earlier bedtime

[claremoss]

Hi,
I am a silly bugger as my 4month old was going to bed with no tears at quarter past 7 to be asleep by half past 7 and I decided that that was too late for her. I have since spent 2 weeks doing everything 15mins earlier and she bawls and bawls for up to 20 minutes to half an hour before falling asleep at quarter past. She is tired and grumpy in the evenings which is why I brought it forward. Should I go back to what it was or persevere? How can they get so upset about 15 mins?!

We gave our 6 month old baby a little cotton blanket that we use for covering his face and eyes and he loves it and goes to sleep much faster with it. We always make sure he can breathe and remove it once he is asleep.
Hope it helps,

Quarter past seven sounds like a reasonable bedtime to me. If that's when she wants to sleep and the new bedtime leads to tears, go back to what worked before. Look at daytime naps if she gets grumpy late in the day. Sometimes overtiredness is the problem.

her naps are 2 hours in the morning followed by 2 further 30-45 mins later in the day...not enough according to books.

Ignore the books. Well, take what is useful but don't worry if your baby doesn't follow them exactly. Follow her lead and your instincts as to what she needs. If you think she's tired (not just cos the books say) can you encourage a nap in car or buggy, even for a few days to see if it helps?

4 months is classic sleep regression or growth spurt time so it may be that she is tired and grumpier in evenings because of this. Or it could be that she would be taking longer to settle even if you followed the usual routine.

I would try returning to usual timings for bed, if she won't nap more then maybe encourage her to at least rest, we would put ds in bouncy chair by a window for a bit, not too much stimulation he could zone out. Or can you carry her round in a sling for a bit, that helped my ds with grumpy evenings.

Don't feel bad for trying, chalk it up to learning more about her ever changing needs. ..

You're not a silly bugger, you just tried something new - far too many people do the same thing over and over again and expect things to stay the same for ever!

Her naps are very close to standard length, but reversed. You could wake her up after 45 minutes (one sleep cycle) in the morning and then try to get her to take a longer afternoon nap. The short late-afternoon one is standard (ignore books, for the most part, btw).

To be perfectly honest, though, I doubt it's shifting her bedtime by 15 minutes earlier that's causing the issues - far more likely to be the 4 month growth spurt and developmental leap. At 16 weeks they generally start doing a whole bunch of stuff they weren't doing before, causing their parents to tear their hair out at what's changed and why. Things can be all over the place for some time until they settle down again at nine months.

So, she got grumpy at 620 so we had the bath 5 mins later than I have been trialing for 2 weeks, fed her at 640, in bed just before 7 and is not hysterical, just grizzling! Amazing what a difference 5 minutes makes? Who knows. Anyway, I really tried to keep things calm for the last hour and hopefully we will find our niche, 1905 and she is quietening down :o)