Can a 9pm to 9am sleep routine work?

[piemaker]

I am keen to start a sleep routine for my DD. All the books and websites I have read has routine to get the baby to sleep from 7am to 7pm. My DH doesn't get home from work til 7.30pm and he leaves the house before 7am. If I follow a 7 to 7 routine then he can only see DD at the weekend :-(

DD at the moment gets bath, change and then feed at about 9.30pm and gets to sleep herself in a crib next to us. Then she gets up at around 4am for a feed and goes back to sleep at 5am. She then wakes up about 8am.

I would like to get her onto a sort of routine (nothing too strict) to help her sleep longer and nap better during the day(no real pattern at the moment)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

bump because I'm curious about this too!

yes, does for us with DDs 8 months and 2.8. :)

I always think that 7-7 is quite a western construct (UK in particular) Even when it's summertime and blazingly sunny outside we still see 7 as bedtime.

I think it's perfectly reasonable if it works for your family. I think that it could evolve once your DD is a toddler and perhaps attending pre-school/groups as they'll start 9-10am.

Thanks very much for all your reply, I will try to put DD to bed at 9pm tonight and see what happens. :-)

We are the same and me and dh have had "discussions" about this as all his friends say ds should be in bed by 7 but that would mean dh wouldn't see him from 1 week to the next.

It works for us, it's great having a lie in! The only downside is we seem to either be late or miss morning groups because it seems like a mass panic to get out on time (yes I could get up earlier but I like my sleep!)

We actually do a 9 - 8 routine which works well for us for both our children. We don't get home until 7 or thereabouts and if they went to bed then we wouldn't see them during the week at all. I used to worry they weren't getting enough sleep but they seem happy on it.

We stick to a 7-7 routine which works for us as we're both self employed and part time, so this means we get an evening to ourselves as well. But whatever works is fine, IMO, as long as they're getting enough sleep.

May start to infringe on your life a bit when children are older and going to nursery/school as it won't be practical but you don't need to worry about that just yet.

We've done 8 -8 since the clocks went forward last year and it works a treat, so I see no reason why 9 - 9 wouldn't work. I am not a morning person and we like to eat together so it's perfect.

I would advise using the clock change to start it - does the job for you pretty much!

We do 9-9 (well 7.30 now) with 18mo dd. It had to be that way, DP and I work nights, during the week I'm home with DD but we drop DP off at work at 8 so by the time we get home and have milk its almost 9.

Its handy to have her waking that bit later in the morning as when we work we don't get to bed before 1am at the earliest, so if we had to get up at 6 everyday we would be too tired!

You just have to work with what you lifestyle dictates. Theres no problem as long as everyone is getting the time they need. I will change dds bed time to 7-7 as she gets older and we have to be up for nursery/school, but for now it works for us!