What age does bedtime get earlier at?

awec

Hi all,

Our little girl is 8 weeks old and currently her bedtime (i.e. the time she goes to sleep where we know she'll stay asleep for the longest period) is any time between 11 and 1. Most nights it's between 11:30 and 12. The odd night it is 1 if she is especially windy or unsettled.

At night she's a really good sleeper, generally we get 5/6 hours with the odd 7 or 7.5 hour stint without waking. When she wakes it usually takes 1.5 or 2 hours to get her back to sleep. This has been the case since week 2 pretty much. During the day her sleeping is very sporadic, some days we'll get a 2 hour nap, other days she'll go 30 minutes, some times she'll fall asleep 3 or 4 times but only for 20 minutes.

We have tried to put her down at 8 for a 2 hour sleep and then wake her at 10 for a last feed, but it is very hit and miss. Most nights she has absolutely no interest in sleep any time between 6pm and 10pm.

So I am curious at what age did other parents start to notice their child get tired earlier in the evening and bedtime start moving in a few hours? She's only 8 weeks, so I'm not bothered really, she's not cranky and her weight and development is all good, but more curious if it'll just start happening naturally or if we'll have to start changing a routine to get it to happen.

I understand we aren't going to get 8pm -> 6am unbroken sleep for a long time yet, but more when we can expect her to fall asleep at 8 for 2/3 hours and then wake for a feed before falling asleep again for a longer sleep.

Thanks.

bee06

My son is 3 months old and he has consistently gone to sleep at night by 8.30 from maybe 2 weeks. When he was smaller he’d then wake at 12, 3 and 6. For the last 3/4 weeks he wakes around 2 and between 5 and 6. I used to try and keep him away for longer so in the hope he’d sleep a bit longer while I was asleep but it was impossible. I take him up at 7.30 and feed him and he’s out like a light by 8.30.

During the day I used to be pretty unstructured with his naps but now I try to make sure he’s only awake for 1.5 hours max. I find any longer and it’s really difficult to get him to fall asleep.

He’s breastfeed and I feed him to sleep.

shesty

For both mine, I brought them up to bed with me round 9/10pm every night, and noticed around 10/11 weeks, they started to edge back to earlier bedtimes round then.It's slow, you don't just go from 10pm one night, and expect them to go to bed at 8pm the next night.It could be 10pm, then 9:30pm, then 9pm.....working it's way back.By about 13 weeks (ish) they would be heading for the bed round 8pm,you just notice them getting crankier earlier!
I would not expect or encourage 8-10 hours sleep until at least 12 weeks, and even at that we did a dream feed round 11 or so.So they would go to bed at maybe 7:30/8, , dream feed round 10-11 then we mightn't hear from them again til 4:30-6ish.
Just get a bit of a bedtime routine in place now, even if it's at 10pm, and it will make it gradually easier to move it back to an earlier time as he needs it.
On second thoughts, I'm editing to say some nights they could be awake in that 11-4:30 window with wind or something, and take a long time to go back to sleep.But once they are over 12 weeks, I generally won't offer a feed in that time, unless they are awake for 2-3 hours at a stretch in there.

Bacchus

Hmmmm, I don't think you can really "expect" anything in terms of a regular night routine until around 5 to 6 months. Even after that, with developmental leaps, you're going to hit a couple of sleep regressions in the following 6-12 months (leap 9 is a b*tch). Every baby is different though and every parent has different approaches so it's a VERY open ended question (like how long is a piece of string). We follow Lucy Wolfe (with great success) and IIRC she outlines quite clearly that it's around the 6 month mark that you can start to see the fruits of any attempt to establish a routine. 0-6m is a lottery w.r.t. sleep but it is the time to lay some groundwork that will pay off from 6m+

I feel it's important not to set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations or looking at other parents with their "sure she slept through the night from the first week". For example, there's a Dad I work with... first child he was always on about (when the topic came up) about how easy they got him into a sleep routine. They had a second child last year. Same parents, opposite result. To their mind, they had a rough time establishing a sleep routine. IMO, they had unrealistic expectations based on their "easy ride" with the first child.

I'd just like to point out btw (and you already know this I'm sure) that 5-7 hours sleep at night for a 2 month old is "high fives all round" territory. Around the 2/3 month mark we were getting "mostly unbroken" through the night but with 2 or 3 night feeds so we're talking 3-4 hours uninterrupted max. Best thing we did actually was kick me out of the bed on the first waking so my wife could 'dreamfeed' and co-sleep for rest of night. That worked wonders for all of us in terms of getting quality sleep. The real change happened around 5 or 6 months though when we moved her into her own cot in her own room. After a couple of nights of her getting used to the new setup she was sleeping about 10-12 hours straight, no night feeds, just the odd soother run It's been like that ever since, aside from the dreaded leaps and sleep regressions which can last a few days to a few weeks.

shesty

I'd expect a child to stir or wake at night most nights til 14 months or so (sorry!!)
The real key is in how quickly you can get them back to sleep!

bee06

The thing I remind myself of during the tougher nights is that I never sleep through the night so why would I expect a baby to do it. The difference is going back to sleep is a skill that my baby hasn’t learned yet so needs help.

awec

Our nights aren't at all tough (the majority of the time). As I say, we generally get at least 5 hours unbroken.

