Am I the only person whose kid doesn't sleep in the evening? <wail>

[CUNextTuesday]

DS is now 14 weeks, but he has never slept in the evening. He's dozed and snoozed after a feed, but try to move him and he's awake and bright-eyed in seconds. I've not been much bothered by this - I'm BF all day up until the very last feed at 10.30pm - as we just lig about in the evening and it's not really been an issue. DS will just loll all over me and doze. Up until relatively recently he was cluster-feeding like a good'un all evening so it was convenient I suppose.

He has a bottle or formula at 10.30pm and this will send him off and he will sleep in the cot until somewhere between 4 and 5am, when we start the BF day all over again.

Reading on here it seems that most people who have babies this age put them down about 8pm and then feed at, say, 11pm etc through the night. Am I on my own in having a baby that is not interested in being put down to sleep in the evening, not even upstairs, but in the moses basket downstairs? I'll be honest it doesn't really fuss me as such but I'm conscious tht I'm not getting him into an evening-sleeping routine and am concerned this may have ramifications in the future.

Should I try and establish a sleep in the evening? And if so how? If I put him down he creates masively and is wide awake. Nothing will entice him to sleep!

Perhaps this should have gone in 'Sleep'. duh

According to at least one sleep book, an early bedtime develops in most babies by around 3-4 months, more like 5 months + for some babies (especially those who had colic). I think some babies do just like to go to bed later than the average too.

I'd go with the flow to be honest. If a baby doesn't want to go to bed for the night, there's not a lot you can do IMO. (I had a similar issue with DS who would feed to sleep at bedtime but no other time - and it took a while for bedtime to become earlier).

What I would do is try not to keep him awake for too long at once - at that age I think my DS could do about an hour and a half awake before needing another sleep. If they're awake for too long then they get overtired and hyper, and find it much harder to go to sleep.

Other than that, enjoy your lying around in the evening. :)

I have only just in the last week or so managed to get DD2 (14 weeks) up into bed on her own and it has only been a few times (she is asleep on my lap as I type after having had a very unsettled few hours and mammoth feed). Until last week I could have written a similar post.

I have decided not to worry about it and that she will sleep in the evening eventually. When I think about the lost hours of my life spent trying to make DD1 sleep in the evenings I could cry. Having a baby on my lap while I watch TV/mumsnet seems a lot easier and I'm just going to keep gently trying to see if she'll settle upstairs but not worry if she doesn't.

He doesn't self settle during the day either really. Only feeding, being in the pram or car will send him off. I'm a bit worried now!

CU, you are not alone - DS doesn't sleep at any routine at ALL during the day when he's here. He'll sleep maybe an hour and a half in the morning, and maybe 45 mins to an hour in the afternoon - but I've no way of knowing when,and it's always after a feed or in his carrier (pushchair/carseat don't work).

He goes to bed when we do, 9.30-10pm. He does sometimes catnap after a clusterfeeding session, eg around 7-8pm, but is always awake and chatty while we're trying to go to bed, and I feed him to sleep after 9pm....

so no, you're not alone! He doesn't get overtired though, and sometimes in the day I've tried to make all the circumstances amenable to a nap (low lights, little activity) only for him to get bored and cross.
Mum says I never slept as much as my siblings and that I deserve an active baby. I think she was smiling as she said it.... at least I hope so!

oh blackcurrants that's v reassuring, thanks. It's nice to know I'm not the only one!

nope, not alone - my 11 week old ds won't go to sleep before 1am. i can take him to bed at whatever time but he won't settle before then. on the plus side at least i don't have to get up till 9 or 10am!

have never understood when people say babies need sleep \after 1.5 hours awake. my ds is still wide awake, he woke up from last sleep at 5.30pm, so 6 hrs ago. he has freqently been awake for 9-10 hours in a row!

Me too. Dd2 occasionally catnaps for 15-20 mins but never sleeps for longer unless we're out in the pram. Even then 45 mins is her limit. My ds was the same, although dd1 was a great sleeper. I haven't done anything different so it's just them. Occasionally I get her to sleep about 9.30 so can sneak away and have some time with dh but most nghts I'm just collapsing with her after 10 (we cosleep but again dd1 slept on her own for the first part of the night coming in with us after midnight). Apparently dh never slept so it does seem to be something that's in some babies. But it's not forever. It feels like it sometimes though!

It took till 7 months to get a predictable daytime sleep routine for my DS.

