Baby's sleep is all messed up!!!

[Hellmouth]

I had DS into a pretty good routine which worked for us, and was just starting to get him to go bed a bit earlier so that he could wake up earlier, in prep for getting him ready for when I go back to work in January.

It's all gone to shit (!) over the last week and a half.

His sleep pattern always messes up a bit when we have guests, and now we have a semi permanent one in our living room (long story). Last night, I couldn't get him to sleep until 2am, and then he mostly slept through until about 3pm. Which is why I'm now still up with him at nearly 2!

I've read that I should try to keep him up during the day with lots of light and noise, but I am worried he'll turn into an overtired little shit.

Anyone else tried this and did it work?

What age is your baby?

Oops sorry, he will be 6 months on the 2nd Jan

Firstly - is he sleeping solidly from 2am to 3pm? Because that's great sleep for this age, the timing just needs shifting.

If he's waking in that time, it's much less of a problem really. Are you suggesting baby is then awake solidly from 3pm to 2am? That might be the problem here - too long awake rather than sleep or when it is.

Its really hard to make suggestions for you without more of an understanding what his sleep pattern is like over 24 hours.

He's doing 2am until about 11am, then having a bottle and sleeping again until nearly 3. Then he has an hour and a half - 2 hour gap between naps still most of the time.

Previously, he was sleeping from 10/11pm until 7/8, having a bottle then sleeping for another 3 hours. Then the usual naps.

That's not bad sleep in terms of quality of sleep. It just needs moving to more reasonable timings.

I'd do it gradually by waking him half an hour earlier every few days. So wake him at 10.30am, then 10am, then 9.30 and so on until you are waking him at 7am.