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16 week old is still a night owl

5 replies

WutheringShites86 · 10/12/2020 21:32

Hi Everyone, ftm of a 16 week old dd here. She is not a naturally good sleeper and I've put a lot of work into daytime naps and finding what works to get her to sleep and stay asleep. Progress has been slow but things have gotten better week on week. She is starting to do longer stretches of 5-7 hours at night before waking for a feed then going back down for anything between 2,3,4 hours until feeding again - really pleased with this as she was waking every 2-3 hours for so long.

She has self settled for two naps last week but usually she needs to be fed,rocked,cuddled or walked to sleep so I'm hoping this is a developmental thing she is going to get better at.

One thing that doesn't seem to be changing though is she isn't ready to settle down for the night until really late - usually 11pm - 12am. Any sleep before that is always just her standard 45 min nap and she wakes up. She's ebf and we have had a bedtime routine since 8 weeks, she will cluster feed/doze on and off for an hour or two when we go up to bed at 9.30 - 10pm but won't be put down. It can often take 3 attempts at putting her down before she'll stay asleep.

I've tried starting our routine earlier but this just means she dozes and feeds for longer and still won't go down for the night until later.

We have a sidecar cot set up to cosleep but she rarely settles in it so 95% of the time we are bed sharing (following safety measures). I can only get the longer stretch of sleep if she is in with me. This isn't a problem as such but I wonder if I'm making it worse by giving her the message that night time sleep starts when she is in bed with me?

Did anyone else have a night owl that started to want an earlier bedtime? On their own or with an imposed routine?

Sorry for the essay Blush

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WutheringShites86 · 11/12/2020 23:57

Any takers? Xmas Smile

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herewegoagain25 · 12/12/2020 11:32

What times does she wake for the day?

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WutheringShites86 · 12/12/2020 12:09

Thanks for replying @herewegoagain25

Anywhere between 8.30am and 9.30am depending on if she goes straight back to sleep after feeding. She wont stay asleep if I get up and leave her in the cot though so I think she would probably get up later if I stayed in bed too.

She can easily do 10+ hours from when she goes down for the night with varying wakes up to feed but going straight back to sleep. But she just won't settle for the night at an earlier time!

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herewegoagain25 · 12/12/2020 13:16

I have a 2 year old and a 9 week old. My 9 week old wouldn't go down earlier than 11, but wasn't waking until 9am. I've been slowly edging the wake earlier to get her down to bed earlier at night. So I am now waking her at 8am with the aim to get her down to bed by 8.30pm.

Most babies wake for the day around 6/7am, so I think you need to start her day sooner - so in turn it ends earlier! Unless you'd prefer to keep the lie ins, in exchange for the late night!

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WutheringShites86 · 12/12/2020 14:17

It is not such an issue at the moment but I'm thinking ahead for when I go back to work when she is 9/10 months.

I tried a week of setting an alarm for 7am but it didn't seem to change her pattern overall. She would go to sleep earlier but only for 45 min nap cycles and then not a long stretch until her usual time.

Maybe I will try again and for longer.

Thanks.

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