Bedtime taking up 3 hours every evening

[Misha1998]

My 7 month old has never been a great sleeper, but we have fallen into a good rhythm in the past few months (during the day) of consistent length wake windows and her sleeping 3 reliable naps a day, which she fells asleep pretty easily for.

The difficulty comes when I put her to sleep in the evening. I will normally feed her to sleep (with pjs and story), otherwise I will hold and sing to her or go for a walk. She often takes hours to go to sleep and will wake up very frequently all through the evening until I come to bed (we bedshare, which has been what's best for us both).

Her bedtime is taking about 3 hours most nights, with me going back and forth to the bedroom and leaving me without much time for anything else in the evening!

Can anyone share their experiences, solutions and tips please I would be very grateful. I also want another in the next few years and I dont see how I can do a toddler and baby bedtime if the baby is like this! It can't be what everyone else is doing...

I'd drop to 2 naps, so eg wake 7. Nap 9. Nap 1 bed 7

3 naps is loads… Can she go to bed later?

Sounds like she is not tired enough. What's her sleep schedule?

What time are you aiming to get her to bed for? 3 naps is almost certainly too many if you are trying to put her to bed at 7pm.

Either drop one or put her to bed much later depending on your preference.

She's got your undivided attention in a place you share when she's not really tired. Drop a nap and see if that makes a difference. Get a cot for her.

The longest wake window is always the evening one, sounds like the last nap is too close to bedtime. What’s the routine?

I think 2 naps during the day is standard. She’s probably not tired enough at bedtime

Drop a nap and get a cot.

Agree with the others, she’s not tired enough. Nap transitions can be tricky because for a while they’re not ready to drop the naps but bedtime gets pushed later, and then when they are ready to drop the nap bedtime needs to be brought earlier. At 7 months mine was on two naps, but he dropped every nap on the early side. You may need to do a gradual transition where some days are 2-nap days and some still have 3 naps and then alter bedtime accordingly. Follow her lead.

Thanks so much for all your responses! There definitely seems to be a consensus here.

Yes I have been finding bedtime has been getting later, currently going to bed 8 to 9 ish which has been creating problems. So what you say about dropping the last napmakes a lot of sense.

It has been hard for me to recognise when to drop the evening nap, I have tried before and put her to bed but it was like her body had processed it as a nap and she would wake after 45 mins like a nap and then wouldn't sleep again for a few hours. Which made me feel like idk what I'm doing!

Interesting to hear the last wake window of the day is the longest one. And thanks for the advice on how to phase out a nap, I will definitely try this tonight and stick with the change.

I agree that three naps is a lot of daytime sleep at 7m. At that age my children would have two naps, transitioning to one nap sometime after they turned one.

Holding,, singing,, walking around is far too much stimulation for a dc supposed to be going to sleep imo.