Baby's bedtime

[whyIsARavenLikeAWritingDesk]

My DD is 16 weeks old and still goes to bed with us at roughly 11/1130, recently it has been a struggle to get her down for a nap after 7, I know she needs it because she's cranky! If she does go down it's only for about 25 mins!
She sleeps through until 7/730 sometimes later wakes for a bottle and then goes back down until 1040.
My parents are starting to make me question myself by saying she should be going to bed earlier, am I wrong in what I am doing?

Do what ever works for you. Some people like their evenings to themselves, but can cope with being woken at night or early, some people like the kids with them all evening but like a lie in.

It's hard to have an eventful day when the lo is only waking for the day at 10.40. Once she's weaned, that's quite late to be giving breakfast then to consider lunch- you'll eventually find day time plans with friends and their babies tricky.

If you want to flip it, you could keep her up when she wakes around 7ish, then she'll go back down for a nap around 10ish. You will be able to manipulate her naps to encourage her to go to bed around 7 or 8pm. She might wake around 10 but I would offer her a bottle and put her back to bed.

HTH

At the moment baby sleeps for 8 hours, has one "night feed" then wakes for the day after about 12 hours sleep.

That happens to be 11pm-11am (ish) nights sleep, with the "night feed) at 7am.

It could also be 7pm-7am with a 3am feed.

Or 9pm-9am with a 5am feed

Or maybe you could try for waking for a dreamfeed, so 7pm-7am waking to feed at 11pm

What is unlikely to happen is to get 7pm-11am sleeping. So if baby is to have an earlier bedtime, she's likely to need an earlier morning wake up.

It's not set in stone babies should have their night time at 7pm-7am. If it works for you 11pm-11am is ok. You just need to bear in mind the long term, once in nursery you may need to move around her night times to fit. But for now, if it works and baby is getting enough sleep, do whatever you prefer.

Well this morning she woke for her feed at 830 after going down at 1140 so we have got up for the day!
I have tried this once before though and it didn't work as she wouldn't go down for the night until 1130 with a lot of crying!
When I do try and put her down for bed earlier she treats it as a nap and makes herself really upset when I try and get her back down! I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place! I would like her to be up earlier in the morning as I feel the day is a bit wasted but then again we have a fight getting her to bed!

You could try waking her up half an hour earlier than you expect each day until her sleep time adjusts.

If you are planning to put her in nursery, her sleep time may adjust anyway. DS was doing similar hours until he started nursery. Within a couple of days he was doing 7:30pm -6:30am.

It won't happen over night. If you want to, keep at it. Keep the night time feeds quiet and non- stimulating, and the day time bright. You'll work it out. You'll see patterns emerging. Good luck.