Sleeping routine

[SweetPeaPods]

Can anyone help me with my ds and sleep? Sorry it might be long!
He is 7m and generally a good sleeper, no night feeds and naps are getting better in the day.
The big issue we are having is bed time. He used to sleep 7-5 or 7-7 which was great, but then he started waking up after 40-50 mins of sleep. He wakes up wide awake and wants to play. Sometimes he is not even going to sleep at 7, but still awake at 9, sometimes 11pm. I'm exhausted!
We try to have a set dinner time, bath time etc. we do bath, bit of baby massage, read a book, then bottle. He sometimes falls asleep ok the bottle but HV suggested we try to avoid that. I do need to get him used to going in the cot awake and self soothing if he doesn't want to go to sleep straight away but I'm not keen on going down the cc route.
What is your routine? What works well for you? Any advice welcome

My daughter has never slept through the night (12 months now) but she did seem to have a sleep regression at about 9 months similar to what you describe.

We have tried the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley which has helped us get a routine and result that works for us. It is anti CC/CIO and based on an understanding of babies natural circadian rhythm and sleep requirements.

Our routine now looks like this:

• Dinner
• Play
• Bath
• Massage
• In the Night Garden and cuddles in darkened lounge (this replaced bedtime story as she loves books so much that she gets too overexcited)
• Lay in bed and have milk and a cuddle
• Sleep

We lay with her until she's asleep but that was our choice and the book includes methods for moving away from that sleep association.

That book definitely looks worth a try. I'm really keen to be able to put him in cot awake for either nap or bed time and he will get him self to sleep but I have no idea what age is 'normal' for this to happen?