Moving bedtime

[eggofmantumbi]

Help! Before we move baby to her item room in 6-8 weeks we're trying to move bedtime earlier by 90 mins- 2 hours but naps keep throwing us off....

LO is 4.5 months, how long before bedtime should her last nap be?

Today for example she woke at 1715. We wanted to take her upstairs at 2020 to be asleep just before 2100 so we squeezed another nap in until about 1930 but should she be awake longer before bedtime?

Bumping 🤞

It depends on the structure of the naps throughout the whole day.

I wouldn't go longer than 2h without a nap at this age, but awake time might be only 90 mins or even just 1h, depending on how long naps are and how sleep was that day.

I would suggest rather than having a ridged "bedtime" than instead you have a "bedtime window" of about an hour, in which bedtime happens at some point in the window depending on naps that day.

That was my thinking too, but if I want to move from falling asleep between 9-10 and falling asleep between 7-8 do I just go for it changing bedtime? I'm trying to do increments and it keeps going wrong!

For 6 month old DS we try to make sure he is awake by 4pm-ish for bedtime by 7. I wouldn’t want less than 3 hours between last nap and bedtime really

What are the rest of baby's naps like throughout the day usually like?

They vary but hey awake time is 90-105 minutes. 45 minutes is guaranteed and then sometimes she'll go up to 2 hours either with a breastfeed or sometimes by popping her dummy back in.

Thanks

So for example she's just gone down. I'd expect her awake at about 630. So either she has another nap at 8 or we try and get her down around 8. I'd prefer the latter but that's a nap sooner than her normal routine

I would work backwards from the bedtime youre aiming for. Dont be afraid to engineer naps to work with the routine you want.

Last awake window before bed always wants to be on the longer side of your window, rather than the shorter end. So if usual awake window is 90-105min and you're aiming for 7.30pm bedtime, then last nap needs to end at 5.45pm, so wake baby up at this point regardless.

Also bear in mind that your morning wake up strongly affects bedtime, so if you want a more rigid bedtime, also have a rigid wake up (11h overnight sleep is usually expected, so wake baby at 6.30am even if still asleep - it helps set the routine).

Then work backwards from the last nap. If you know baby needs to wake up at 5.45 then you know the latest you can put her down for that nap is 5.00pm. But if naps that day have been rubbish you might put down earlier for a longer nap.

Work back from that nap too. So if last nap must start by 5pm (at latest), then previous nap could do with finishing by 3.30pm ish - and so on.

That makes sense, thank you! It's annoying we slipped into such a late bedtime, as with her and a lovely 3 year old, I need a few minutes peace in the morning!

I mean in the evening!

What would you like bedtime to be? How often do you feed? Are you breast or bottle feeding?

She's breastfed. We do eat, awake sleep, so feed every 3ish hours.

3 year old goes upstairs at 645 and asleep by 730, so a bedtime sometime between 7-8 would be good. Probably the later end

Does she feed during the night? In my opinion, baby should be down before toddler? My 8.5 month old goes to bed at 6/6.30 every night. I would think your struggling to get baby down because they're over tired?

Yes 3/4 times at night. I think because she's up late in the morning we've got into a bad cycle and so it's how to break it. If they were both sleep by 730 I'd be over the moon! How do I change it. Do I go gradual or just go for broke?

Thank you both so much for your suggestions!

You just do it. Gradual is not the way forward. For this. Baby needs to be awake from 5.15 if you want her down at 7.30. Do you have a bed time routine? Bath massage book and milk?

Routine is as you say, just without the nightly bath. We tend to do morning baths with oldest.

I'm glad you think just doing it is better. I keep reading about doing it gradually but it's so faffy!

You can do it gently but will take a long time. The first day you might have a ratty baby but it will pay off.

Well I'm going to take her up in a bit and I'll wake her early tomorrow. We'll see how we go.

Thank you both very much x

Well over an hour trying to settle her and we're no closer to sleep. I swear she knows I was trying something different 🤦‍♀️

Just try again tonight. Are you aware of awake times etc?

Yes normally stick to them - it's shifting the schedule that's the problem rather than the schedule itself I think

What time does baby wake? You might have to wake her early tomorrow, and then instead of the last nap bring bedtime forward. At 4.5 months our routine was:
Wake up at 6 and milk
Nap at 7.30/8
Milk and nap at 10
Nap at 12.30
Milk at 2
Nap at 2.30/3 until 4.15 latest for 6pm bed time. Start bedtime at 5.15 so baby is asleep at 6.

Usually she wakes up at 830-9. Today I woke her at 7, so hopefully she'll be tired to go down more like 7 than 9....

If you want her to go down at 7 then I would suggest keeping her awake from around 5.15b

Just wanted to check in and say got her down for 8.10 which is massive progress so thanks for your help ladies. She's been a bit squirmy but a bit of consistency and I'm sure we'll be fine!