'Routines', bedtime, getting up & changing clocks

[AngelDog]

12 week old DS has decided that 8pm GMT (now 9pm) is bedtime. He has to have a nap immediately beforehand, and will then wake up, have a sleepy feed and drop more or less straight off to sleep.

If I try to do bedtime any earlier, he thinks it's still daytime and won't go to sleep, even though we're in the same dark bedroom etc as we would have at the usual time. During the day he will only sleep in the sling, so if he thinks it's daytime, I've got no chance of getting him down in his carry cot for the night, and I'm desperate keen to keep that day/night distinction in his mind so I don't have to get into the habit of using the sling at night.

He also sets his own getting up time at the moment - he has a couple of feeds in the night, and his last sleep is always exactly 45 minutes after he last went back to sleep.

I'm keen to try to shuffle his bedtime earlier if I can now that the clocks have changed. Obviously I can wake him up from his last nap a bit before 9pm on a gradual basis. But is it worth trying to wake him up in the mornings at a set time (earlier?), or should I just let him get on with it and work with his system?

Unfortunately I have no other strategies that work for getting him to sleep other than feeding him to sleep when he thinks it's night, or using the sling when he thinks it's day.

[thisisyesterday]

i would go with it tbh, it'll creep earlier and earlier in my experience

otherwise, if you're really desperate to change it then try and get him to nap earlier in the day, and then put him to bed at 8

[AngelDog]

Thanks, thisisyesterday. He's had an unsettled couple of days lately, wanting to sleep more than usual and even occasionally being prepared to feed to sleep sometimes during the day, so I've managed 2 days of getting him down earlier. Let's hope it will continue!