Does anyone else's 5mo not want to go to sleep till 11pm?!

[mrsduff]

I'm not sure if there's an answer to this problem, but just wondered if anyone has the same experience as me: my DD goes down for her night time sleep at 7pm after a bath, feed, sometimes baby massage etc, then wakes up an hour later and won't go back down until we go to sleep at 10 or 11pm.. if we leave her to settle herself she gets more and more cross, and we end up having dinner every night with her either in my arms crying or being rocked in her travel cot. another feed when she wakes doesn't help either! not sure if there's a solution to this though, apart from going to drive throughs for dinner as she sleeps in the car ..

This is exactly what my DS did -he had what we called a 'power nap' at about 7 for 30-40 minutes, then would be full of beans until about 11. I was always amazed/bewildered by talk of 'dreamfeeds' -the idea of having to wake a baby up to feed it was completely bizarre.
It started to gradually change at around 10 months when we moved house (we had been living with my parents), but I don't know if that had anything to do with it. We didn't do any sleep training of any kind, it just sorted itself out. We are a long way off sleeping through the night though...

Sorry if this isn't what you wanted to hear

Yes - very awake 5 month old here right now. He slept for 45 minutes earlier this evening and is now still bouncing around. He will sleep when I do later.

My 4.5 month old managed to stay awake from 4pm until 1.30 am the other day . we put her to bed at 7pm and she had not a wink of sleep until 1.30 am

Usually it is 9.30-11.30pm when she finally decides to stop being little miss perky and decides to sleep

Tonight, drum roll, it was 7.30pm so i am living in hope we may have turned a corner

Good luck......

Dd used to do just this. Until she was about 6 months old, she would never settle until after her 11.00pm feed.

Just to give you hope - fastforward a few years. She's now just 4 and regularly sleeps from 7.00pm until 8.30 - 9.00am!

Thanks for the support, at least i'm not alone in this situation! And to look on the bright side, at least my husband gets to see her in the evening when he comes home from work. We thought he'd never see her as she would be down for the night at 7pm. How wrong we were..!

The 7pm bedtime "rule" seems only to exist in the UK, and it has no basis in logic that I can see!

At that age, my 3 would have a short nap at 5-6ish and were put to bed for the night after the final feed. Bedtime got gradually earlier when they no longer needed the late feed. There's nothing wrong with this, and it has the huge advantage of you all having your main block of sleep together.

Sounds familiar, and I totally empathise with you.Our 5 month old was exactly the same and does regress to this now and again when her routine is disrupted. I do recommend the 'dreamfeed' at about 11pm if one of you can stay awake that long!You don't need to fully wake them up just lift them gently, anyway it works for us. Somtimes its trial and error. Good luck