To decide when bedtime is for my baby?

[BedtimeDebate]

NC for this because my husband is amazing, but he’s annoying me so don’t want him to seem like a twat if my other posts become outing.

We have a 5, nearly 6 month old. I EBF so I do all night time wake ups (which I have no objections to, it’s my choice by EBF). DS wakes 3-4 times a night, more during the regression that we’re starting to come out of. I also put him to bed every night because I breastfeed right before putting him down.

DS goes to sleep at around 9 to 9.30pm for 11 to 12 hours a night. If he’s had a late nap, then it’s closer to 9.30pm, if it’s earlier or a short one, then it’s more like 9pm but earlier if he’s tired.

That bedtime works for me because it means we wake up around 8 to 9am in the morning. I also go to bed around midnight, sometimes later so I can have some me time after my husband goes to bed.

DH thinks it’s too late and he should be going to bed at 8pm. He has no reason for that, just says DS needs to go to bed earlier.

My position is I do bed time, I do all night feeds, so I don’t want to be waking up at 7 to 8am. I do all the work, so I should decide. Obviously when DS starts nursery when I go back to work, it will come forward, but for now, it works for us both.

AIBU for taking that approach?

Before anyone asks, we share lie ins on weekends (I have one on Saturdays and DH has Sundays), so I do try and get some sleep rest then. He is also more hands on during the weekend, but less so on weekday evenings, but if I need him to do something, he will do it without complaint.

@Nettleskeins

Notmycat...if you wake at 9am, you aren't up dressed and "functioning" until at least 10. Especially with a baby. And yes, by then the day as opposed to night is considerably "shorter". It's circadian rhythms surely that make us naturally rise earlier than 9, sunlight and all that jazz.

I don't naturally wake up before then. I would rather be up late than up early and that's my natural rhythm It really really doesn't matter if you're not functioning until 10am, or if you are at 6am Everyone is different

Fwiw, my babies went to bed at 7 pm at 6 months and slept till 8am, with usually two night wakings. I do not call that at the crack of dawn. The advantage of a 7pm bedtime is that you actually have two hours of uni terrupted downtime before heading to bed yourself. I co slept with one baby or other (3 under 2) in the night so I needed a "quiet" stretch. Their sleep patterns continued to be perfectly reasonable (waking once or twice until toddlers)and I never had a 6am pattern emerging . I think that a calm early-ish bedtime did contribute to better nights. Quite frankly I had no desire to go out in eves once I had three.

Depends how much you value “adult time” in the evenings. Dh and I enjoy that and both of us value it, so we did a 7-7 routine with ds.

I regularly had 2 hours to myself at the time that suited me when DD went to bed. I wouldn’t go to bed at 9pm unless exceptionally ill. So no advantage with a 7pm bedtime for owls like me.

We had the same times with my DD and those lie ins were bliss, but at about 9-13 month it started getting earlier and earlier, she's 18 month now and is in ready for bed at 5.30-6pm and up at 7.30-8am. It'll change eventually, theres no rush and at 6m your baby won't be doing much anyway.

@MissyB1

Depends how much you value “adult time” in the evenings. Dh and I enjoy that and both of us value it, so we did a 7-7 routine with ds.

Why do you think you don’t get adult time if your kids aren’t in bed 7-7? Have you never been abroad?

DH and I are rarely in bed before 1am, and that’s only because one of us needs to do the school run. DD tends to go to bed around 10pm on a school night these days so that’s 3 hours of adult time. We don’t need her up before 8am, so struggling to see the benefit of an earlier bedtime for any of us.

@Wheresmrpenguin

We had the same times with my DD and those lie ins were bliss, but at about 9-13 month it started getting earlier and earlier, she's 18 month now and is in ready for bed at 5.30-6pm and up at 7.30-8am. It'll change eventually, theres no rush and at 6m your baby won't be doing much anyway.

Not necessarily. DD has never gone to bed before 8:30/9pm even when she started school at 3. She’s now almost 11 and still an owl.

