Five month old bedtime becoming later

[twinklespells]

My 5 month old baby is breastfed and a velcro baby. She won't stay asleep if I put her down during a nap, nor will she fall asleep unless during a car journey for a short time or sometimes in the pram. We also cosleep.

In the evenings she would generally fall asleep on me post feed at about 8pm, but this is no more! I think she is teething and is also more distractible when feeding.

Her daytime naps are also out of kilter. She's having one long nap after a couple of super short power naps. I feel like if I went to bed with her at 8pm she would probably go to bed then, but I'd rather stay up for a couple of hours with DH...

Is she at an age where she needs to be put upstairs to bed as downstairs is too stimulating? Practically with her feeding to sleep and us co sleeping, am I going to have to go to bed at 8?!

[FortunesFave]

She's completely at that age where she needs a dark and quiet room.

You can't start going to bed with her at 8...you'll still be doing it when she's 5!

Believe me I've seen it happen too many times.

Feed her in her own room after a bath...in a very dim light. Don't chat...don't play...just quietly sit.

When she's sleepy, put her down and walk out.

She may yell a bit...she may not...the trick is not to get her out unless she's wet or needs feeding again.

Don't chat!

[PreRaphaeliteMotherhood]

Completely disagree with the above. She’s so tiny! You can’t leave her to cry in her cot! She shouldn’t even be in her own room yet according to SIDS guidelines.

Can you feed her to sleep in your room and then sneak out for a bit? (Personally I’m all up for bed at 8pm 😂) She is definitely at an age now where she will need a proper routine and a dark, quiet room. She is probably also overtired if her naps aren’t going well. What are you doing at nap times? I remember the 5/6 month mark being really tricky as they haven’t yet learned to link their sleep cycles. It does improve but it may help to transition away from feeding to sleep (still feed until she’s sleepy but then work on putting baby down awake with shushing, patting etc - mine was useless at this so eventually we just had him nap in the pushchair as we could rock him) as this will help baby learn to self soothe when they wake up.

[MaverickSnoopy]

My second was a velcro baby and I used to sling her for naps as I tried everything and she would just not sleep any other way. Once she started napping for good lengths in the sling she started sleeping better at night...apart from when she was 5.5 months old and became more aware, it was at that point she would only sleep for 40 min bursts at night (awake for 2 hours inbetween). It turned out we were disturbing her and at 6mo she went into her own room and it stopped.

How long is she napping for in the day?

[twinklespells]

Thank you for the replies, good food for thought!

DD used to nap in the sling but alas no more, the world is too interesting for her to succumb to sleepiness. Her naps are so variable, often in the morning she will dose off after a feed for a 15 min power nap, then either her lunchtime or afternoon nap will be longer, maybe two hours but punctuated with a reasonable feed in the middle. The other nap ends up being a power nap also.

I think because of the teething naps have been worse, but I'm hoping now we've got some teething granules that seem to help, that she might have slightly longer naps eg 30-45 mins in one go. She has never slept a lot in the day, not since she was about a month old.

I could do with a couple of bedtimes at 8pm at the minute tbh so I may go to bed early tonight! Then try sneaking out when she drops off tomorrow evening. I'm feeding her to sleep for a nap upstairs now and am going to try sneaking by away, and if I can manage that try feeding until sleepy, then move away and shhh and pat..?

[Caspianberg]

Can you feed then go out the room? I feed 7 month old to sleep still, and then can pop him in his cot now. He usually sleeps 2-3 hrs before first wake up, and then either we repeat feeding to sleep and back in cot, or at some point in the early hours he joins us and co sleeps.

Like you I have often put him in cot then read in bed and get a early sleep myself due to all the night wakings. But recently I have put him to bed around 8-8.30pm, then leave the baby camera on and come back downstairs for an hour or two if I’m not exhausted. At 5 months I still stayed in room I think as fell asleep myself soon after

[Caspianberg]

Oh meant to add, his overnight sleep is still a disaster. I tried not feeding but his crying was too distressing after a few minutes for me. But this does allow the odd few hours evening time

[twinklespells]

@Caspianberg how did you work from feeding to sleep to getting him into his cot? I think we are happy co sleeping for a bit longer but do want to have a proper plan.

I just did it!! Fed to sleep and I've snuck out and into the study which is the next room along! Don't have a baby monitor yet, will have to get on Amazon.

She's not fully on her back, she's kind of partly on her side. Does she have to be completely on her back to meet SIDS guidance..?

Photo of peaceful sleeping baby whilst it lasts

[sarahc336]

Yeah I think being in her cot in a dark and quiet room is what she needs now. Plus I always found that earlier mine woke up the earlier bedtime was so when my dd routine was more like wake at 9am and bed at 9 pm I started to wake her at 7am and her bed time then shifted forward naturally. My dd is a natural night owl so I need to still make sure she's up earlish even now and she's now nearly 4. Maybe your little one is starting to form her own natural wake/sleep cycles and she's showing a preference for up later in bed later too x

[lcdododo]

She may yell a bit...she may not...the trick is not to get her out unless she's wet or needs feeding again.

Oh that makes me sad.
There's no trick there, just neglect

[Caspianberg]

@twinklespells - no idea if it’s helped but two things we now do.

1. jellycat cordy Roy comforters. Bought two, and gave to him at every nap time. After 6 months we now give at bedtime. He sucks the arms to sleep. We take out cot when he’s fallen asleep. He’s never liked dummies, but does these.
   
   
2. daytime naps are now in pram. Push him around house if needed ( or outside), with comforter. He usually falls asleep in 5 mins. No crying. So he isn’t now fed to sleep naptimes
   
   Like I said. It’s not miracles as he still wakes several times overnight and is generally fed back to sleep then. But day naps now pretty easy, even though they vary from 30-90 mins ( he has 2-3 per day depending on length).
   
   The comforters have been the best ££ spent for us though, as now dh can easily get baby to nap daytime without me
   
   I think he’s genuinely still hungry nighttime though as feeds a long 10mins at a time then mainly straight back to snooze, so I could t leave him to just cry