7month old 11pm bedtime!

[susannaR]

Help! DS2 is nearly 7months old and a terrible sleeper...nothing like DD1 who is 3 and has slept through the night since 6months old..so I have no idea what to do with him 😕
He's EBF but settles to sleep with dummy. He has 2x cot naps per day about 1.5hours each. Some days if he naps in car/pram these naps will only be 40mins and then he might have 3 naps, but it seems to have no impact on night time anyway.
So I do the whole bath, book, milk routine with older sister too and then he settles to sleep in his cot (in my room), with his dummy at 6:30/7pm- Little fuss, sometimes non at all. However, an hour later he wakes and that is it...holy hell breaks loose 😣 so from 8-11pm every evening i am stuck in bedroom as the second I think I've settled him and leave the room he wakes screaming. Tried a bit of CC but after 30mins of 5min checks I figured that's enough and it was unlikely to work??
11pm I feed him again and we all 'go to bed' and he just falls asleep?!! It's like he knows I'm in my bed so it's ok? He will then wake around 2/3am for feed then 6am up for the day. Any suggestions?
DH has just got him up tonight and brought him back downstairs, and feels there's no point putting him to bed and he might as well stay up with us until 11pm 😳 surely not? But I take his point it's a bit ridiculous every evening spent in bedroom 🙁

He has 2x cot naps per day about 1.5hours each

What sort of time are these naps? And how do you get him to sleep?

Morning. He is up for the day about 6:30
Naps are about 9-10:30 and 1:30-3 then bed is normally around 6:30.
If we have a day out of the house he will have 3 shorter naps.
I breast feed him in nursery until he is really sleepy then he goes to sleep with a dummy. Sometimes if the dummy falls out when he is going to sleep he will cry and I have to go back in to pop it back in for him, which is fine, and then he goes to sleep.
Last night was horrible he was just crying all evening basically unless he was cuddled in my arms and eventually DH got him and brought him back downstairs (which I think is a bad habit to start?) He's gone up 'to bed' for about 6 weeks now and feel like we are going backwards.
Last night he looked so tired downstairs 😕 and came up to bed with us at 10pm when I fed him and he slept in his cot until 1am, fed, and slept until 6am. So he can do long stretches but for some reason evening times have gone to pot?
I have introduced a bottle of formula at bedtime to try and fill him up but don't think he's hungry. I don't have to feed him all evening...in fact he will settle in his cot...but only if I am lying on my bed and he can see me.

My seven month old still sleeps best following a pattern of a short nap every two hours and coming up to bed roughly when I do (maybe 10pm ish but variable). We tried "putting him to bed" whenever his nap time fell around 6/7pm ish but he just woke after the first hour and then most hours of the night after that!

He still does wake in the night if I take him up later but that's fine - still cosleeping so it's not much trouble to feed him a couple of times. But I usually get much longer stretches from him than if he's gone up early.

It obviously depends what you as a family are happy with though - DP and I don't mind having him about later in the evening , and he's my third so I've probably got more relaxed about the "whatever works best" approach than "what I probably should be doing"! I assume it will all change at some point and he will naturally start going to bed earlier, but he really doesn't seem ready yet. Just to give you a perspective of someone purposely sticking with a later bedtime!

Your baby is eventually showing you that his body clock wants a third nap, before he is ready for his big nights sleep.

I would move bedtime to around 8pm and do that by adding in a third nap. This will mean moving the other two naps back slightly
9am-10.30 nap (then 2h ish awake time)
1.2.30-2pm nap (then 2h ish awake time)
4pm-5pm powernap (and wake up at 5pm)

This then allows for an extended 3h awake time through to an 8pm bedtime.

Change the naps to 9/12/3.

Wake after an hour each.

So baby is awake by 4.

Ok folks that all makes sense! I'll give that a try thank you so much for replying x

Just thinking..DD who is 3 goes in bath every night at 6, then book bed by 6:30 (❤️ her 😂).
Don't want to be doing 2 bedtime routines! You think if I bath baby with DD (as I do now) and put him in night clothes etc at 6pm but then keep him up til 8ish that counts as bedtime routine?! Or wishful thinking lol! Can't run 2 baths 😳

Dc is 9 mo

Up 6:45

Nap 9:00 - 10:00
13:00 - 14:00
18:00 - 19:00

Bed 21:45 ish.

