12 week old very late to bed

[liney80]

Hi, we do a lovely bedtime routine for our son - bath, massage, cuddles but he just won't go to sleep afterwards until about 9.40/10pm. He cries a lot during the evening but isn't always interested in feeding so not hungry.

He loves being in the bath but cries quite a lot when we take him out, so that's not very relaxing for him!

We've tried bathing him at various times between 5.30 and 7 but he just isnt ready to sleep after that.

Our day starts at 7am, feeds (EBF) every 3 hours, sometimes a bit more in the evenings. He has good naps and can get himself to sleep on his own now.

Any ideas or tips as to why he stays awake and is unsettled? I'd like to do a dream feed at 10.30 but I thought that relied on babies going to sleep for a while first! He's sometimes still awake then (and so I feed him).

Thanks!

12 weeks is a growth spurt age, so the evening wakings (if new?) might be that he wants to cluster feed.

If baths are not relaxing, move them to mornings. Quite usual for some Mums to bath baby in the morning (after older children have been taken to school).

Personally, I would just go with the baby as to when he is tired and ready for bed, rather than imposing a routine on him so young. If you want to move bedtime though then you will need to start restricting sleep/naps in the afternoon. I really would not recommend restricting anything though with your little one being still young. Just go with baby's needs.

If he is not tired in the evening, just enjoy his awake time! Soon enough he'll be going to bed at 7pm and so Daddy will get far less play time with him (I make the assumption here that Daddy working in the day - which may be wrong)

Could you just make 10pm his bedtime and work towards that, bath at 9pm, last feed 9.30pm? It won't last forever and bedtime will come forward as he gets older.

This is quite normal. My second didn't settle into a 7pm bedtime til much later than that. It just happened all of a sudden. I didn't do anything differently with her than DD1 who fell into a bedtime routine at around 6 weeks.

Thanks very much. My niece went to bed at 7pm from about 8 weeks so I thought that was fairly normal. I'll go with the flow. He does cry and grizzle most of the evening so it's hard to enjoy him that much :-)

My first wanted to sleep at 7pm from a very early age. My second didn't until 6months. I think it depends on the baby.