going to sleep early evening....no way

[MARRA]

WE HAVE A 5 MONTH OLD DAUGHTER AND SHE WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP EARLY EVENING I.E 8.00PM. WE ARE STILL HAVING TO GIVE HER A FEED AT AROUND 11.00PM.
IS THIS NORMAL? PEOPLE HAVE SAID WE SHOULD BE PUTTING HER IN HER COT AND SPENDING TIME WITH EACH OTHER BUT WE HAVE NO CHANCE AS SHE ALWAYS SEEMS MORE RESTLESS IN THE EVENING, BUT NOT IN ANY PAIN OR DISTRESS.
ANY IDEAS WOULD BE SOOOOO GREAT

Do you mean she doesn't go to sleep at all until 11?

You need to look at the whole days routine.

Does she sleep until late in the morning? If so, you can try to gradually bring her routine forward by 15mins or so each day, so her bedtime is earlier.

Alternatively, is she having too much of a nap late afternoon? I know people say never wake a sleeping baby, but if it is really causing you a problem, you could try waking her early from her pm nap and see if that helps her feel more tired come evening.

Do you do the winding down before bedtime? Lights low, quiet cuddles and look at pic books, bathtime, bottle etc And i think it helps to give the last feed in the child's bedroom with dim lights so they realise it is night time.

HTH

This may not help, but it was our experience: We used to bed dd at 7pm, and she learn't to go to sleep by herself, (within about a week of us starting this, we tried about 3mths if I remember correctly) if she wasn't tired, she got into amusing herself until she felt tired enough to drop off, sometimes you'd hear her rattling to herself for an hour, but she'd eventually go to sleep. I then gave her a dream feed at 11pm, which I gradually brought forward to 10pm, but she still needed that until 12mths, when she happily dropped it and slept thru (where as friends we knew had the last feed dropped by 9mths!) we were lucky as dd slept through that last feed, but not all babies do? hope you have success.

SHE DOES SLEEP THROUGH THE DAY AND I HAVE TRIED TO CUT IT DOWN BUT SHE JUST NEEDS IT AND THERE IS NO STOPPING HER....SHE GETS SOOOO GRUMPY AND IRRITATED BY BEING TIRED.
SHE NAPS AT AROUND 7.00PM BUT ONLY FOR HALF HOUR OR SO AND SHE WAKES AT AROUND 6.00AM.
SHE IS JUST BRIGHT EYED AND BUSHY TALED IN THE EARLY EVENING.

Message withdrawn

usually a cat nap but today she has slept for 2 hours.....yes i know i will suffer later but i just needed to get on top of things i.e...housework.

going to try and keep her awake and start a routine tonight.....bless her she does sleep through the night once 11.00pm feed is done, shouldnt moan really, but we need our time.

Message withdrawn

yeah your right about the fact that she needs to get her sleep.
going to try and get her ready for bed for 7pm, dim lights, bath, feed etc...see if she will sleep then feed her but put her straight back down again.
its trial and error, never had the problem with first one as all she did was sleep eat sleep...bliss...what an eye opener number 2 has been.