No bedtime routine... ADVICE NEEDED! 😫

[BeckiMJL]

My 7 month old has no bedtime routine at present. She has been really good from day one at going to sleep in the evenings, but suddenly she’s refusing to go down and ends up staying awake until 10/11. When she’s asleep, she sleeps right through but it takes ages to get her down. She’s currently in a sleepyhead as every time I put her in her cot, she wakes up again!
Any advice please??

lots of babies at this age are still waking in the night so at least when she goes to bed she’s sleeping through.
What are her naps like during the day?

Her naps are so varied too, food and bottle wise she's in a good routine. However sleep pattern is proving difficult, some days she'll have her nap in the morning and afternoon, while others she just has a long nap in the afternoon

I'd get into a day time routine too, something like a short nap two hours after she wakes up, then a longer nap after lunch, then 4 hours between waking from that and bedtime.

For example, up at 7am, nap 9-10, nap 1-3, bed at 7pm.

Keep the bedtime routine short and simple - bath, bottle, teeth, bed. Maybe play some gentle music as a sleep cue.

Thankyou, I've always worried about bathing her every night at her age as I've read it can make their skin dry? But at this stage I'd be happy to try it to get her sleep!

Exactly what the other poster said.
Daytime sleep is just as important and contributes to night time sleep.
My dd is 8 months and she just fell into her own routine

I would expect a 7 month old to be having 3 naps during the day. Awake time at that age is 2 - 3 hours at the most.

At 7 months we are now on 2 naps a day, one around 10.30 ish and one around 2ish, and I don't let her sleep past 4pm now - we were struggling to get her down if she slept past that time. This way she's tired enough that after a big tea with some carbs, she usually falls asleep while feeding.

We don't bath her every day either - though now she's weaning sometimes it's necessary!

Routine wise, we don't have anything too over the top, just bath (if needed), nappy, pjs, teeth (now she has some), quick story, white noise on, bottle and bed

Good luck!

DS is 9 months but has had the same routine for a while, up between 6:30/7 feed at 7:30, nap 9 ish sometimes an hour sometimes a bit more. Breakfast/lunch at 11 milk at 11:30, nap around 12:30 usually less than an hour, sometimes only 30 minutes or so, snack around 3:15, milk 3:30/4 ish , nap 4:30 usually for an hour but sometimes longer, has been known to go to two hours, same up and back to bed within an hour! Bath just before seven, final feed around 7:15, asleep around 7:30. Sometimes if we're having an exciting day (went to the zoo last week for example), he skips the lunch nap and has longer late afternoon or we put him in the bath around six instead, so he goes to bed early.

We've always bathed him every night from around 3 months when we wanted him to have more routine, he loves it and comes out sleepy. We've only used the child's farm bubble bath, hair/body wash and moisturiser every night and after swimming lessons the child's farm coconut baby oil. His skin is lovely and not a bit dry.

Bathing before bed doesn't always work. It always made my DC hyper and unsettled. So don't fall into the trap of thinking it's essential. Just doing the same thing every night in the same order is a routine.

I found the app huckleberry to be useful around that age. Using the free version if you track all sleeps it will suggest when nap times should be which I found gave a bit more predictability to the day and they do say a better routine during the day leads too better sleep at night.