When will my 5 month old sleep earlier?????

[cheesetwist]

Hello

DD1 was a beautiful sleeper at night and an awful one for naps. She only wanted to be held or in the buggy.

DD2 sleeps beautifully during the day (in her cot!) but only cosleeps at night. She's 5 months. She's done maybe 2 nights in her crib for a maximum stretch of about 3 hours. I don't mind cosleeping but I just want an hour or 2 before bed to just chilllllllll. Also her bedtime is still really late - 10pm.

I'm doing a little routine before her last nap (massage, book, feed, sleep) in the hope she sleeps longer than 30 mins. She wakes up after half an hour ON THE DOT. I've tried holding her, putting her down once she's fast asleep, keeping her on the boob. It only ever lasts 30 mins. I'm currently holding her after she fell asleep 15 mins ago in the hope I can put her down for the night once she's in deep sleep (doubt it 😭).

Advice?

To be entirely frank you need to set a better routine, that bed time is way too late, if anything it should be 3 hours earlier.

Undertake some research to understand the stage of development your child is at, set the routine and the child will adjust.

After 5/6 months, a baby's sleeping habits are more down to you just as much as it is to them. Good luck

My dd was like that at the same age and is still at 3, she is just naturally a night owl. She does, at least, then sleep through in the main and wakes latish (if she had her way she'd sleep 10 to half 9).

She's recently dropped her naps and returned to nursery, so things have been all over the place, with a few early bedtimes resulting in a 3-4 hour wake window in the early hours! But she's generally falling asleep half 8 now, this week at least!

That's to say it might not resolve itself too quickly, sorry!

Your routine is the wrong way around, she shouldn't be sleeping all day. Our most recent our twins one slept good from day one and one didn't. It took a few days of perseverance keeping her more awake in the day other than napping, stopping picking her up when she wanted to co sleep at night..it took 4 nights for her to realise mummy and daddy weren't picking her up anymore everytime she cried and now she sleeps good like her twin. Now we get our evenings to ourselves. There all in bed 6.30-7 twins and nearly 2 year old and they wake a similar time in the morning

My son would sleep from 7-10 then wake for a feed and then go back to sleep from around 4 months. Then around 8 months that graduated to sleeping all the way through from 7 once he was in his own room. ( when he finally had one 🤣)
we had a routine of shut the curtains and just have the lamp on so it was darker, read a story and have milk and he would fall asleep on me. At around 10 months I was able to take him up to bed and he would fall asleep on his own( I was kind of gutted and missing him fall asleep on me) he’d created his own routine by then.

if she’s awake late, don’t have a lot of stimulation. Be in night time mode and she will learn

I didn't bother with any timings re routine until mine was 6m. Before that I would do things in the same order but not at set times and would be guided by cues and wake windows each day.

Is she getting the recommended number of hours sleep in 24?

I found 6-9 months the hardest time re sleep because we were out of the newborn haze and still never getting more than 2 hours at a time. We eventually started co-sleeping at 1 as I was shattered!

When I meant beautiful sleeper during the day, I simply meant that she lets me put her down rather than contact napping! She does about 5 hours during the day and 9-10 at night.

She wakes at 7.30/8am.

Like I said I don't even mind cosleeping, I just wish she went down earlier at night and stayed in her crib for an hour or two before coming into my bed. I know that she can sleep independently because she does it during the day.

I can't be strict on timings as such due to DD1. I can't just drop everything to make sure DD2 naps at a specific time. Also I don't want to become obsessed about her sleep either like I was with DD1; it made me miserable.

Also I'm not going to teach my child that whenever she cries I'm not going to pick her up. I want her to know that I'll always be there if she cries, even if it's just for a cuddle.

Good point about keeping her awake more during the day. I'll reduce the 5 hours day time sleep total to 4? And hope she goes to bed earlier.

If she's getting 15 hours sleep in a 24 hour period then the totals are fine, but it sounds like there is an imbalance of day and nighttime sleep which isn't working for you.

My baby is lower sleep needs (I don't think he's ever slept 15 hours in 24 hours) so my experience probably isn't applicable here, but I would defintely recommend playing around with timings and making sure baby has enough awake time/stimulation during the day to be tired enough to sleep at night.

FWIW now that my baby (10mo) is on 2 naps, but needs 3-4 hours awake time until he's tired enough to sleep, it has pushed his bedtime back to 9pm most nights. I know it'll move forwards again once he drops his second nap, but I'm letting him lead and he is happy and well rested. Baby sleep is a moving feast.

I think you've had a few harsh responses here.

Both of mine were still frustratingly having late bedtimes (and nothing I did would change it) until about 6-7 months when I managed to bring it forwards.

5 months is still an age when they can't link sleep cycles so 30/40 mins of sleep before waking is pretty normal. This usually gets better around 6/7 months.

BUT I would agree 5 hours of daytime sleep is a lot at 5 months and mine were more around 3 hours at this age.

With my second I tried not to go by sleep schedules and instead wake windows which for my DS at that age were around 2ish hours.

So if they're waking at 7.30 I assume first nap is around 9.30 for maybe an hour? So then awake from 10.30 trying to make it to 12.30 for next nap and hopefully a longer one til 2ish. Last nap 4.30-5ish

That should mean by 7-7.30 they are ready for bed (but I appreciate you say they're awake after 30 mins!).

At 5 months I used to just feed to sleep so if they woke shortly after I fed again back to sleep. I kept to this schedule and found that by 6 months they stopped waking after 30 mins and did start to see it as their bedtime.

I know you've said about leaving baby to cry and 5 months is too young IMO but I did gentle sleep training with both of mine at 7 months (disappearing chair) and there was very little crying. I successfully got my second out of co sleeping using this technique too and found it really help.

Sorry, this is a lot of rambling but hope some of it is useful

Thank you @CraneBoysMysteries that's really useful.

Yeah so she has first nap 9.30 - 10.30 but I have to wake her! She'll sleep much longer otherwise.

I then take the girls out to the park or library depending on weather. DD2 usually falls asleep in the buggy around 12.30 on the way home, but it's hit and miss how long she'll nap for. Sometimes she'll do a good 2 hours, other days she might only do 30 mins.

Her last nap is usually around 7.30 which is when I do a bedtime routine beforehand and try getting her down for the night.

Tbh, last night she stayed in her cot 8.30 - 11.30!! I couldn't be bothered to feed her and do the whole crib transfer again so I just brought her into bed.

It sounds like you're missing an afternoon nap from these timings... My 10mo would struggle to last from 1pm to 7:30pm (or even 2:30pm to 7:30pm).

I was on similar timings to @CraneBoysMysteries at that age.

@Calphurnia88 sorry I didn't fully explain!

Her naps usually are;

9.30 - 10:30
12 - 2 (but she sometimes only does half an hour which means her third nap is earlier and longer)
4.00 - 4.45

Then I try to get her to bed around 7/7.30 but she commonly only does half an hour and then goes to bed at 10.