child that young to bed when they arent tired as it will just become a nightmare. We just kept him with us awake when we did stuff in the evening then put him to bed properly when we intended to sleep.
We did that until 6 months when he went into his own room in his cot.
We still had that bedtime as quite late and not set in stone just when we thought he was tired enough to settle.. so he might still go to bed as late as midnight... and that was up until he was about 2.
But we never had probs with night time waking... hed sleep straight through the night because we were putting him to bed when he was actually tired.

Hes 3yo and goes to bed at 8pm now most nights... and he sleeps well in his own room until about 8am in the morning now days.
May have to make it earlier and a bit more rigid when he starts school.

[nosleepnosense]

I'd love it if he kept the same hours as me as I'd love to go to bed at 8.30 but he's having none of it!!

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I don't think that is unusual but if you want a change, consider a bedtime routine? The DTs are 17w and go upstairs at 6.45 - joint bath - change into pjs and sleeping bags - milk and their big sister sings them songs - into their cot whilst I do big sister bedtime.

Of course they then have to come back downstairs with me but I ensure lights are dim, curtains closed, their white noise app is on, and we use really quiet voices. It is Officially Nighttime! At first they took ages to settle or wouldn't settle but now they are used to it and pretty much just go to sleep. The beauty of it is when they are 6 mos I can just continue the.same routine but leave them upstairs.

[GiraffeObsessedBaby]

We were exactly the same and just stopped fighting it. Kept him downstairs with us until I went to bed at 9/10. Bottle and rocked to sleep.

Then at about 5.5 months he started getting ratty staying up with us so we tried him in a bedtime routine and he went down perfectly. He's now 7.5 months and I can count on one hand the number of nights we've had to keep going up to him.

Try to go with the flow as much as you can! Also I totally feel your pain with 30 minute unpredictable naps lol

[nosleepnosense]

Thanks, that sounds like a good plan. Thought he'd dropped off after about an hour of trying to get him to sleep, but no, he's literally dancing a jig in his cot!

[nosleepnosense]

I'm not at all Woo, but I swear he's impossible to get to sleep when it's around a full moon. Noticed this with dc1 as well... Anyone else?

[nosleepnosense]

OK so after having only 30 min naps today and a nightmare to get to bed at night for the past weeks, he's slept in his pushchair from 5.15 until now... nearly 5 hours.. the longest sleep in weeks and I've not made the most of it or slept etc because I keep expecting him to wake up! It's so not fair! Might try more naps in the pushchair from now on...