Help please! 5 month old not sleeping until 11pm/midnight

[Eleventoes]

Evening all! Wondering if anyone can share advice/experience/words of wisdom re my nearly 5 month old DC’s bedtime/nighttime sleep.

Despite our best efforts, 5mo (DC2) will not settle to sleep for the night until 11pm, often later. For the past month or so she’s had a fairly consistent bedtime routine (bath, pyjamas, sleep sack, white noise, feed). I take her into our bedroom around 8pm for her last feed (she’s ebf) and although she’ll doze while feeding, I’m not able to actually put her down in her crib until sometimes close to midnight. Between 8 and 11, she’ll feed/doze on and off or just lay awake when not feeding!

Until she was about 3.5 months, she’d then sleep straight through until 7/8am so I didn’t feel a huge need to change things. But now the dreaded 4 month regression has hit, she’s up again at 2am, often needing to co-sleep to resettle before being back up at 5 and again at 7, waking for the day around 8.30. I’m exhausted and really want my evenings back (if only to get an early night with her and clock in a couple of hours more sleep!)

We have tried:

• waking her earlier for the day to bring her whole routine forwards,
• Offering more frequent (every 2/2.5 hour) daytime feeds to try to increase her milk intake

But regardless of this or the length of her daytime naps, she does not stop feeding and fall asleep until 11/12.

I suspect she might be cluster feeding and not getting the milk she needs to fall asleep until later on, so I am really hoping it might resolve itself once she’s on solids (thinking of starting to wean her a couple of weeks early partly because of this).

This is new to me as DC1 was going down at 7.30 at this age (although still waking a fair bit at night). He was mixed fed though and always had a big bottle at bedtime, so usually conked out after that. DC2 won’t take a bottle so can’t do this with her.

Thanks if you’ve read this far, and appreciate any advice!

Hi
Have you tried a number of different bottles to be able to give a bottle feed at night time. Imo it sounds like they are hungry which is why they are not falling asleep.

Thanks for replying @Sunflower10S - we haven’t, no. Given she is so close to weaning, I was minded to focus on food as a way to fill her up when we’re able to + formula feeds in a cup, rather than spending lots of time/ effort getting her to accept a bottle! But maybe we should be!

This sounds normal and I think you’ve been very lucky in the past. At 5 months old, my dd slept at around 10pm and woke at 5am. Formula fed so bottle before bed. What are her naps like? Are they too long or too late in the day? She sounds hungry so maybe she’s not feeding for long enough.

Thanks @Girlygal, good to know we’re not alone re late bedtimes - did your DD’s bedtime shift earlier as she got older? Naps are usually 10.30/11-12/12.30 (1.5 hours),2.30/3-3.30/4, (1 hour) then often a shorter catnap around 6.30 (which I appreciate is late but think this is result of later morning rise!) So ~2.5-3 hours of daytime sleep, which I didn’t think was abnormal.

I think you’re right re hunger, but I can’t seem to get her to take any more milk during the day. Her hungriest phase (8-11pm) seems to coincide with when my milk supply feels lowest, and bottle refusal makes it difficult to supplement!

I found the Mam bottles good, have you given them a try. Even for a few months/week until weaning? x

These are the ones we have and no luck unfortunately. Expressed milk/formula makes no difference either :( maybe need to be a bit more persistent!

Have you tried a sippy cup? I wouldn’t bother with bottles if she’s 5 months. Yes the bedtimes got a lot easier once she was fully weaned and toddling. Try stopping the late nap and give her a feed before bedtime maybe at half 6 if she’s very tired then. Could try formula milk, 6-7oz.

We have, can’t get her to take more than a couple of sips but aware this will hopefully build over time as she gets used to the cup. But you’re right, I think this is what we’ll persist with over bottles. Thanks for the advice!

Which cups have you tried? Straw cups and 360 cups are tricky for young babies so avoid those.

Just the standard tommee tippee free flow sippy cups! Feels like she’ll get the hang of these eventually fingers crossed

She will do! She’s so young. Nights are so difficult with babies.

I also think fairly normal (unfortunately), eldest DD was like this until she was about 6 months, DD2 much easier to establish a bedtime. They’re all just different.
Maybe hang on in there another month or two and you’ll get your evenings back!

I think DC is still very young and many babies don't sleep for that much of the night in one go. My two slept from about 9-4am from about 3-4 months but we were the only ones in our baby group who weren't being woken several times.

Possibly just good luck. DD did regress slightly at 4/5 months but settled after a few weeks so it sounds pretty normal.

Things that worked for us.

Give DC a moment to self sooth, if this fails go to them quickly before they get worked up and wake themselves up properly with distress.

Night time should be quiet and dark. Use covered side lights so it's juuuust light enough to see.

We found a pre-bedtime nap worked. Ds was strapped to DH all bundled up (February) and had a 8pm kip before proper bed time. Otherwise he would get overtired.

Use clothes and sleeping bags that easy to open/remove for changes. It took months for me to realise that you could just leave the bag on at the shoulders, unzip and flip it up for access/ slide the changing bad under rather the take the whole thing off.

A lot of this seems obvious but wasn't to me in my sleep deprived exhaustion.

DS would go to bed by 10pm until he was about 8/9 months old when we made an effort to shift it to 8pm. It shifted his whole day though so he then woke up at 4/5am for his day. eventually it lengthened by 13 months.

DD is 8 months old now and she naturally falls asleep around 8/8:30 but we take her to a dark room/bed and it helps her to wind down. She self soothed too with her hand which does a lot of the work. She wakes up multiple times in the night to feed though.

Oh she has a bottle, until very recently that bottle was midnight and it has now moved to 7pm and it has no impact on the duration length compared to me feeding her. We use the lansinoh bottle the LC said it fits her mouth better with a high pallet compared to the man which she sad fussy with.

Good luck. I think all babies are different and what works for one likely won’t for many others. Even between my two they are so different.

This is normal in my experience too. One child 'went to bed' earlier but also woke earlier. I actually prefer being up with them when I'm going to be up anyway (I have normal night with TV etc) and get that bit longer in bed. It naturally just got earlier. Remember they need to feed at night to stimulate milk production

Just to add i dont do a bedtime routine, they're up with me until the last feed which was generally about 10pm and then straight into cot. I only did a routine with bath etc much later. I'd have gone mad stuck in a bedroom with them 😆😆

Yep, normal. Babies need a lot of sleep and at 5 months old stopping naps to try and make her sleep through the night or for longer won't make a blind bit of difference. Don't take the sleep she does have away.

My DD was like this as a baby, but it never actually changed, she's never been able to sleep before 11/12ish - definite night owl.

You can start feeding solids now, its better to start before 6 months to reduce risk of allergies, so you might want to try and see if that has an impact but it probably won't.

Sounds like my dd. At that age a normal bedtime was 11 and 1 wasn’t unheard of. A five minute nap at 5 (eg if she was in the car) was lethal. Now at 5 she’s rarely asleep before half nine. If she had her way she’d sleep 9:30 to 9.

Very normal. There’s no evidence that weaning helps sleep, and in fact, often makes it worse as their digestion adjusts. And it’ll take a long time til they eat enough to compensate for milk. Feeds every 2/2.5 hours still seems infrequent- just offer it all the time! I did! Just keep her downstairs with you whilst she dozes and you have some time with your partner / watch TV. Then go to bed together later: you don’t need a bedtime routine at that age

Thanks everyone who’s taken the time to reply - I really appreciate it, you are very kind! It’s reassuring to know we’re not alone & has made me realise we probably do need to go with the flow a bit more and accept we have a night owl on our hands (for the time being at least).

Sounds normal.

My DS treated any sleep before 11pm like a nap I.e. sleep for 38 minutes and then awake for 1.5 hours, until close to 6 months.

Weaning doesn't help much. Those purees don't have a lot of calories in them. It will be a couple of months before they have 2 consistent, calorie dense, meals a day. Unless you put some porridge in their bottle, but I do know someone at work who say they ended up in a&e with their baby who choked on one of those bottles about 20 years ago. She said baby turned blue, it took them quite a while to dislodge the porridge (think they went to a&e to check her over after the fact) and thankfully no long term damage was done and baby is now an adult. Not something I would be willing to risk tbh.