What time should my 11 week old DD be going to bed? Please help!!

[legallyblonde84]

I'd be grateful for some advice please! My DD is 11 weeks old and for the last few weeks I thought we had a good little routine going- she would go down at about 11-12pm (late I know but evening was her awake time) and then she would sleep unti 5am, have a bottle and then go back to sleep for another few hours. However this week she has turned it around. She wants to cat nap in the early evening, only for half an hour max at a time, then goes down at about 11-12 as usual but is then up a around 2.30, 5.00 and then 6.00. Last night I tried putting her down after her bath and early evening bottle and only going in to settle her when she really started crying (as opposed to whingeing) but it was still after 11 before she gave in and went to sleep. And had another bottle in the meantime. It is now 7.15pm and she has fallen asleep in her bouncer and I don't know whether I should lift her out and take her upstairs to bed? Will her sleeping a lot in the early evening stop her sleeping through the night? I have no problems with her getting up in the small hours for a bottle (although it would be lovely if she slept right through) but I have no idea whether I should be implementing the bath, bottle, story and bed at 7.30 routine every night even when she is wide awake or whether she is stil too young for that and to just go with it and put her down upstairs after her last bottle at about 10.30 which would mean her going to sleep at about 11-12. Sorry for long rambling post but I'm a first time mum and not sure what I should be doing. Any advice anyone has would be gratefully received.

Google four month sleep regression.

What you are describing is completely normal!

She has exactly the same schedule as my 10 week old. I normally try to keep him awake in the early evening so he tires himself out but to be honest he just does what he wants to do. I think it's a bit early to be introducing a routine at 10-11 weeks old, try not to worry about what you should or shouldn't be doing.

I'm also a first time mum so still finding my feet with it, but I've read that by 12 weeks they should start sleeping for a bit longer at night so my personal plan is to introduce a routine once he's only waking once or twice, rather than three or four times.

I'm sorry but there aren't any easy answers, you just have to go with it and see what suits your baby. And it sounds like you are doing fine. See what works and what doesn't - no one answer or schedule will suit every baby. They are all different! Right now, you are the expert on your baby and only you know what suits her.

FWIW, my DD had a v late bed time for ages, until she was at least six months or so. I went back to work then, so we had to gradually bring her bedtime forward until she was going to sleep at 9ish and waking at 8 to fit in with my work hours. If she is happy in the bouncer, I'd leave her and take her up when you go to bed yourself if I were you. If you have a Moses basket, you could bring it down and let her sleep beside you in the evenings - this may be more comforting for her than being in a different room as she can hear the noises of you breathing etc even if you're just chilling out with a cup of tea beside her. I let my DD sleep on my lap while I watched TV or read in the early months. It was way easier than running up the stairs if she woke up and wanted milk! Trust your instincts. I also think this is a bit early for a real bedtime routine, but you could decide for yourself when it suits you to have your DD upstairs dependent on her patterns of sleeping and waking and perhaps do a little version of it now.

My dd went to bed really late too in the evenings until she was about 7 or 8 months (she only started sleeping through at about 11 or 1 months!).
We started to put her down about 9 or 10ish to bring bedtime forward a bit, but she still always had an evening nap until about 5 or 6pm. It worked for us!
Lots of babies don't do the 7pm-7am sleep routine, so my baby group friends and I have just muddled along with what suits our routines.

DD used to go to bed when we did in the first few weeks (10-11pm) from about 11 weeks she started to bring her own bed time forward and we started a routine of bath at 7pm then bottle and bed at about 8pm from 14 weeks she started to randomly sleep through and has done consistently from 16 weeks. At about 7months (when she started crawling) she brought bedtime forward again so now has bath at 6 bed and bottle at 7pm. I would follow her lead and I'm sure a routine will start to emerge soon