Accept it and don't try to put them down for the night early?

I don't bath my late-to-bed DS every night so a bath isn't really part of bedtime here... I usually do get him ready for bed with the others (so he joins in with their stories, sleepy music etc. etc.) but treat his "bedtime" as a last nap (if that makes sense!) Then he comes downstairs again once he's woken and stays down until more tired signs. Then he just needs a quick nappy change / tooth brushing etc. and straight to bed with me.

If / when he stops waking after the first half hour / hour in bed and being wide awake again, he will start going to bed straight after usual bedtime routine with the older two (or that's my plan anyway!) Would something like that work?

Don't want to be doing 2 bedtime routines

Baths can be done in the daytime. It doesn't need to be part of bedtime routine. The 6pm bath can still happen. And into night clothes if you wish. But it will mean this isn't part of youngest bedtime routine, it's just something you do after dinner each day.

Then have a "bathless" bedtime routine for youngest, later.

Sounds like my 12 year old. She likes to come home from school and have a bath at 4pm then put her jarmas on. This often happens even though she has to go out later on. So she comes home from school, bath, PJs for a few hours, dinner, dressed and then out to Guides at 7pm, home 9pm and then goes to bed 😂

Or, the 9, 12, 3 one hour limited naps that ElspethFlashman suggested may allow for a continued 6.30pm bedtime.

Thanks everyone. I suppose when people put it like that it does seem odd that I'm trying to put him to 'bed for the night' at 7pm! I suppose it's because DD did at this age, and still does, but quite right they are all different I suppose?!
I must admit I would rather he went to bed so DH and I have a couple of hours to ourselves but it's not the end of the world. 8pm would work...not so keen on the staying up with us all evening until we go to bed. I suppose the other thing is until 3 weeks ago he was going to bed 7pm-6am (obviously with 2-3 feeds) so just a bit confused as to why he's suddenly decided he's not 'going to bed' 😂
Anyway...so today he was up at 6 and has napped 9-10:30 then 1:00-1:45 (pram) so I am aiming for another cot nap at 4pm ish, which is normally when he has tea with DD so it's totally different routine to normal...could be interesting! Then aiming for 7:30-8pm bedtime? See what happens! X

Well ladies this was an epic fail 🙈 Couldn't get him down for a nap at 4...can't dedicate any time to in cot settling as I have toddler downstairs so he has now been up since 2pm having had a 40min nap 😣 Tonight's gonna be fun 🤣
Think it's just proven I have to be able to feed him to more or less asleep and that's only achievable after 3hour wake window??
Think I'll put him to bed as normal at 6:30ish but then when he wakes an hour later I'll just get him up and do 'bedtime' when we go up at 10pm....and try again tomorrow 😝

Id have had nap in the bouncy chair at teatime, foot bouncing while I make dinner.

Morning! I basically did that but rocked pram in kitchen so at least he had 20mins at 5pm. Tried to put him down at 8pm tho and he still wouldn't go down 😕 what's going on?! Normally don't have that problem (goes down fine for at least 1 sleep cycle!) so basically he went to bed with us at 10pm 😳
Obviously as to be expected he was so sleep deprived yesterday he has now been awake for the day at 5am...normally sleeps til 6-6:15.
Oh the joys...today is going to be fun seeing as he is whinging with tiredness already 😣

It takes a good 2 or 3 weeks of consistency to established a new routine. You can't judge anything based on a single day.

With regards to yesterday, looks to be like the issue is a 45m nap at lunchtime rather than the usual 90m.

Oh ok so I'll keep plodding on then! Not sure what to do with him today...he's been up since 5 so he's basically been fussing in my arms all morning whilst I've been trying to get toddler ready for nursery!...and now fell asleep in car 🙈 so no decent cot nap here this morning...sitting in drive playing on phone...oh the joys 🤣
Hoping I'll be able to achieve the midday cot nap and then 3pm nap in car on nursery run again?!! X

If he's been up mega early, he's going to nedd an early nap in order to catch up on his sleep.

I would be a lot more flexible in on my approach to sleep at this age. Going with the flow is a lot more conducive to fitting baby in with older siblings.

