Party at Bedtime - would you persevere or just get him up?

[~Kaz~]

We are having trouble getting DS to go down at his usual time of an evening (6:30-7pm). I have read other threads in the past by parents reporting the same thing at around this age (10mths tomorrow). Bedtime = party time.

There is a bit of debate in this house about how best to deal with this. I have tried re-settling and comforting but that can go on for over 2 hours some nights without any luck. He is wide awake (although was tired during bedtime routine) and wants to play! Usually we just give up trying to settle him in his room and get him up for some play, watching for tired signs and then putting him down again. Sometimes it takes two or three goes to get him down and then he'll sleep 40 mins and wake for a feed

He is teething atm so his sleep is generally very ordinary (10 wake ups in 12 hours last night for example) but he was doing this before the teething started. His day sleeps have been a little bit reduced but some days have been quite good (2x 1.5 to 2 hour sleeps) and bedtime still = partytime.

Just wondering what you would do? On the one hand I am worried that we are potentially creating a new habit that if he cries and whinges enough at bedtime he can get up for more play but then on the other hand I think he's probably too young to make that kind of connection or control his behaviour to that extent and that if he's not going to sleep, there's no point making everyone miserable in continuing to try for hours on end.

Help!!
TIA.

[AliBaby]

On occasions that DD decides its a good idea to party at bedtime, I jsut get her up. I try and pick my battles and like you spending 2 hours trying to get a baby to sleep that doesnt want to sleep is not a battle I want to fight.

Normally I get her up and she has a play and then I try again an hour later, give her a feed and she will go down no problem.

I will also add that if DD is whinging in bed, I leave her. I only will go to her if she is crying.

I also have a few teddies in her bed and a sippy cup of water.

HTH

[Jakabella]

DD used to go to bed at 6.30 but when she hit 10 months that went out the window! So now her bed time ranges from between 8.30 - 9.30 and its working for us. If I try to get her to go to sleep she just gest upset and I get upset so I just leave it now. If she is showing sleepy signs then I will do the 15 on 15 off rule and some times it works sometimes not - if she isnt busy then she just has a play with her toys while we do stuff or we read her some books. I just go with her flow now.

HTH
Kate

[skeetaboat]

I always just followed DS's lead with bed-times. This has meant his bed time has changed incredibly over his 2.5 year life. At 8 months it was around 8pm, and at 2 years of age when he was starting to outgrow his daytime naps, it got up to 10:30pm. When we dropped naps, it went back to 9pm. I prefer to just follow his lead as it means bed times aren't stressful or hard work; worked very well for us and i'll do things the same way with our second born.

[*Infinity*]

Kaz, we're a bit earlier than you (DS is only 7 months) but have similar things going on here. He was in a solid routine and would be in bed by 7:30pm at the latest, but xmas outings and teething have stuffed that right up. We still try to put him down then, and sometimes he'll go down - but wake up an hour later for some fun time! The first few nights we tried to keep him in his room, re-settle, offer a feed but he was just fighting too hard. So we took his lead, decided for our own sanity to get him up and play until he was ready for bed again. And after that cycle he'd go down for the night.

I feel the same as you - I don't believe they can manipulate us or control their behaviour in such a way and I do believe teeth is the primary cause of the unsettledness here - so we just adjust our approach to keep everyone happy and its working fine.

Good luck

[~Kaz~]

Thanks girls. I appreciate your replies. I think we'll keep going with just getting him up if he's not sleeping. Everyone is so much happier.