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Bringing bedtime forwards @ 5 months

2 replies

EvergreenForest · 08/06/2022 22:55

Hi there

After a little advice please!

DS is our second baby and so far an absolute dream. Very chilled and a reasonably good sleeper.

DS1 was a lockdown baby and, with nothing else to fill the time I became a bit obsessed with sleep and naps with him. Followed a schedule regardless of any signs that he was or wasn't tired, often drove around for hours as the schedule told me he was due a nap, and was essentially ruled by sleep. Although it was, in hindsight, way over the top, DS1 is a great sleeper at 2.5 and sleeps through great.

With DS2 I didn't want to get as regimented with sleep schedule so I tend to be led entirely by him. This works well and he has roughly 3/4 naps a day wherever we happen to be and seems content with this. The last 'nap' is usually around 5-5.30ish

Now onto my reason for posting. It used to be that at around 7ish he was having a bottle and that would be him down for the evening (so same time as DS1). He would stay downstairs with us and at my bedtime, I'd do a dreamfeed and transfer him to his cot for the night.

In the last 3 weeks at 7 he has had this feed but woken up about 20 minutes later...wide awake and no amount of trying will get him to go straight back to sleep. So he is then awake until 9.30ish when he finally takes another bottle and is then out for the count.

This leaves us without an evening and we find he's also quite ratty in this last awake window.

Does anyone have advice on how to bring it back to 7pm bedtime and keep him asleep or is it just a case of phases and he'll sort himself out?

I did sleep train DS1 but he was older and I don't want to do that yet with DS2 as he's too wee and his nighttime sleep is ok for us, it's just the timing of bedtime id love to bring forwards

Any advice gratefully received!!

OP posts:
whattodowhat · 08/06/2022 23:15

My DS used to go to bed and wake up max 1 hour later. I brought his bedtime forward slowly and that did the trick. He just needed to sleep earlier. Could this work?

twoandcooplease · 09/06/2022 12:33

I think he's having too many sleeps during the day? Around 5mo my ds dropped to 1 morning and 1 afternoon nap with a third around 7pm so I made his bed time later

In the beginning he chose his bedtime as 7 and was totally exhausted by then. A few months later snd there's no way I can start bedtime then, 9pm is the earliest.

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