increasing her waking times?

When is her actual bedtime?? And do you guys use a good bedtime routine for her naps and at night time?

Excuse the tired brain but are you wanting to extend her daytime naps or trying to just fix that 3hrs when she is awake? Daniel goes to bed at 6:30pm and stays there til 7:30am, he wakes up once for a feed at around 6am. But other than that if he wakes, we try and settle him in his cot, he doesn't come out of his bed unless he is totally worked up and even then it's not for play, it's for a cuddle in the darkness in his room.

Does she get a bath each night? That's Daniels big sleep cue for knowing it's night time and that playtime/awake time is over.. it only takes him 5mins before he's out to it now because it's exactly the same each night. And we decided quite early on that he needed an early bedtime because he was more irratic with his routines during the day if he went to bed later at night.

We found it much easier to sort Daniels night time sleeping out first and then work on the day sleeps.

She doesn't nessecarily need longer awake times. Daniel was only awake for an hour at that age.

Edited by kebakat

We get in the bath with Daniel every evening since he was about 6 weeks old. It sucked at first but now it's quite fun and knowing it makes him go to sleep is a god send lol. We only get in with him because we find it easier than trying to hold a baby over our deep bath and now that he wriggles everywhere we find its safer too. We just make it nice and deep and warm and it relaxs him completely.

I don't think that you need to always bath, you could pick any sleep cue. A sleeping bag, being wrapped etc.
Spencer doesn't have a bath every night. His night time routine is just bottle, nappy change, change into bodysuit/all-in-one, put in cot, kiss, I say night night and then I leave. That's it. He is really nosey and have found that the least amount of stimulation works the best, I use to do a bedtime story but that seemed to create more problems so now i just read to him during the day instead. When he goes down for a nap in the day it is the same thing except that it has been a couple of hours since his last feed, but still the same kiss say night night and I leave.

I would try moving the last nap of the day so that she wakes (or you wake her) at around 5.30pm feed and then put her to bed between 6.30 and 7pm. Keep the time in between to gentle play so not too much stimulation, more just one big wind down (a bath if you feel like doing that). Also you could try doing the nappy change then giving a top up to get her sleepy before putting to bed (try not to feed to sleep though cos that is a viscous cycle). If she won't settle then try to keep things quiet and maybe stay in her room with it darkened so that she learns that its time to go to bed and that your aren't going to get her up for more playtime.