How to reclaim the evening?

[Sarimillie]

My dd is six months old. She has short naps in the daytime, but doesn't go to bed at night until we do, at about 11pm. She then sleeps until 5.30am, waking for a feed then before going back to sleep until 7 am.

I am going back to work in August and want to get her into a more structered routine and get our evenings back! - perhaps a sleep in the morning, another after lunch and then to bed at eightish.

It would be fantastic to hear ideas about how to gently introduce this kind of pattern without her losing the ability to sleep through from 11 to 5ish! Any suggestions?

small bump...

does she go to sleep in the evening for a nap at the moment? - if so I would make that the 'bedtime' and treat any wakings after that as night wakings i.e. put your lo in the cot at the start of that sleep period and then when she wakes just feed/settle/whatever and put her back into the cot rather than having her staying up with you.

Re: naps - I always aimed to have a nap every 2-2.5hours after the last sleep ended as ds got overtired if he stayed awake any longer than that. At 6 months I think ds slept from 9am and then had a nap around lunchtime and then a late afternoon nap before bed at 8ish.

She's sleeping now; will follow your advice, Seona, and see what develops!

hi, my 6mo is no great sleeper, but i try to follow a vague nap routine.

we have recently gone to 2 daytime naps rt prev 3. he wakes at 6.30-7am then has a nap from 9-10ish, then again from 1 ish. he used to be very much like seona says and only manage 2 hrs from last awakening before getting tired but this has recently increased.

i think a bed time routine, whcihc i started at about 4 months (prev downstairs with us feeding ++) helps. so we bath him, dress for bed then i'm quite strict about dark room, quiet, for a last feed, aiming for 7.30pm. last few nights have for some reason been terrible to get him down but that is another thread!

he wakes minimum of twice at night for feeds. i am going back to work in 3 weeks and no idea how i will survive!

Thanks Weasle! Tonight has been a bit of a mixed bag, but she's been asleep for the last few hours - progress of sorts. Will pay attention to naps for the next few days. Good luck with the return to work!