Help - I've created a rod for my own back - 5 month DS doesn't want to go to bed!!

[TheBightyMoosh]

Please help me!

I thought I was being very laid back and baby centric by not sticking to a routine for my 5month old DS, and picking up all his hunger and sleep cues. Trouble is, he is still up with us in the evenings, and doesn't go to sleep til 10pm ish most nights. After that he sleeps until 5 ish for a little feed and then is up at 8ish. Because he's always slept well 'through the night', i've kind of ignored the fact he doesn't go to sleep until quite late. He seems wide awake, but in fact, I think he is overtired most nights.

I have tried to follow his cues as to when he is tired, and a few times, he's been showing all the tired signs, and I have tried to get him to sleep at 8ish. HOwever, he has never gone to sleep this early, despite being tired (eye rubbing, general crankiness etc). So now we have an overtired baby who should be asleep but isnt!

I feed him to sleep, and then put him in his cot, but every time i've tried to do it at 8pm rather than later, he just cries and cries, even with me there.

Please help - where am i going wrong?

ps I've also got a 4 yr old DD so i have to consider her bedtime routine too

Thanks in advance - sorry for the ramble!

Firstly - no such thing as a rod for your own back with a 5mo.

Secondly - FSIDS advice is that babies should sleep in the room with you until 6mo, including naps and at 'bedtime' so it's fine for him to not be up in his cot on his own in the evenings yet. At 5mo though then the risk is going to be pretty low

Thirdly - rather than going from 10pm straight to an 8pm bedtime, a gradual
shift may work - so try 9.30pm for a few nights, then 9.15 or 9.00 for a few nights and so on.

How are his naps, DD's sleep improved when she started napping properly.

Lastly - he sounds like he's sleeping well for a 5mo, personally I'd not be worrying!

Yes he sounds as though he's doing ok for his age I don't think you can really have a bedtime with a 5 month old. Some kids are just late bedders, my two have never been in bed before 9 once they started sleeping through, even at five months they were always wakeful in the evenings, I used to start the bedding down process about 7.30 with bath n supper/bottle then a wee cuddle downstairs til they fell asleep and then I'd put them in their cot (usually bout 9- 9.30) but they never slept all night at that age. on the other hand I have a nephew who has gone to bed at 7pm every night since he was about 1 but then his mum moans that he's up at 5.30 - 6 am every morning! My two were always up later at night but would sleep til a more reasonable time in the morning - at least it means we could leave the house in the evenings to visit family without panicking that it'd upset his bedtime. I wouldn't worry just yet about bedtime routines.

he's 5 months old
five months.

I wouldn't expect him to want to go to bed at that age!

Hell, DD is 4 days off 5 months herself, and we've not even started to talk about how old we expect her to be when we start worrying about a bedtime routine.

ps: DD goes to bed when we go to bed, so usually about half 10 or 11 o'clock.

I'm so glad I posted here - I've been getting anxious that I'd left it too late! I know he's only tiny still, and his sleep patterns apart from the evenings are brilliant. I think I just had a bit of a meltdown at the weekend when I selfishly realised that I hadn't had a childfree evening in months. And the fact that he is getting tired and fussy in the evenings had been worrying me too.

I feel I got it all wrong with DD and just wanted to get it right this time! But they're both so different, I don't think there are many lessons I can learn from last time!

Also I got rather 'told off' by a woman at baby bounce last week who was amazed that I didn't have a routine yet (oh you MUST have a routine - children need the security of knowing what's coming next etc) - made me feel like a bit of a crap mum, to be honest. I know I'm not, and I'll try and ignore bossy mums in future.

Thank you all

I'm practically all baby led so far but we have adjusted what time DD goes to bed but had to do it v gradually. At 4.5wks she started sleeping in 8hrs blocks but bedtime was 1-2am! Health visitor advised we move it more towards a normal waking time and over the following 2-3wks we got it to 10pm by going up earlier and it stayed there for ages. Then when she started getting overtired in the evenings we pushed it back again by half hour each time. Now we go up at 7.30-8pm dependant on whether she needs a bath or not. I've tried a few times to go earlier but I just end up feeding her to about the same time so I think we're just set on this bedtime until she shows signs of wanting it earlier. She's 18wks now and we're happy with that although it does mean I'm in bed stupidly early apart from the odd evening where I can push the guilt of letting her sleep alone to one side and go back downstairs for a couple of hours.

I think DD is leaning more towards 10pm now - she was fussing and whining after 10 until we went to bed.
cos DH's day off is today and we very rarely stay up much after half 10.