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D.C. Area Babies
transitioning to an earlier bedtime
When did your LO transition to an earlier bedtime?
Right now we have a reasonably good schedule for his age, I think. We start bedtime between 8:30 and 9, and he is usually down by 9 to 9:15. Every once in a while we'll have a rough night where he won't go down until 10, but that's only about once a week. He then sleeps until 3 or 4, I feed/change/burp and then rock him while keeping him elevated (reflux), and put him back down (It all goes to hell at that point as he is noisy and usually then starts working on a poop and I have a hard time sleeping once I've woken up.). But I've made my peace with that.
However, I have been crawling into bed at the same time as LO to maximize my sleep time. It has done wonders for my sanity but is not helping me and DH connect. He usually stays up for another hour or so.
I'd love to get LO down by 7 pm or so, so DH and I would have some adult time and I could still go to bed at about 9 or 10 but I am most worried about one thing - would LO then wake up at 1 or 2 am and have a similarly hard time sleeping the rest of the night? - right now I am ok with waking up from sleep at 4 and only being able to drowse at best until 6, but I wouldn't be able to function if that happened at 1 or 2.
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Re: transitioning to an earlier bedtime
Bedtime moved earlier between 5 and 6 months for us. DS gave up the early evening catnap, was moving away from the 3 hour EASY schedule, and we Ferbered in there too, so we moved to a 2 nap schedule which had a 7:30 / 8 pm bedtime.
Honestly, I wouldn't rock the boat with schedule shuffling. All our good habits went to poop around 4 months with the 4 month wakeful, and we just hung on for a few weeks until we worked up the courage to Ferber.
Ours transitioned to an earlier bedtime around 4 weeks. They were going down at 10pm, but around 4 weeks, they started getting really cranky in the evening, and we knew that was their cue that they needed an earlier bedtime. So, their last nap would end at 5pm-5:30pmish, and we started bedtime at 7:30pm, and they were asleep by 8pm.
This did mean their wake-ups moved up a bit at night to the 2am timeframe, and we've had challenges getting rid of that wake up (although they haven't needed to eat at night since about 2-3 months). But, they NEEDED the earlier bedtime or else they'd be a mess, as did DH and I so we could have some down time. Around 4 months, when I went back to work, they moved their bedtime up again, and now they're down around 6:45pm.
It's hard for me to remember the exact timing of things but I think DD went to an earlier bedtime more around the 1 year mark. DH is a night person and I'm a morning person. So, when DD was 3 months old and I went back to work, I would usually go to bed around 9pm and DH would stay up with her until around 11pm and then put her to bed. She would STTN until between 6am or 7am and I would be responsible for getting up with her and getting her ready. For me, having her STTN was more important than having her go to bed early because once I wake up in the middle of the night, I cannot get back to sleep. So, my preference was for her to be up later at night so she would sleep straight through. [As a side note, she would sometimes still take an evening nap after daycare so that would sometimes give DH and I time to have some dinner together and hang out].
So, that's the schedule we started with. Over time, she started to sleep a bit later in the morning and DH would put her to bed a bit earlier. I think around the 1 year mark is when she started sleeping 7pm-7am.
We had a similar schedule when I went back to work as far as bedtime, but over time (I would say around 6 months) we pushed back his bedtime until 7-7:15PM and he goes down pretty exhausted usually. He wakes up anywhere from 5:30-6:30AM. I wish he would sleep until 6:30 consistently, but I swear he hears me in the morning and decides it time to get up.
As far as STTN, that hasn't happened since around 4-5 months
. We've had ups and downs (and a ton of conflicting sleep advice) and now singled it down to one wakeup for nursing
Most sleep books I've read advise an early bedtime like 7-7:30PM for infants.
I do love the time after 7PM with DH, usually we have a drink or two, watch tv, read the newspaper. It's great! I do miss the extra time we used to spend with DS, but he needs his sleep since he's not a great napper.
Off to the beach
DS 7/18/2010
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a good time is when he gives up his 3rd nap and I would do it slowly, 10-15mins a day.
We did it when DS was about 3 months old.
Instead of letting him take his cat nap around dinner time after daycare, we keep him up a little while and then put him down for good around 7:00 or 7:30. DH dream feeds him at 10:00 or 11:00. He still wakes up at least once around 2:00 or 3:00, some nights he still gets up twice (which is kind of killing me - both my girls STTN by now - but anyway...). Then he's up again around 6:30 am.