Was just curious when others found their little one more willing to go to sleep properly (as in not a quick nap) in the evening times, rather than the 11pm-ish that newborns seem to love.

fits

For us there was a definite transition to the earlier sleep time 7 o clock at around three months. We didn’t do anything to encourage it.

scarepanda

Around 10 weeks or so we started doing a bed time 'routine' of bedtime starting at 9, she'd be in the cot by 9.20/9.30. at first I would have to go into her a few times till she settled, but we never brought her into our bed or even out of her own room, the furthest she went was to the rocking chair if I needed to settle her down and then staright into the cot. I also didn't do cry it out, but would let her whinge it out a little bit, there was a distinct difference with her and always went up before she got upset and started crying. She quickly learned that whinging got her nowhere and she was quite good from an early age at settling herself.

Anne_cordelia

Around 4 months here and by 6 months he had to be in bed by 7.30 every night. All baby driven.

appledrop

shesty wrote: »

I'd expect a child to stir or wake at night most nights til 14 months or so (sorry!!)
The real key is in how quickly you can get them back to sleep!

This was out little boy. I remember going back to work + still being up with him at 11 at night!

Nearly 2 now goes down about 8. Sleeps through most might although may wake once or twice but will go back quick. It's tough but all different.

Liam McPoyle

Our fella (almost a year) has been sleeping through the night for around 6 months. He goes down at 7 and sleeps til between 5 and 6. The only exception has been if he was sick or teething badly.

seamus

bee06 wrote: »

The thing I remind myself of during the tougher nights is that I never sleep through the night so why would I expect a baby to do it. The difference is going back to sleep is a skill that my baby hasn’t learned yet so needs help.

Hah, that's a nice perspective to have. It's always good to have a calming place to go to at 4am when the child won't sleep.

Myself and my wife would rarely wake up during the night, so unfortunately we don't have that to fall back on.

14 month old currently sleeps from 7:30 to 7:30 and she's been doing that since about 6/7 months when we moved her to her own room.

We do dream feed her though, go in at some point between 11 and 1 and give her a bottle. Bad habit, but the number of bad nights we've had in the last six months can be counted on both hands.

As others say, we kind of let her lead the charge. We noticed around 3 months that she started falling asleep in the moses basket in the evenings while we watched TV, around 8 or 9 and then stirring to be fed around 11 or 12. So we got into the habit of being ready to go to bed at that stage, bring her up, my wife would feed her (or I'd give her an expressed bottle if my wife had already gone to sleep) and then put her in the co-sleeper. She used to then stir once around 3 or 4 am for a feed and then back to sleep till the morning.

jon1981

Moved our baby to her own room at 4 months, she's 6 months now. I think getting the baby up at the same time every morning is key to them going to bed at consistently the same time.

She currently goes to bed between 7-7:30pm, she'll stir about 11pm and i tend to do a nappy change and a small bottle because some days she's not so great on the bottle and won't have consumed enough to ensure she goes through the night.

She'll tend to go from 11pm to 7am with maybe a dummy run every other night if she stirs.

Rough Routine , doesn't always go to plan if we have visitors or ourselves are going out with her but she's mostly following this:

1) Up from bed at 6:30-7:00am.
2) Some small solids and a bottle
3) Nap time by about 8:30/9am , will nap for about 45-60mins
4) Awake, play time and a bottle
5) Nap for about 2 hours at 12-1pm
6) Another bottle about 2-2:30pm with some small solids
7) Nap from 4-5pm for about 45-60mins
8) Another bottle about 6pm
9) In bed by 7:30pm

Bacchus

jon1981 wrote: »

Moved our baby to her own room at 4 months, she's 6 months now. I think getting the baby up at the same time every morning is key to them going to bed at consistently the same time.

100 times this ^

We have twice made the mistake of letting a lie-in happen. It totally screws up the schedule for the rest of the day. Routine. Routine. Routine. It's all about routine. The older they get, the more amenable they are to routine.

shesty

It is, actually, the one thing that is suggested everywhere is that you wake them round the same time every day.
Live by routine in this house.It's a pain in the ass for us sometimes, but it makes parenting easier.

Bacchus

shesty wrote: »

It is, actually, the one thing that is suggested everywhere is that you wake them round the same time every day.
Live by routine in this house.It's a pain in the ass for us sometimes, but it makes parenting easier.

Totally. We have a couple of people who think we're a bit anal/crazy about routine, but will also comment on how fantastic she sleeps (day and night)... they don't seem to get the link between the two.

Third_Echelon

Our wee man is 5 weeks old. It's only really this week that we've started to get a longer sleep out of him during the night.

The first 4 weeks it was every 2 to 3 hours for a feed, so 11 PM or 12 midnight, then 3 AM, 6 AM and then again around 8 to 9 AM.

This past week now, we seem to be getting from 11 PM through to the 5 AM timeframe. Going by the previous schedule, we tried to wake him around 3 AM expecting that he'd be hungry, but even after a nappy change and attempting a bottle, he was just wasn't having it at all. wanted to sleep. So... we let him go a few nights and he now seems to get through to around 5 AM as mentioned. Let's see how long that lasts

shesty

Sounds like my pair. Run with it!!! Never wake a sleeping baby His body is finding it's own rhythm, and that's just fine.