The advantage of a 7pm bedtime is that you actually have two hours of uni terrupted downtime before heading to bed yourself

@Nettleskeins We still have that with a 9pm bedtime. DS goes down at 9pm, DH and I go to bed at around midnight, and sometimes I stay up a bit later. We have exactly what you suggest, just pushed back a couple of hours.

@MissyB1

Depends how much you value “adult time” in the evenings. Dh and I enjoy that and both of us value it, so we did a 7-7 routine with ds.

We still have adult time. We chill on the sofa together, we might watch a film and we still have sex, all in that time between 9pm and our bed time. Neither DH or I are people who go to bed early.

So your dh works till 730 and thinks ds should be in bed for 8pm? That really is setting it up so he does nothing and is just presented with a clean and dressed baby to kiss good night isn't it... rather 50s? Maybe thats why he can't say why as he knows this wouldn't look good on him.

I think you have to stick with what works for you especially as it is you it appears who is dealing with all the consequence!

Why on earth would it be the best part if the day being awake first thing with a baby ..bizarre.

Far better the baby fits with your own sleep pattern instead of the English culture if baby asleep at 7 and awake st 5am leaving parents exhausted

You wilfully misunderstand the principle...7pm bedtime only finished by 730ish...what with tidying settling etc ..then supper takes an hour to cook and eat...THEN it's 2 hours downtime...which takes us to 1030 bedtime lights out at 11pm..dream feed at same time for baby..baby then wakes at 2or 3pm or stretches it then up for good at 8am...whereas in your scenario baby eats supper with you (fine but can become an increasingly demanding combo) and wakes you three or four times. I know which I prefer

@Nettleskeins But it’s not a competition...your timings and you way work with your lifestyle, your baby and your body clock. Mine works with mine. Why does one way have to be better than the other?

@Nettleskeins Also, I don’t “wilfully misunderstand the principle”. Everyone else who commented on your post said the same thing - no one wants to go to bed at 9pm, so your post wasn’t clear at all as this is the first time you’ve explained it. But again, doing things in that way works for you, but it doesn’t work for everyone, so why be so judgmental?

I find eating separately to children weird as well. A) you spend longer cooking/clearing up, B) you miss the opportunity for them to try new things and follow your lead and C) it’s nice to spend family time together over food.

Continental parenting makes waaaaay more sense to me than British “Victorian throw-back” parenting.

Do what works for you, OP.

I didn’t realise that those with children who go to bed later and sleep later might be looking down on those of us whose children go to bed earlier. Mine have to get up at 6.15am so that we can leave for nursery/work at 7am, so they are correspondingly sleepy by 7.30pm and that’s when I put them to bed (after we have cooked and eaten a meal together, another virtue point for us?). Before I went back to work after maternity leave, we didn’t get up quite so early, though my eldest still went for a good 18 months on 8.45pm to 4.45am, despite people telling me that later bedtimes would fix early wakings!

I’ve never made any judgement about parents and children for whom later bedtimes work better, but clearly a few think we are losers for not being able to stay late at parties because our children are getting sleepy! Oh well, I’ll cope with that. We have access to babysitters in the meantime fortunately.

@waterrat

Far better the baby fits with your own sleep pattern instead of the English culture if baby asleep at 7 and awake st 5am leaving parents exhausted

Mine were 7-7, and actually we have to be up at 6 anyway for our jobs. Not everyone can work from home or stroll in at 9am.

The funny thing is I am an early riser myself, I love getting up early in the morning if I can have that time to myself. So I suppose it’s not surprising that one of my children also woke earlier. But I would happily put them to bed later if it worked out that they could sleep later and I could have a peaceful early wake up by myself! But it doesn’t, what with working hours and my children’s natural sleep patterns and so on

@DicklessWonder if you’re happy and confident in your choice then there’s no need to be so aggressive about it. Just chill. It’s a baby’s bedtime not a reason for an extended argument with strangers on the internet!

I think in this situation you have final say . My firstborn had a late bedtime like that too but as he got closer to one he started dropping a nap and his bedtime gradually moved up to 7.