Night owl baby!

DS is four months old. We just can't get him to sleep before 11pm, sometimes midnight! If he does go down around 7 or 8 pm, he counts it as a nap and only sleeps 30 mins, then is up and ready to play again.

We don't have any other major concerns with his sleeping. He settles easily, sleeps in his own bassinet, and sleeps a five hour stretch before waking for a feed then going straight back to sleep. I know I can't complain, we are very blessed!

During the day he will have two naps in the morning, about 30-40mins, and then a long afternoon sleep 2.5-3 hours. Then another afternoon/evening nap. The problem is when he doesn't go down for his afternoon sleep until 2pm, he will sleep until 5pm. Then he wants another nap before going down for the night. If we are out or have visitors, he skips the long sleep and just naps, but gets very grizzly. He will then go to bed earlier.

Is this just an age thing? Will he sleep earlier as he gets older? Or should I try to put him on more of a schedule, waking him at 7am, etc? How do I get him t take his long day sleep earlier in the day?

Like I said, I can't really complain, but it would be nice to have some time with DH, and get to bed earlier myself, since I'm finding it hard to get back to sleep after 4am.

not much advice and im assuming you have tried it, but when he wakes at 7pm, do you go in and feed him in the dark and resettle as if it was 11pm, 1 am etc? I would be trying to treat it like during the night so he learnt that he needed to sleep at that time (I feel your pain tho, I would hate my kids to be night owls! im in bed by 830 myself!)

at that age I had DS's only a very relaxed schedule that they wouldn't sleep any later than 2 hours before I wanted them to go down for the night. So DS1 was 4pm he was up and being put into bedtime routine at 6pm (which was a BF/cuddles till 7pm when he want to bed), DS2 was 5pm cuz he was doing the bed routine at 7pm.

with regards to the longer sleep earlier NO IDEA. lol I can never get my kids to sleep longer/ shorter when I want! usually if I don't mind a short one, the sleep forever! and vice versa!

Good luck.

Thanks for your reply :)

Yes, we've tried the darkened room. The problem is that he doesn't wake the same way he does during the night. Overnight, he stirs/cries, and then practically dream-feeds, can change his nappy etc and he doesn't even open his eyes.

7pm, he is eyes wide open, wiggling to get out of his swaddle, face all lit up and just so cute it's hard not to play with him. He isn't hungry so won't feed, and there is no way to get him to sleep when he isn't tired.

This morning I didn't let him go back to sleep after his morning feed, even tho he was still tired. He fell asleep on the way back from the shops, but woke as soon as I tried to put him down. So we've had a bit of a grumpy morning. He seems to be having his long nap now, so we will see how tonight goes!

I've had one of these! DD didn't sleep before 11 until she was about 5 or 6 months and then we gradually moved her back - 10.45 for a few days and then 10.30 for a week.... and eventually she was settling at 8ish, but I think not until more like 8 months (when her day sleeps shifted significantly). By 2, she was pretty reliably going to sleep at 7.

DS1 did much the same but then all of a sudden he was tired at 7 and when put down, stayed down and I think this was earlier (maybe 4 months) too.

And DS2 was all over the place.

I guess I'm saying that I think it's a variation of normal and that I am absolutely certain that like everything else, it'll pass. I would tend toward not pushing againste it too hard and maybe just bringing it back in increments if you can.

Sounds exactly like my DD. I did try a few things but they were all too stressful and involved way too any tears for both of us. Eventually I just went with the flow which was way less stressful. Now she goes to sleep earlier most days. Not always. But mostly. Her naps have also started to get longer during the day in the past week or so (which is lovely!).

Sounds normal to me. I started tracking her sleep which helped me feel better knowing she was getting around about 12 hours which is on the lower end of normal. That helped too.

Best advice I've been given - just go with it. It's not a problem unless it's s problem for you Xox

Could you try dropping a morning nap and moving the big nap up earlier?