Early Bedtime Experiences-6 month old

[Dexy2020]

Hi
Just after experiences of putting little ones to bed early really. My son is 6 months old and he goes to bed at 7pm, I've been using the Huckleberry App and he's only averaging 9hr 30 mins at night and 2hr 30 mins in the day which for the night I don't think sounds enough, was just wondering if you put your babies to bed earlier does this mean they will get up earlier? He's kind of in a 7pm-5amish routine at the moment and just wondering on how I can help him have some better quality sleep without him waking up a grump like he is at present, he's now a lot better at self settling as I make sure I put him into bed awake after his bedtime bottle and he has a cry for anything from 2-15 minutes then settles and we generally do 1 night feed anytime between 12 and 2 really. Thinking maybe trying for a 6:30 bedtime. What do you think? X

What’s your nap schedule?

At 6 months I’d expect to see something like

Awake 7am
Nap 9.30-10
Nap 12.30-2.30
Possible power nap around 4.30-5
Bed 7pm

If that third nap has gone, I’d bring bedtime forward to 6.30. Awake timed around 2.5 hours, although gets pushed to 3.5/4hrs if that third nap has gone.

Babies go through phases of waking at 5am. It sucks! I have no idea if it helped, but I never “let” my baby get up at that time. I’d go into his room, feed him if needed, do whatever but the lights did not come back on and we did not leave the room. Or if he was quiet in his cot, I’d leave him in there. Sometimes it took me till 6.30 to get him back to sleep! And then I’d have to wake him again by 7/7.30am, which was frustrating. But his 5am wakes did pass (although came back a few more times on and off over the next year!).

About 2.5 hr day sleep sounds ok for 6 months. If your baby is having a longer sleep in the morning, try to keep it to 30/40 mins so he’s not relying on it to compensate for his early start and catching up on night sleep. You’ll have to do that nap earlier than 9.30am if you have a 5am start, maybe around 8am and then lunch nap and bedtime will have to pull forward by an hour until it’s all sorted.

The huckleberry app is really helpful to keep track of those awake windows but try not to get too hung up on it because every baby is different, and so are their sleep needs. A baby will sleep for as long as they need to, when they need to. you can’t control the length of their naps, there’s so much out their about how long they “should” be sleeping for each nap but this just puts pressure on and really doesn’t take into consideration your individual baby’s needs. My baby has gone through phases similar to yours and is now sleeping longer for their daytime naps than they used to, and the 5am starts are slowing petering out. This is without messing with their schedule/sleep training. I’m afraid it’s just all part of the course, try not to worry too much, you’re doing a great job and things will slowly settle in their own good time! Patience is absolutely the key.. :)

@FizzingWhizzbee123 today's napping has been 07:30 till 08:00, 10:30 till 10:50, 11:20 till 12:45 and he will have another around 3/3:30 for 30 minutes, can't seem to get him into a 3 nap routine at the moment due to him being up so early and he's very much a cat napper a 6am get up would be perfect so I think I may do what you suggest and not get him out of his room until then that's a good idea thank you!
@Fuscialuscia thank you for your reply it's very reassuring to hear that things will start to work themselves out with time, I think the early starts would be more bareable if he woke up happy but he really seems like although he woke up he didn't want to be awake bless him ❤️xx

My baby does similar; I treat anything before 6.30 as a night waking which is successful about 50% of the time and I hope might improve over time

@user1493413286 anything after 5am he seems to really struggle to get back off to sleep, definately need to persist a bit more I think :) xx

My bit of advice would be to stop click watching.

I could tell you a single thing about DS routine because he just slept when he needed and woke when he needed.

Try not to get too hung up on times etc

They're really short naps. Once baby learns to link sleep cycles whilst napping you're into a winner. My ds did at around this age and has been 2/3/4 hour nap gap ever since - it's so simple to remember - 2 hours after wake put down for nap, 3 hours after waking for that nap put down for nap, 4 hours After waking out to bed. But they need to be napping for about 3 hours in total for it to work

Our routine now:

Up 6:30
Nap 8:30
Up 10:00
Nap 1pm
Up 2:30
Bed 6:30/7pm if he can manage to stay awake that long.

It varies by half an hour either way depending on when he wakes between 6-7am. Sometimes if he's teething or a bit under the weather he'll nap longer but broadly the nap gap thing really works for us.

