wont sleep in the evenings help!!!

Hi All,

I need advice on what to do with my nearly 8 week old baby. He never sleeps much after 5pm, but if he wakes too early eg before 6pm he wont go down for another sleep until it is bedtime eg around 8pm. I dread him waking up from any afternoon nap too early as there is no hope of me getting him down for another nap before bedtime.

I'm sure others have gone through this. We sometimes take him for a walk where he will nap in the pram, but we can't do this every night. He is not too cranky and we can sometimes stretch it to 1.5 hours up, but if he hasn't slept well in the afternoon, he does get cranky and then he starts falling asleep in our arms. We did try one night at 6pm when he was due for a nap but we tried for over an hour and then just got him up and started our nighttime routine.

Will he grow out of this? If he goes to bed too early then he will be up too early in the night. How can I get him to nap so he goes to bed later and then maybe sleeps through a bit more. Am I ask too much? Is he too little?

I found at that age just to put them down for the night when they're tired. We used to have a rough bedtime but would just see what time our DD woke from her last nap, when she was getting tired etc. I think it takes awhile for babies to fall into there own sort of routine.
Also putting babies to bed later don't always guarentee that they're going to sleep longer. Maybe you could try a dreamfeed before you go to bed to get him to stretch out longer? That works with some babies but not all.

Yeah, our bub doesn't like the dream feed, he pretty much wont open his mouth! I agree with ShellBell, maybe just allow him to sleep if he is that tired. Perhaps get him ready earlier so his bedtime just begins around 6\5 ish, or whenever you sense him not being able to stay awake. My DS does this same thing, and I have learnt that even if he goes down early, he still might sleep longer the next morning.

Good luck hon