Getting baby to sleep

[Dandelioncl0ck]

My baby has just turned 5 months and I'm wondering if there's something I could be doing differently to get her to sleep at night. It's impossible to get her to sleep earlier than 8.30 at the absolute earliest (usually between 8.45 and 9.30). She's often really grumpy in the evening though and seems really overtired but if I try and start bedtime earlier, it just takes ages to get her to sleep and she ends up going to sleep at the same time as usual but I've spent the whole evening in bed trying to calm her down! So feel a bit trapped between keeping a grumpy baby downstairs with me and DH whilst we try to have dinner and spending all evening trying to get a baby to sleep that doesn't want to. I go to bed when baby does as sleep at night hasn't been amazing since 4 months and I'm usually knackered.

She feeds to sleep and I'm happy with doing it like that for now as it's the quickest and easiest way, however whilst some nights she'll feed and then fall straight to sleep and I pop her in her cot, some nights it's a huge battle of her popping on and off the breast, getting more and more awake, cooing and wiggling around. If this happens, and I can't get her to feed, I'll put her in the cot awake and 80% of the time after a while she'll start whimpering and I'll take her out and keep trying with the feeding until she eventually gives in and goes to sleep. 20% of the time she'll fall asleep on her own. Patting and rocking don't seem to help. We use white noise and sing the same lullaby every night. I feel like she's too young to sleep train, we're still a bit all over the place from the sleep regression

Any (gentle) ideas? I'm resigned to not having evenings to myself for a bit but would love the evenings to be a bit less stressful.

What’s the day time naps like?

@ecossegirl91 she is a contact or pushchair napper only, amount and times still pretty random, maybe 4-5 a day with 1/2 long ones, the rest shorter. I do think the last one is probably too late and probably affects bedtime but no idea how to stop a tired baby falling asleep and 5.30pm or 6 is probably too early for bed!!

Maybe too many naps in the day so not enough sleep pressure at night. Google wake windows and try to follow and see if this helps.

Mine is 7m and also a contact mapper. By 5 months we were transitioning to 3 naps roughly from 4. Huckleberry do great schedules with wake windows and it does work, not all the time but most! I still follow them now!

Try and make it earlier by moving it back 5-10 mins at a time. It'll take some time but you'll get there, just don't expect a big change overnight, take it slowly

Agree with PP maybe knock one of the naps on the head and build up that sleep pressure for bedtime.

Also you don't ever have to sleep train if you don't want to. I haven't with my daughter and despite some harder times when she was little like yours, I have never regretted it and her sleep has got better on it's own. Just wanted to say as much because had lots of people (such as GPs and HVs and a childminder) tell me that she'll "never learn to self soothe" and it's the biggest BS I've ever heard and just in case you didn't know, there are other options.

4.5 months here. 6pm isn’t madly early for bedtime and might be worth you considering. We start at 6.30, bedtime routine & then feed to sleep. Down by 7.30 usually with 1/2 night wakes usually after 1 - 2am (sleep through till about 7am). Also we do 4ish contact or sling naps and hoping to drop to 3 soon. Hope this helps!

Thanks all, sounds like maybe she's napping too much, but genuinely interested, how on earth do you get a baby of this age to drop a nap/ not sleep if they are tired? I have a vague awareness of wake windows and keep them in mind but they started to stress me out a bit so I've tried to go with the flow a bit more so I'm not spending all day stressing about naps! I try and be responsive to baby's sleepy cues so if she falls asleep feeding or in the sling etc I'll let her sleep. Should I be waking her up? Generally that just results in crying!

It’s not always easy but gradually increase her wake windows by 10-15 mins at a time. Usually wake windows get longer as the day progresses as well. At the moment ours are usually 1.5hrs in the morning, then about 1hr 45, next one about 2 hours and then the last one is around 2.5. But to drop a nap I’ll aim to add 10-15 mins on each one. You can also creep bedtime earlier like this as PP suggested. And yes sometimes I do wake her if her naps are encroaching on bedtime, usually a bit of grumpy crying then she’s totally fine!

@OrangesAndLemming thanks - looks like maybe it's worth having another go at wake windows...

Every baby is different and some need more sleep than others. I don't actually keep an eye on how many naps my DS (5months) is having and just let him sleep (rock/feed if necessary) when he's tired.
He also goes through periods at night where he is fighting seep because he is more interested in what's going on.
I remember being so obsessed with naps and timings and just sleep in general with my DD that it was causing me so much stress.
I realised that I find it easier to just ho with the flow. Every sleep phase in their first 12 months is different and what worked last week won't work this week.

I know that's not massively helpful.
Some great accounts to follow on Instagram for advice are:
Little nest sleep
Second star to the right
Fox and the moon infant sleep
Hey sleepy baby

@kernowpicklepie thanks, that's reassuring to hear as that's pretty much what I've been doing so far and I def feel a lot calmer when I go with the flow! Just seems recently she's been extra agitated in the evenings and have been doubting myself but then again she's also just learnt to roll and sit and grab her feet so loads going on at the moment... Will check out those accounts, I find Kathryn Stagg and Lyndsey Hookway helpful too

5-7 months was horrid for us and sleep! Naps all over the place and awful at getting to bed at night time.

Try to stretch out the last nap a little bit - show baby new toys, oh look at that bird in the garden/out the window...! We found stretching the last wake window made bedtime a lot smoother. Also the last 20 minutes was very calm before bed time. TV off, toys away and quiet playing with baby to wind down.

My DS never read the how to be a baby book - his wake windows were always ahead of what I read so I went with the flow a bit and looked for sleepy cues instead. At that age we got down to about 3 naps a day.

Hes now 11 months and nods off beautifully at 7pm until 6.30 the next day.

Hes a very alert nosey baby so needs just that little bit of quiet wind down time before bed

My second is 7 months now and from roughly 5 months has been ready for bed by 6pm. We co sleep so it was just a case of lying down and feeding to sleep. At 5 months I'd just lie with her and read my kindle. Once she was 6 months ish I started gently rolling away so I had an hour or so to myself in the evening. It's worked for us so far and has cut out that horrible trying to put the baby down in the cot bit. Good luck, sounds like you're doing a great job

Honestly?
Just feed her, put her in her cot at 7 pm and leave her.
She'll soon fall asleep.

@Dandelioncl0ck could definitely be a developmental thing then.
I follow Lyndsey Hookway, I also have her book which is brilliant.