Advice on timings for bedtime sleep

[fibeestar]

Hello

Sorry this is my first post...I've read so much great advice on here but am now a bit stuck with knowing what to do about my lo's routine...

My lo is 5 months old. She's always been a bit of a nightmare napper...the most she will do is 30 minutes and I've tried very hard to extend to no success. She now naps every two hours roughly during the day and I have to rock her till eyes start to close. She doesn't have to be fully asleep but definitely 95% there.

But at night things are different, she feeds to sleep and it typically takes forever to get her there. We start bedtime at 6.30pm with a bath low light, change etc. And then I start (bf) feeding her with dim lighting about 7pm But it's normally then a good 2.5-3 hours plus before she will go to sleep. In that time she might drift off but wake when I put her down. Or she will cry seemingly out of frustration at being tired. I can rock her at night but it takes a long time and she will always seem to wake when going down in her crib.

Once she gets there she will often do some good stretches of sleep and typically then wakes for the day around 8am. I know this isn't terrible but some nights its much longer than and didn't know if this was normal...her last nap is typically around 4pm ish. Do I have my timings wrong? Should she have a nap later on? If she doesn't have a nap at around this time she then falls asleep within about 2 minutes of feeding but will be then wide awake as soon as she stirs and the whole cycle seems to start again.

All my other friends seem to feed for 30-60 minutes max before they go to bed...or they have babies who self settle really well and they just put them down drowsy..she is yet to do this or I haven't managed to get her to anyway! I think she's too young for any kind of training yet?

I know this is by no means terrible but it just means never seem to have an evening from 6.30 onwards but maybe that's normal and ok! I also wonder whether will ever be able to get anyone to help as she always seems to feed to sleep and it's not like a 30 minute feed and she goes, so don't know that a bottle will cut it.

Sorry for the ramble but just wanted to know if this is what others have experienced and if there's anything I might not be doing right....

Thanks!

With half an hour naps I'd reduce awake time between naps down to 90 minutes maximum. I'd say an awake time range of 60-90m is ideal. So if you notice the time when baby wakes, aim to start getting baby back to sleep in 1 hours time. That then gives you up to half an hour to get her to sleep.

In the period before bed, you want a little longer awake time, but not massively so. I'd aim for about 2h awake time before starting bedtime, after a day of 60-90m awake times. A well-rested baby is much easier to get to sleep than an over tired baby.

Be flexible with bedtime to allow got this. So for example if naps are 3-3.30 then 4.45-5.15 - bedtime wants you be around 7.15pm. But if naps are 2-2.30 and 3.30-4pm then 6pm is rather early for bedtime, so I'd add in a 5.30-6pm nap and make bedtime around 8pm.

Have you considered a dummy instead of feeding to sleep? It's more conducive to independant sleeping and settling.

Thank you that's really helpful will give this a go, will definitely give the shorter awake time a try and adjusting the bedtime is also something I hadn't thought of as I think we were so caught up in idea of needing a fixed routine. But it makes total sense.

She does have a dummy now for all her daytime naps which definitely seems to help her settle, but it doesn't seem to be as effective at night so she rarely has it...do you reckon maybe a good feed and then pop dummy in and a bit of rocking instead?

Thanks!