Beggining to HATE the nightitme routine of trying to get DD to sleep.

[DustyTV]

DD sleeps really well, 99% of the time she sleeps for at least 8 hours solid at night. She very rarely wakes in the night now.

BUT....snd this is a big but.... it can take DH and I up to 4 hours to get DD to sleep.

By 7pm she is tired and you can tell she is, she is narky because she wont just go to sleep. We give her a bottle at about 7.30-8.00pm and beigging trying to get her to go to sleep.

We do the following;
Rock her.
Sing to her.
play her a lulaby/baby motzart CD.
Walk her round and round and round the block.
Go for a drive (but we are getting rid of the car next Tuesday so we wont be able to do that any more)
We leave her to ettle herself either in her cot or in our room.
We sit next to her cot while she is tring to settle herself.
We sit outside her room while she is tring to settle herself.

I'm wondering if we could get somesort of a swing seat for a 9mo so that she an be rocked to sleep in that, but I cant find one suitable for her weight..

We don't want to leave her to CIO like SIL keeps telling us to do.

PAny advice or help would be most appreciated.

She will settle quite easy in the day for a nap, sometimes she falls asleep while having her milk other times I just put her in her pushchair and she falls straight off. I don't even need to walk with her.
She wont settle herself in the cot in the day though.

I will stick to it.

Thanks

Yes night time routine sounds fine. Where you do story shouldn't matter at this age.

That sounds like what I do with my dd's.
5pm tea
6pm bit of telly with milk for dd1 downstairs
half 6 bath (if I can be bothered...), pj's story and bed by 7

I never let them downstairs once they have their pj's on as then they realise it is bedtime.

DD1 is 2.7 and DD2 is 10 months and they are normally both asleep by half7.

Another thing I do is the cot and the bed have books, a small (quiet) light up toy and extra teddies so if they aren't sleepy they can play, DD1 regularly 'reads' dd2 a story after i have turned out the lights!

hi there

i know how you feel, we got dd into a routine for bedtimes at 8 weeks and even then it seemed to take forever, but by 12 weeks she was going to bed every night at 7pm and stiull does

i know your dd is older but i think it was the consistency that made it work for us and probably doesnt matter about their age. Occasionally we have a run of bad bedtimes and realise that we are being lazy and not making her have a bath etc we go right back to the usual routine and it works well.

the best adive my HV gave me was to decide on a bedtime and not let her come out of her room after that time, until its morning

so we basically do everything in dd's room from 7pm til 6.30/7am

we put her down to sleep and walk, obviously if she is very upset about somthing we go in, but generally ignore whining and chatting - i think she does this to lull herself off to sleep and in the early days, me being in the room, even just sitting was enough of a distraction to stop her going to sleep

totally agree with everyone who is suggesting a 7pm bedtime, it does sound like by 8 or 9[pm she is overtired ad thats why it takes hours to settle her

hope i've not repeated too much, but bedtime routine is about the only thing i do feel i have got right with dd so thought i would share

It seems to be working

DD has been going to bed between 7-8pm for the last 3 nights. I now gwt her up at 7.30am every morning and I don't let her nap past 4pm.

Thank you, thank, thank you, thank you..... I heart you all