Confused about how to get a consistent bedtime

[atvh]

My DS is 15 weeks and is a fairly good sleeper, generally taking three naps a day and waking once in the night.

However, he’s in no routine in terms of bedtime - sometimes he will go to bed at 7pm and sometimes at 9pm, depending on what time he woke in the morning, how long he napped for during the day etc.

How do you achieve a more consistent bedtime, to get him to sleep from say 7.30pm onwards every night? Will I have to wake him at a certain time every morning and rouse him from naps?

Do you think it’s something worth doing or should I just continue letting him go to bed when he wants? It would be nice to get some adult time back in the evening but I know he’s still very tiny.

If he’s sleeping that well, I’d just stick with it.
If you wanted a set bedtime he’d need to be up at the same time every morning so you’d be on a 12 hour cycle but honestly if it’s not broke....
He’ll need more night time and less day time sleep as he gets older so you’ll more likely fall into a routine then.

At 15 weeks I wouldn’t worry about it. For my children getting up at a set time helps them to settle into a more consistent bed time but I was able to sleep in I would rather do that.

Going against the grain here, my 19 week old son has a very loose 'bedtime'. It can start anywhere between 5.30 - 6.30 and he'll be asleep by 7ish, depending on how he is. He generally doesnt nap later than 4-4.30 or so in the afternoon. In my experience at this age it doesnt matter what time he wakes in the morning, he generally falls into the same routine as the day goes on (+/- an hour or so). I dont think you can be super rigid with times.

Id say though that my son naturally falls into routines that suit him and we just go with him and manipulate very little, he has since he was very little. Can you spot any routines that your sons fallen into naturally and nudge these along to make a 'bedtime'?

@Letsallscreamatthesistene Interesting, thanks. Perhaps I should aim for a bedtime window rather than an exact time!

Slightly different approach here I started putting my son to bed at 7 at about ten weeks. Like the last poster his day routine and wake up times were really flexible but I basically said no napping after 5.30pm and then we did a gentle bedtime routine - book, bath, bed from about 6.30. I would feed him to sleep though and sometimes that would mean he was asleep at 7.05 and sometimes 7.45! He’s one now and still goes to sleep at 7 (I recognise we are v lucky!) getting our evenings back was a life saver for me in those early days.

DS is nearly a year and doesn't really have a consistent bedtime (especially at the moment when it's so hot). Until he was 6 months, he went to bed when we did as he was in the sitting room with us before then as per SIDS guidelines. Sometimes he was asleep, sometimes he wasn't.

Hi
My little boy is 6 months old daytime is very much hit and miss and he mostly only likes to sleep in his pushchair with mummy walking for miles and miles but it's good for us to get out in the fresh air I guess :D (although he is currently having a nap on me which is lovely... We don't get it very often bless him) However we've had a nice bedtime routine going on for some time now, is there anything that you do in particular to signal bedtime? We tend to start 45-60 minutes before I would like him to be asleep so 17:45 we go upstairs he has a roll around the bedroom in his nappy whilst daddy runs the bath, has a splash in the bath and plays with his bath toys, get him out dry him, little massage with his bedtime lotion put him into his sleeping bag give him his bottle and when he's had enough I gently wake him so he remains drowsy and put him down in his cot and he's usually asleep by 18:30-18:45pm. I would make sure your little one isn't napping anything past around 5pm if your aiming for say a 7pm bedtime xx

We started with a window 7-8 to pit dd to bed from about 4 months. No late naps, and did the whole bath/bed/milk routine.

She used to wake up at different times every morning, but doesn't matter, just watch the timing of the last nap. I never worried too much if she went to bed a bit later. The bed time is more for you than them at this stage, we wanted a couple of hours to ourselves each day to spend as a couple

My DS had his last nap at 3.30pm and is due another around now (5.30pm). So should I keep him up until 6-6.30pm and start the bedtime routine? Or give him a nap now then have him awake till 8.30-9pm? He’s also just had a feed at 5pm.

I put my baby down at 7pm from 8 weeks old. We also woke him at 7am though and stuck to consistent nap times. However this was because he was getting overtired and miserable so needed structure. If what you're doing is working for you, don't change it! I did enjoy getting my ebeminfs back though! 😁

Does he generally nap st the same times each day?

Mine at that age would wake around 6.30/7, go for a morning nap around 8.30ish for about 1.5h, go for a midday nap at about 12 for about 1.5-2 h then would have a short nap 4/4.30 start and I'd wake them after 45 mins regardless.

That gave us a window afterwards to do bath/bottle/cuddle before bed at 7.

No, he doesn't nap at the same time each day because his nap times depend on what time he wakes up. Once he wakes up in the morning, he's awake for roughly two hours and then goes down for a nap, and repeats the cycle until bedtime.

This evening I kept him up for 3.5 hours after his last nap finished at 3.30pm. I started his bedtime routine at 6.15pm and he was asleep by 7pm (and still is). I'm just worried that 3.5 hours was a long time to keep him up!

In hindsight, maybe I should have done one more feed/nap cycle and put him to bed later at around 8.30/9. It's tricky!

What you did today sounds perfect. He's old enough now that a three hour stretch would be fine. If you want to, look up baby routines, Gina Ford did some great ones that change by age and I am sure there are other ones, so you can compare and see if one suits you

Thanks @SeaToSki!

Hi
How did he get on last night?? :) I find the longer awake window between the last nap and bed works quite well hopefully it did for you too :D xx

Same age baby here. We tend to aim for bedtime around 9pm as we take him up, change and feed, then we head into bed to sleep or read at the same time as I don’t leave him alone yet sleeping.

Daytime no routine yet. I tend to try and put him down to nap 2- 3 hrs after he wakes. The first naps usually more like 2 hrs after.

I couldn’t really work out a routine yet I don’t think. Ie today he woke at 6am already for feeding. Sometimes he will wake at 6-7am and then be awake a few hours until first nap around 9am. But this morning he woke 6am , fed in and off for an hour and I thought would stay awake, but then he fell fast asleep at 7am without another feed, so it’s now 8.10am here and he’s still snoozing. I won’t wake him as he’s obviously tired still

How did he get on last night??

DS slept for 12 hours straight last night, from 7pm-7am! I think the heat has made him lethargic. I’m a bit worried that I should have woken him during the night though, as he had his last bottle yesterday at 5pm and didn’t have another until 7am this morning. What do you think?

I wouldn't worry as a one (or two) off. If he was thirsty or hungry he would have woke.

@atvh my boy slept 9 hours from 6pm till 3am (he had an early one last night as the heat turned him into a devil child 😂) and has never slept that long before he had 6oz then went back to sleep for a little while, I think the heat defo got to him as his nappy was hardly wet at all this morning, I think as long as we keep them well hydrated today they should be OK, will offer feeds a bit more frequent than usual xx

I started getting mine up at the same time every morning and making sure they were awake by 5/5.30 from their last nap.
Then through the day a loose routine of feed-play-nap.

With my first I never got into a routine until he was about 6 months, he wouldn’t have consistent bedtime, plus I stuck rigidly to the safe sleeping rules of same room while sleeping until 6 months, so of an evening he’d be downstairs with us. My 2nd could not and would not settle with us downstairs from about 12 weeks, and he had a bedtime the same time and I watched the monitor downstairs, his wake up time was regular due to noisy toddler 🤣

If I was you I’d just take each day as it comes if your both happy with that routine. I think routines need to work for both of you.