I wish I'd not spent so many hours when DS was little trying to get him to self-settle or do what he 'should'. At 9 months he needs to be rocked to sleep, but that's fine by me now.

Woodlands, most little babies do need to sleep after around an hour and a half. My DS would often be up for much, much longer but that was because he'd passed into the hyperactive overtired mode which then makes it harder for them to go to sleep. He would only sleep in a sling at that age, though - not in pram or car or being fed or rocked to sleep.

As awake time goes on, levels of cortisol (stress hormone) build up in the body and they need a nap to reduce those levels. If they don't sleep, the body produces adrenaline to counteract the effect of the cortisol, which then makes it difficult for them to go to sleep, and means they simply can't stay asleep for very long because they're so 'wired'.

Different babies respond differently to overtiredness IME - at different ages, DS's overtiredness has shown itself as zombie-like quietness / super-cheerful active awakeness / screaming his head off. That was why I found the 1.5 hours thing so helpful as you simply couldn' tell by watching him.

I'm sure there are likely to be exceptions to the 1.5 hours, though, so I'm not saying it's necessarily true for your DS, Woodlands. :)

Babies who have colic have much more irregular daytime sleep than other babies.

Oh, and short naps are normal - newborns often only sleep 20-30 mins at a time, and lots of babies only do 30-40 min naps until around 5 months (or even till much, much later) - my DS was one of those too. 'Tis normal although frustrating.

At 14 weeks I'd be pretty happy with DS sleeping between 10.30 and 5 am. I have extremely low standards though after DS1 who often went to bed about 6.30pm, slept until about 10.30pm and then would feed the entire rest of the night.

DS2 is due next week and I am definately going to go with the flow a bit more. If you can cope with the amount of sleep you're getting, don't worry about routines etc. The only reason to force a change is if you are at the end of your tether.

Don't worry about self-settling either just yet. You can encourage it slowly over time. If you haven't read it already, the No Cry Sleep Solution is good to read whilst your baby is young. I read it when DS1 was 14mo and wish I'd found it sooner. 14 weeks is tiny though so no rush, especially when you're getting a 6-ish hour sleep in!

angeldog i wonder if i should count it as a nap when he has a sleepy feed? he often feeds with his eyes closed which then turns into a comfort suck for a while, which is fine unless there's somewhere we have to be. he's probably dozing then. he really doesn't seem to get particularly grizzly with tiredness very often.

My 12 week old is the same. Cluster feeds from about 6 until 9 and then goes to sleep. Won't settle until 9 in his cot so just leave him on my knee - or nipple!- until 9.

I do have to watch him though. If I miss the 9 pm window he gets too awake and is then hard to settle.

I would love to get him to bed around 7 but accept it may be a while.

your routine sounds fine to me! DD2 (15 weeks) started off cluster feeding all evening then collapsing at 10 and sleeping til 4, which i thought was great. She then went through a few weeks of sleeping from 8-12 but then feeding all night, that wasn't so good.

The last few nights she has fed on and off all evening and fallen asleep at 10, but then woken up around 12.30 and fed all night in bed with me. I'm exhausted!

If you're getting a block of 6 hours sleep, don't knock it!

nope, mine is the same (I think we spoke on another thread!). My baby is getting into a sort of routine - better in the monrnings than at night. a typical day will go:
7:30 - feed
9:30/10 - wake up and feed
11:30 - 12:15 Nap
2 - 3 Nap
Then it all gets a bit blurry with awake/napping/feeding/crying/playing until about 11pm, although it can be any time until one particularly bad night 1am, until she goes to sleep! she usually wakes at about 5:30 for a feed, but I'm quite happy with the 6 hours-ish she is sleeping through. It would be nice to shift the whole thing back a bit, so she goes to sleep at 8pmish and woke up at 8am-ish, but I also enjoy the lie ins!
Recently, she has had one or two days where she has had naps starting at 8pm, so i am hoping she is getting sleepier in the evenings, but it could have just been a growth spurt!

My NCt friends said their babies just suddenly started going to sleep earlier, so there is hope.

My DD (15 weeks) sleeps for no more than 15 minutes at any one time in the day and evening, and then only 3 or 4 times max (unless in the car). You can set your watch by her. She goes down for the night no earlier than 11pm except on very rare occasions. She then wakes around 2 and again around 5 after which she rarely settles again until 11pm the next evening.

