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Original poster

I miss my evenings :-(

131 replies

Mississippilessly · 22/11/2018 18:32

We have a 10 week old DS. Currently he is napping in his sling, we are in the bedroom in the dark.

Up until this week we have been following the rule of no longer than 90 mins awake between naps and then letting him nap for as long as he likes. This has dictated bedtime and we have had a couple.of evenings where he has napped until 9pm or so. He will usually nap for about 2.5 hrs at a time (only ever in the sling) This hasn't always worked and he still doesnt usually get the 15.5 hrs he apparently should get. I try so hard to get him that.

This week we are trying to get him to bed earlier to try and stretch his nighttime sleep.It has been 9pm for the past 2 nights. This has meant dinner on the bed on the dark then straight to sleep for DH and I.

Today he has napped for about 6hrs. He is asleep now, has been for an hr. This is longer than they say he should be asleep for in the day.

Do I wake him up? If i let him sleep i could watch a tv programme in peace but i wonder if he would go longer at night if he had fewer naps.

My head hurts. I so want to be able to put him to bed and then just have a tiny bit of baby free time. But I am also scared of waking him - it seems wrong.

Help! I have no instinct here!

TLDR: Would you wake a baby up?!

OP posts:
costacoffeecup · 22/11/2018 18:37

I'm trying to remember what I did. I don't think I ever woke up a sleeping baby so I probably wouldn't. We split sleeping in the first weeks/months so I would go to bed at 8 and wake up at 1/2 and take over so we both got at least a 4/5 hr decent chunk of sleep So yeah, no evenings for a while!

Doje · 22/11/2018 18:37

Let him sleep, but don't confine yourself to a darkened bedroom!

Let him sleep in the living room in his moses basket or similar. Keep the lights down low, but telly volume can be normal. Babies sleep through anything.

JudasPrudy · 22/11/2018 18:39

No I wouldn't wake him. I would, if I were you, read Sarah Ockwell Smyths 'Gentle Sleep Book.' Try to stop stressing about how much sleep your baby gets, some days they sleep for ages and some days they're up every hour crying - it's mostly developmental and there's not an awful lot you can do about it except sleep and eat when the baby sleeps. When my DS was 10 weeks I still had him in the Moses basket downstairs while I was watching TV in the evening and it meant I wasn't running up and down stairs to settle him, and he could snooze on me or DH if he needed a cuddle.

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DonnaDarko · 22/11/2018 18:39

I don't understand why you're having dinner on the bed, in the dark.

Day time naps, in a sling or Moses basket
Night time sleep - in his cot or Moses basket. For us, it was important to differentiate the two. Never had any sleep problems with DS. We also could just have been really lucky.

RedDeadRoach · 22/11/2018 18:40

When does his last nap before bedtime end? I think that the danger of being regimented about it is that when their routine naturally changes because they start to need less sleep, it can cause problems if you're still sticking to the old routine.

BlueMoon33 · 22/11/2018 18:41

It will get earlier really soon don’t worry, my baby went from 4am bed time, to 11pm bedtime to 9pm bedtime then from about 4months old it’s been 7.30.

I found at about 12weeks old my baby started waking up to the world and getting curious more through the day

userabcname · 22/11/2018 18:41

Yeah we got through quite a few bits on Netflix in the early days-just put DS in his bounce chair or buggy while we watched, then took him up when we went to bed. I have not ever woken DS from sleeping but that's mainly because he hardly ever slept! I'd just go down stairs and put the telly on with baby still in the sling - if he's deeply asleep he won't wake and if not then you can have some awake time before bed.

StarShapedWindow · 22/11/2018 18:46

I kept the DC with me at that age and if they fell asleep I put them down in their Moses baskets if I could which was in the living room. We kept the TV low and let them sleep as they dictated, I only woke my son once and he was very unhappy so I didn’t do it again.

When we went to bed I put the DC next to us in a cot and they went to bed when we did (although didn’t sleep when we wanted!)

Escolar · 22/11/2018 18:47

Personally I didn't wake my sleeping babies. But I did put them to sleep in a cot (with a monitor). Dinner in the dark on the bed sounds miserable!

SoyDora · 22/11/2018 18:47

He’s 10 weeks old! Just let him sleep when he wants to sleep.
We kept ours downstairs with us in the evenings until about 4 months. They would just sleep/cluster feed on and off. I could watch TV and we’d eat dinner.