For example, I wouldn't have time to have baby fussing in my arms while I was getting my 3 other children ready. Fussing = sleep time in our house, whatever time of day it is. I just can't tolerate any whining and clinginess - baby would be in bouncer, dummy plugged, being foot bounced as I cracked on with stuff, as soon as baby stopped tolerating kicking around on the floor under the playgym.

Oh ok I see! I was aiming for 9,12,3 naps but yea...whinging is a nytmare, especially with toddler to look after too! Can't imagine 4 children tbh!!
I'm glad you approve of going with the flow 😂...thats what's happened 🙈 After 45min cot nap at lunch (no idea why and would not resettle) he's asleep again in the pram in the kitchen whilst tea is cooking! He usually has 2x1.5hour cot naps so these short cat naps are a new thing!...seems so strange to have him asleep at 5pm! Anyway...hopefully 9pm bedtime tonight and he will settle ok 🙏🏻

seems so strange to have him asleep at 5pm!

Very useful when you have a family meal to cook though! I mourned the loss of the teatime nap when mine stopped it - it's a really useful nap for getting household stuff done.

Arghhh Fate this isn't working for me! He's just totally refused to go down despite being so tired he's crying constantly even with the dummy! So he's back downstairs again with DH walking around with him! This baby used to sleep 7-6am up until 3 weeks ago?! Whats gone so wrong? Poor baby is white as a sheet and clearly sleep deprived 😥

He's probably over tired today. It's no use following a restrictive nap routine if naps aren't a fairly consistant length.

If you have consistant AM/PM nap lengths, following a 'to the clock' routine is great. If you have naps that are 90m one day and 45m the next, yoy have to be more flexible. You can't force a square peg into a round home, and all that.

The routine I mentioned was assuming two 1.5h naps and easy settling to sleep. If his naps have gone unpredictable, it 2ouod be better to follow a limited awake time routine - in that you limit awake time according to the length of the previous nap. Once over tired, any sleep, any how, is better than worsening exhaustion.

I think the idea of needing 3 naps seemed logical on paper and was worth a try, but he was much better with his 2 x 1.5hour naps and a 7pm bedtime I think?
The last 3 days since I've been messing about with nap times, and giving him that 3rd nap late afternoon he's been really fussy and clearly wants to be in bed from around 7/8ish but I just can't get him down.
If he's not been awake for 3hours he won't fall sleepy when feeding and then he fights it like mad. It was 9pm again when he went to bed last night...and I had to lie next to him for 15mins before he fell asleep (which I don't normally have to do)....at least he slept til 6am tho with 2 quick feeds over night x

Hi,

My son is 7 months old. We were living at my partners mum and dads until 3 weeks ago. We had been living there since before he was born. Only as our house was having so much work done to it. Since moving in he's slept through the night every night for the first time in months! He never had a routine at DP mum and dads! Sometimes bedtime was 11pm!

He has 3 meals a day along with his bottles and I believe that really makes a difference. He has porridge in the morning, at lunch time he has some sort of fruit and a yogurt etc. Dinner he has purée meal a pudding a yogurt etc. We really fill him up for his tea around 6pm.

I'm not strict with his naps in the day. He has a morning nap and an afternoon nap as he pleases, as it depends what time he wakes up. But I don't let him sleep past 4/5pm.

His routine is

7am - Bottle
8am - porridge
9.30am - bottle + nap

11.30am - Bottle
12.30pm - lunch (as I said above) sometimes a bottle with his lunch too.

2pm - bottle
5pm -bottle
6pm - tea (as above)

7.15pm - teeth and bath
7.45pm - bottle
8pm - asleep in his cot

We are far from perfect but this routine works so well for us and has done since we moved in. To be honest we haven't forced this routine he just fell in to it. He only has around 5/6oz per feed so hence why he tends to feed every 2 hours. But before bed it's like he knows and has 8oz.

I know how hard this must be as I used to pull my hair out with frustration that we were never having any baby free evening time and waking in the night. Hold in there x

I will also mention. Sometimes he's not always asleep after his last bottle but he just put him in his cot and leave him - completely walk out the room. And he's fine just chats to himself and usually max 20 minutes later it's fine quiet and he's settled himself. We don't want him to get used to us sitting in there until he falls to sleep. Works for us