Woodlands, that does indeed sound like a nap. If you can let her stay asleep for 30-40 mins (if she'll sleep that long!) then it will do her lots of good. If you want to put him down, swaddling before the feed and waiting 15-20 mins after his eyes close may help.

gaelicsheep, that sounds truly horrible. I'm sure you've tried everything, but have you tried a sling? Many poor sleepers will drop off when taken for a walk in a sling at the time they're getting drowsy, even if nothing else works. It can take a few attempts for them to get used to it, mind.

DD is 8 months and used to be pretty similar - I'd do the last BF at 10:30/11 pm in order to have a block of sleep until 3 or 4 am at that age.

She wouldn't sleep in the evening either and was generally awake from 4 pm until then. I have a fisher price baby swing and on the (very) odd occasion when she dozed on a feed in the evening I could put her in the swing and she might nap for half an hour.

Gradually I changed it to a 9 pm feed as she took to waking at 2 am during her 4 month sleep explosion and then it sat at 8:30 pm for a couple of months. At about 6.5 months she was getting very tired and ratty in the evenings so I changed bed time to 7:30 pm and now she sleeps like a trooper until between 5 and 6 am.

It did take a while but we finally got there when I never thought we would and now I actually get to spend some time with DH in the evening :).

Hi angeldog - yes it's horrible! Yes, I've tried a sling. She used to drop off, but now she cries when I put her in there. I've tried facing me and facing out. I've also tried a ring sling but she hates that. PLUS I cannot get things done while wearing a sling as it's awkward to bend down, can't cook, iron, etc. It's not really working. And even if she did drop off, she'd wake up the moment I stop moving!

On the up side though, the last two nights she's gone about 5 hours so I'm thinking she might have been going through a growth spurt. Fingers crossed for tonight!

mine slept well enough in the day but didn't sleep until we all went to bed to watch vids at 10.30 ish. gradually they both dialled it back. don't worry.

Thank God DH is at home much of time and we can do shifts with her. Otherwise I would most certainly have gone mad, what with DS to look after as well.

DS1 was just like this- didn't sleep in the evening until he was about 10 months. I now really regret the hours I wasted lying in a darkened room, bored senseless, trying to get him to sleep.
With DS2 I was determined to do things differently and go with the flow a lot more. However, he settled into needing to go to bed early from about 12 weeks, and gets quite wound up if kept downstairs to doze on a lap. I should have had them the other way round!

Mine has only just started going to sleep at about 8pm now. she starts getting tired from about 5:30, and will drop off to sleep about 7:30/8. she then wakes every 50 minutes (I think this must be the length of her sleep cycle) for a feed until about 11pm, when she sleeps through until about 2/3am and then again at 5am.

It is quite a novelty to be able to have a bath/watch telly without the baby present. and the dog got an extra long pat and hug from mummy and Daddy last night - a novelty for her recently!

For me, I realised I wasn't very good at recognising her sleep signals earlier in the evening, and she was getting very overtired and screaming at about 11pm becuase we had not put her to sleep (as it were!) earlier.

I have also started a little routine at about 7:30pm - i'll feed her upstairs in a dark room and put her into her sleeping bag to signal bedtime (nice and simple!).

CUnextTuesday Charming little update for you, from our sleepless home: DS's cold has almost gone but has left him with a 40-a-day cough which usually erupts about ten minutes into a feed. That's the point when, at night, I've just about started to doze off. Cue waking up in a complete panic as he sounds like he's choking/dying/erupting.

THEN he never quite latches back on properly and gets very cross and razors off my nipple, before falling asleep.

Every 2 hours. All week. And I'm about to go to work.
I am a Zombie. A grumpy, grumpy Zombie. In the middle of the night DS cried for a feed and I felt "oh, bugger off" - and then realised I'm a horrible person cos he's only 10 weeks old, and was hungry and uncomfortable in the dark. . . But I'm so tired! Anyway, here we are, and here we stay. At 6 weeks he was sleeping longer between feeds and my nipples werent sore and I thought - yes! cracked BFing! Now I feel like I did when he was a week old, only tireder. I'm going to EBF till 12 weeks, and then reconsider. It might be that DH doing a nighttime bottle of EBM or formula (say, the midnight feed) will give me the 4 hour block of sleep I need, and I can take over from there. I've got to have a plan to get through this, it's too hard at the moment. Just too hard.

Oh god this has become a big old whine. Sorry! All I meant to ask was how're you doing.
I think it's got on top of me this morning!

gaelic, glad you had a bit better night. How annoying about the sling. My DS doesn't stay asleep in the sling now either, except when moving, but that happened when he was quite a bit older.

blackcurrants, :( Hope it improves soon.