What are we doing wrong?

[Muddytoes1]

Trying really hard to get dd 14mo to go to sleep earlier. So we’ve been getting her up earlier in the morning and making sure her naps are earlier and not too long but it doesn’t work. What happens is that when we try and put her to bed earlier she treats it like a nap so sleeps for an hour but is then up for the next 3 hours so we don’t end up getting her down until 11. If we shift the daytime naps later to prevent this she just won’t go to sleep until later anyway. On a good night we’ll get her down by 10pm but this is rare. What are we doing wrong? She seems to just think 11pm is the right bedtime for her! Would really like our evenings back now.

I'm far from an expert as only 1 DD who is not a great sleeper but have you tried only one nap a day? Mine is 11 months and has already dropped to 1 nap.

Hope someone with more experience will be along for you soon!

Hi @PopcornAndWine thanks yes we have but it seems the same. Put her down earlier in the evening and she treats it like a second nap

So sorry it's rubbish not having an evening 😞 mine at least goes down well in the evening, the rest of the night after about midnight is all over the place though. I hated not having an evening when she was younger. Does anyone else have some better advice for the OP?

When you shifted the wake up and naps earlier did you do it gradually - 10 min a day - or all at once? If all at once her body clock might not have had a chance to reset to the earlier bedtime. Also how long are her naps in the day each?

Sounds more like being overtired, rather than undertired.

What is baby's daytime routine?

You that you've changed daytime naps to try to tackle this. Over the last 3 ish months, how and when has your daytime routine changed?

Try searching for Bedtime fading - it basically involves doing a bedtime routine at the time your child currently falls asleep and then gradually (10-15 mins at a time) moving it forward to the desired time.

Firstly, you're not doing anything wrong. I bet you're doing an awesome job of parenting. Its hard!

If you want more of a routine that suits you, you could contact a sleep consultant. I did this and got amazing results with some hard work. I didn't use cry it out, but that is an option. We used a more gentle method. From 9 months until around 18 we were on 2 naps a day. Awake for the day by 7am, nap 1 8.30/9am for at least 1 hour, nap 2 12.30/1pm for at least 1h. Then in her cot by 6.30, or anytime between 6 and 7 depending on how tired she was. These timings relate to a babies circadian rhythms, I.e. the time they will naturally feel sleepy. We got her in her cot after cuddles and milk and would then leave the room. If she cried we would go in and settle her (stroke, pick up, cuddle etc) and then leave again. If she cried again we left it for 2 minutes before going in. We repeated until we almost lost the will to live. But then she cracked it, started sleeping for longer stretches and self-settling. She's now 3 and will nap for 1.5h and sleep overnight for 11ish.

At 14 months your baby needs help learning to self-soothe and get herself back to sleep when she wakes in the evening. Doing this could help.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for your responses! Ok so maybe the problem then is we are trying to do it too quickly. I see the point about gradually moving it back, that does make sense. When we have tried to move it we have just decided timings and tried to go for it which I guess is why it’s not working?
Daytime routine varies quite a bit as depends what we are doing that day. If we go out say she will fall asleep in the car regardless what time it is so I guess this could be messing with it too.