How to change a babies bedtime

[snowghost]

Morning All,

First time poster here in need of a little of advice.

Our DD will be 15 weeks next Tuesday and while she's a great sleeper at night - 9pm until 9am with one feed around 6am, we want to move her bedtime to 7/7.30pm. The issue is we are unsure the best approach and are looking for peoples experiences.

• Do we change it in 15 minute increments?
• Change in one go?
• Change her wake up time to 7am and see if she's tired earlier?

I appreciate this will take some time for her to get used to her new bedtime.

She's a terrible napper but will sleep in the pram/car. She will nap anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and few times a day. Trying to get her to nap in her cot is a battle of wills! She can be a complete grump between 4.30pm and 6pm unless she's out in the pram napping.

We should be enjoying our daughter but as she's our first we are so worried we'll do wrong by her and make matters worse.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you

I would do it a bit at a time. Move wake up and bedtime together - no baby is going to sleep 7-9 (unless they are a champion sleeper). I'd put her to bed at 8.45 as the starting point, then wake her up 15 minutes earlier. Then leave for a day or two. Then move again.

Do bear in mind that some children are just built this way though. A friend of mine's son never went to bed before 9 until he was about 3, and she wasn't prepared to use cc to achieve a change. They are both night owls so she assumed it was inbuilt.

Oh, and try not to worry. Babies are remarkably hard to break as long as you feed, change and cuddle them

Thank you.

Ideally we would like her to sleep from 7pm to 7am for when I eventually go back to work. CC is something that we would look to do but I have concerns that it might make things worse and she will start to resist going to bed as she will associate it with crying. Just now we put her down awake and she puts herself to sleep with no issues. We are very lucky with this

From memory (they are nearly 4) we just went for it, and put up with really grumpy girls at 6pm! Dancing round to music for this grumpy stage really helped as did a good bath/milk/bed routine. I do remember it taking a while to get them used to napping in their cots, just persevere. I think the advice was put them down for a nap about 2 hours after getting up? I seem to remember 9.30ish for us. Someone with more recent experience may be of more help...Good luck

I would agree that CC is unlikely to be the best route here OP. It isn't recommended under six moths generally anyway, but it's really for teaching a baby who can't sleep alone how to do that. If they have that skill, then obviously something else is going on and I'd think there's a significant chance that, if you don't fix the 'something' CC is just going to result in lots of upset and not much in the way of results.

Let us know how you get on. The good thing about doing it in tiny steps is you can go really gently and she may not even notice

Yes, move her bedtime and wake up time 15 minutes a day until you reach the time you want her to go to bed. Then with naps, it becomes easier as they get older to get more of a routine and I think most people make it up as they go along until 6-12 months when it's good to have something like 3 naps- morning, after lunch and at about 4pm, then you go to 2 naps at about 9-12 months, 10am and 2pm and then just one at 12-18 months at about 12/1pm, after lunch. This last nap lasts until they are 2/3 or 4 if you are lucky .

Yes, don't do CC with a young baby, not advised, but you can do a similar more gentle process of "I am determined you are going to go to bed thing". I did this at 11/12 weeks with DD who I wanted to go down at 7.00 with DS. It took about 3/4 days, I just kept putting her down and then soothing if she was unsettled and returning to cot, but keeping the soothing shortish. I was in the room the whole time and she never cried for very long. Was bliss once she got into the routine and we would get our evenings as grown up time.

She is 15 weeks old! Please don't use cc with a baby this young!

I'd say if it ain't broke, don't mess with it, but my DS is 18months old and doesn't sleep for longer than 4 hours in a stretch at night so I have no pearls of wisdom :)

You are very lucky to have a baby that sleeps for 12 hours at 15 weeks.

My suggestion is change this with caution, try a waking a little bit earlier.

BUT be ready for a massive change to sleeping patterns, at no notice at any time. So a cold, teething, growth spurt or just the unpredictable ness of babies could change this anytime. 15 weeks is too young for any set patterns I'm afraid. Although you could be just very very lucky.

Oh and be nice to your sleep deprived friends, I was one of them once, DC 2 didn't sleep for 7 hours in any one night until 7 months.

Agreed Mummytime. They lull you into a false sense of security don't they? Four month sleep regression hit us full in the face both times. DD2 was about 20 months before she started sleeping through (and *Pottering- she was up every 2-3 hours before that, so maybe you are just about to come out the tunnel . Fingers crossed).

Ooh, amanda I hope so, I'm knackered! :)

OP - google the four month sleep regression and hold off anything you do until after that.

Fingers crossed, went from up three times to not waking until about 5am suddenly over a week or two. Nothing I did.

I'm not sure exactly what has happened but she's gone from a 9pm bedtime to a 7.30pm in 2 and a half weeks without really trying. Just looked out for all the signs and gave it a shot and it worked She's waking up 6/7am for a fed and is then back down until 9/10am.

She's also started napping really well in her cot bed. It's amazing what going with your gut instinct can do

I think I'll just enjoy it while it lasts!