Am I a Scrooge? Late evenings with a 6m old

[PockerMaus]

My son is coming up to 6m old. He is EBF and sleeps from around half 7pm to around 7/8am but generally wakes every 3 hours or so. He will only resettle by being fed back to sleep so I do all the wake ups at the moment. (Hoping this will change a bit after we start weaning etc but at the moment it's the only thing that stops him screaming so it will have to do!)

We've just been on a mini trip up north to see some of my partners friends/family. We went for four days but had a lot of visits and every evening was spent seeing different people and staying out late. I have found it exhausting as my son got pretty cranky during each evening and some nights we didn't get back until around 11pm so I'd be putting my son to sleeps and waking up throughout the night. (He doesn't wake any later even if he is put down later). Plus my son doesn't really like the travel cot (don't blame him, the mattresses they have look terribly uncomfy).

It's just made me realise that I hate staying out late and it makes me stress as I worry about the lack of sleep etc. We're a very sociable couple normally and have been invited to lots of evening gatherings over the festive period and people are quick to offer us to stay over so we can have a drink etc and my son can sleep in his travel cot. As I'm BF, this doesn't really appeal to me anyway as I can't drink a lot so I might as well drive.

Im just wondering how others handled evening with a little one? Did you just suck it up for a night of bad sleep? Or did you just not stay out late? I feel bad saying I don't want to go to things past 7pm lol but I do need my sleep. I generally go to sleep around 9/10pm if at home.

My son is 17 months. We alternate so one of us stays home or we get the nanny or a relative to babysit. We go out late once a week, rarely twice, which in my view is a lot for a couple with a young child. This is recent though, until 12 months he woke loads and I couldn't handle a late night, I was always home by 9- 10pm, babysitter or not.

My baby was the same at 6 months, waking frequently. No way am I sacrificing his sleep routine and my sanity for some evenings out. Even now. Sleep is sacred.

The time that they are SO little is short.

We did do a family trip when he was 5 months and we largely stuck with his nap and sleep schedule. No way would I have kept him up until 11 so I could then, what, get zero sleep???

Unlike your family and friends, ours assumed we would have early evenings and had already planned that way for us! I didn't even need to ask! People also came back to my FIL's house so we could have another drink after I put baby to bed.

I think if late evenings out had been proposed, I would have sent DH out and I would have stayed home.