Mossyhill · 22/11/2018 18:50

I think you are putting to much emphasis on how much sleep he should be getting.
We are all different, babies included. It’s only a guide.
With dd we just had her with us in the living room - naps included.
Then when we wanted to go to bed, she came with us.
As she got older (4.5 ish months) we put her down for naps in another room and started a loose routine for a bedtime.

InDubiousBattle · 22/11/2018 18:50

At 10 weeks I just let mine slept whenthey wanted to. We kept them both downstairs with us until they were 6 months though, why are you eating upstairs in the dark?

Original poster
Mississippilessly · 22/11/2018 18:59

Thanks all.

We.ended up eating in the dark because we had been doing bedtime from 7pm - he went down at 9 but i was so tired I knew I would just want to go to sleep. So one of us cooked while the other soothed. We dont have a monitor yet so disnt want to leave him.

Am I getting this all wrong?

OP posts:
NerrSnerr · 22/11/2018 19:01

Mine just slept on me or in Moses basket in the living room until we went to bed.

PotteringAlong · 22/11/2018 19:03

All 3 of mine just slept downstairs until we went to bed.

hiptobeasquare · 22/11/2018 19:07

Mine slept in the Moses basket downstairs until we went to bed.

JupiterDrops · 22/11/2018 19:07

I never ever woke mine up but he didn't sleep more than 30 minutes in one go until he was 6 months so I would have killed for eating dinner in the dark with a baby asleep rather than one screaming constantly day and night Grin

It's really hard though not having evenings suddenly, I totally feel your stress! I genuinely thought I'd never get any time back every again but it did get better gradually. For us it was nine months before we could put down at bedtime and have an evening but I hear we're the exception not the rule so fingers crossed!

SoyDora · 22/11/2018 19:08

Not doing it wrong but maybe overthinking and causing more stress for yourselves than necessary!

blackcat86 · 22/11/2018 19:11

I would leave him for now and start fresh tomorrow. I downloaded the little ones sleep programme which you can buy online for about £30. It has lots of info and a rough guide for the day. DD is 14 weeks. She wakes at 5:30/6:30, naps about every 2 hours including a slightly longer nap around lunchtime if I'm lucky (around 4hrs day napping in total), she feeds 3hrly during the day, has a bath around 5:30pm, a feed and is now asleep in her cot having gone down at 6:30pm. We have an angel care monitor so she's safely upstairs sleeping whilst we're downstairs eating dinner. If she stops moving for 20secs the alarm goes off to alert us so no need to be in the same room. She has white noise and a pitch dark room. I'll wake her at 10/11pm for a feed and she'll then sleep until morning.

Original poster
Mississippilessly · 22/11/2018 19:11

Thanks everyone.
I am downstairs with a G and T. We are leaving him to sleep.
I have spent tge afternoon with people who are doing 7-7 in the cot upstairs and I am doubting myself.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mississippilessly · 22/11/2018 19:15

Blackcat i wish i could manage that. But i would have to wake him from naps to only do 4hrs in the day.

Back to doubting myself again!

OP posts:
RedDeadRoach · 22/11/2018 19:17

It could be that his last nap before bedtime is ending too late. There's no hard and fast rule of how much sleep they should be getting during the day but if he slept until tea time then he is unlikely to then go back to sleep for the night at 7 p.m. it might be worth playing around with the timings of the naps during the day or wake him up earlier on his last nap. I did get to the point with mine where I had to wake them up from their naps because otherwise they would just sleep too much and then werent tired for bed until about 10 p.m.. It's all trial and error! At bedtime I would always cuddle them to sleep and then put them in their moses baskets in the living room with us.

Redcliff · 22/11/2018 19:18

At that age both my DS slept on the sofa next to me and we ate dinner and watched TV and would just take them with us when we went to bed. Just do what works for you and don't worry about what others are doing .

RonSwansonsMustacheComb · 22/11/2018 19:20

Google the article "Dear mama: You’re not doing it wrong, it’s just that hard", I read it ALOT in the first few months. It's not sleep related but just a reminder to cut yourself some slack.

Sleepwise, about 10 weeks we still let baby nap/sleep whenever she wanted but at 8/9pm we changed the environment. Put her in a fresh sleep suit, lights down very low, swaddled/sleeping bag, on a flat surface as much as possible (hard with a reflux baby). We slowly got some of our evenings back, don't despair.

Original poster
Mississippilessly · 22/11/2018 19:23

Reddead he cant go longer than about 90 mins before sleep (he gets very cranky!) so that is what dictates how close bedtime is..

OP posts: