Quick! Expert advice needed: let sleeping baby lie??

[JFly]

12 week old went down for a nap at 15:30 and is still sleeping now at 18:30. Tried to wake him about 18:00 but he's absolutely zonked. Normally does a few 1 hour naps thru the day, so didn't expect him to be asleep so long.

I'm trying to start bath routine between 18:00 and 18:30 with an aim for 19:00-19:30 bed time. Should I get him up and into the bath now, or just leave him until he wakes up? OR, just put him straight back into bed???

Difficult but as a general rule never wake a sleeping baby ime.

let him sleep plenty of time for routine.

leave him be, and put your feet up.

Personally, I hate waking babies, unless we had to go out or something. I'm not fussed about routines either, mind you.

I'd let him sleep. Forget about the bath, let him have a quiet play and feed when he wakes up. Be prepared for a late bedtime and just accept that it sometimes ends up like that.

If you put him in the bath now you will be waking him, which hardly sets off the sleep associations you are presumably trying to create! When he wakes up he will probably be more wakeful for quite a while, regardless of whether you wake him or he wakes naturally. 12 weeks is too early to be strict with a routine so just go with what you have to tonight and start again tomorrow.

(I would enjoy the sleep BTW!)

No expert, but I wouldn't if you don't have to. DD zonks out and misses a feed by an hour or so all the time but is fed when she wakes. I've noticed that she's happier when she's had a decent nap and a feed, rather than a mid-nap then feed.

Excellent advice, ladies. He stirs, so I think it won't be too late of a late night. Oh, and don't get me wrong, this long nap let me sleep for 2 hours (in a row ) so I'm not complaining!

Thanks very much! Sometimes I get myself so worked up about sleep. Good to hear even at 12 weeks there is still time to get him into a bedtime routine. You forget how little they are!

You don't need to worry about a bedtime "routine" as such for quite a while yet, if you don't want to. DD was still feeding 5-10pm at 12 weeks, and for a long time after that. Didn't start going to bed at 7 ish until she was closer to 6 months old, and started to bf less at bedtime.

JF - there def is! my DS was 4 months when I started the 7.30 thing off with bath n bed, v occasionally it varys and we have some issues with him waking but 7pm now is always in his bed. i'm a fan of going with the flow tbh.

Woot woot! He went down again at 8:15, quite tired. He may wake again before I go to bed, but here's hoping.

Thanks again!