@kyles101 I would love a routine like that just never no what he's going to do with his naps sometimes it's 20 minutes sometimes 90 just whatever he pleases really haha xx

@Dexy2020 my ds learned to nap longer when I didn't go in at the first sign or stirring. His cycles always used to be 45 minutes, you could set your watch by when he would wake up, but one day I was being lazy and left him grizzling (not crying) and he went back to sleep - it was a revelation and after a couple of weeks he would reliably do 1.5 hours at both naps.

@kyles101 I think that's part of our problem he will only sleep in his pram or carseat so alot of distraction around him xx

@Dexy2020 oooh yeah, you're at the prime age to sort that out now though. With my ds I started getting him to nap in his cot (45 mins then eventually an hour and half) at around this age but at night time he'd still be in the next to me crib until about 8 months I think when he moved into his cot in his own room for night time sleep. Before that all day time naps were on me - lovely but I couldn't get much done 😳 it'll be hard for a couple of weeks but stick with it and it'll be worth the effort

It completely depends on the baby. DS1 would sleep later if he went to bed later, and wake earlier if he'd gone to bed early whereas DS2 has an internal alarm clock and gets up at 6 no matter what.

Have you tried white noise? That can really help them link sleep cycles. We use just the boring static noise (DS is now almost 3 yrs old and still uses white noise for naps and overnight! He likes it and turns the machine on himself), but you can get apps that make all sorts of noises like cafe settings etc. Might be worth a try, using it in the pram first and then he has a familiar positive sleep association when you try to get him to nap in the cot.

We also introduced a little muslin comforter at this age, so he had something to fiddle with while settling to sleep. Again, it helped as a moveable sleep association to trigger “its sleep time” cues wherever we were, and might help him transition towards a cot and link sleep cycles. My DS used to rouse between cycles, grab his comforter and roll over again. I tucked it between us during feeds when first introducing it so he recognised it as a source of comfort and it smelled like me. 2.5 years later and he still very attached to his comforter and it’s helped us at all sorts of times, like transitioning to nursery and hospital stays. It won’t be a magic bullet but worth considering a it might help going forward as baby learns to settle.

@kyles101 ooo how did you get him to do it in the end?
@BertieBotts not sure if it's a 1 off but put him to bed at 18:30 last night he slept till 3am then till 05:10am!! Good night here :D
@FizzingWhizzbee123 he used to love white noise then we found that it just stopped working really, happened around the 4 month sleep regression, I think introducing a comforter would be a really good idea as sometimes when he sleeps in the pram he likes to hold onto the hood to get off off to sleep 😂 do you tie it to the cot so he can't put it over his face? Xx

@2155User

My bit of advice would be to stop click watching.

I could tell you a single thing about DS routine because he just slept when he needed and woke when he needed.

Try not to get too hung up on times etc

Same here and I agree.

I’d suggest that possibly the white noise didn’t stop working, as such, rather just the 4 month sleep regression kicked in (it’s a real doozy!) and sleep was always going to be disturbed regardless of everything! It’s not too late to reintroduce it, if you wanted to give it another try. Personally we’ve found it a very useful tool.

With the comforter, we were very careful which one we picked. It’s quite small so there’s no chance of it getting wrapped around neck or limbs. It’s very thin muslin material so breathable if he did put it over his face. We actually started out with a regular muslin at first with a great big knot in the middle, so he really couldn’t put it over his whole face, although after a couple of months we found a sweet little animal muslin comforter (by Aden & Anais) which we felt happy with so used that. We didn’t attach it to his cot, but that’s something you could try if you like, as long as there’s no long strings etc.

Re: the don’t watch the clock comments, I really think it depends on the baby. Some babies happily go with the flow and sleep when they are tired etc. In which case, it’s easy to say “don’t worry about it”.

Mine never did. He would become utterly hysterical, overtired and fight sleep if I didn’t get him down within quite a small window when he was little. Watching the clock led to a much happier baby and mummy for us.

Neither approach is wrong, but suit different babies in different circumstances. You’ll just need to find out which approach your baby needs.

However I will agree that getting too obsessed with routines down to the minute isn’t good and will drive you nuts, especially when baby doesn’t do what the routine says! It happens some days, you can’t make a baby sleep so no point getting worked up over it. However many babies do better with some sleep structure and I don’t think you need to feel that you’re being overly upright if you go down that route.

@FizzingWhizzbee123 yes your right, if he's not asleep within about 2.5 hours of being awake we're in trouble 😂 thank you for all your suggestions much appreciated xx