Extending bed time
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Category: Have A Baby?
Forum Name: First baby? Second or more?
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URL: https://www.ohbaby.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=23831
Printed Date: 11 October 2025 at 9:48am
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Topic: Extending bed time
Posted By: JessDub
Subject: Extending bed time
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 9:33am
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Wondering if anyone can help or make a suggestion... how can I extend my son’s bed time?
My 11 week old son has always gone to bed for his night sleep no later than 6pm. While it’s nice that my partner and I can have a few hours to ourselves and an uninterrupted meal, I don’t see how he will ever sleep through the night going to bed this early. Also, going to bed at 6pm means he's up twice for a feed. The reason for his going to bed this early is that either; he won’t sleep in the afternoon and is overtired and losing it by 5pm; or lately, because he is napping one hour/ up one hour during the day, he does get overtired and grizzly by 5pm. As soon as he starts to lose it, he gets bathed, fed (if he’ll take it) and goes to sleep for approx 6 hours. I’ve tried putting him down for a nap at 4pm-ish but he won’t have a bar of it – he goes nuts. And we have to start the bath and bed process. Normally, he makes no complaint at the start of his day sleeps. I haven’t tried dream feeding him as I’m reluctant to unwrap him, un-velcro the safety sleep etc in the middle of his best sleep of the day. Any suggestions? I'm thinking 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' but I'd love to get a decent night's sleep sometime soon. |
Replies:
Posted By: Shezamumof3
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 10:00am
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When Caden was that little this is what we did.
He would have a nap at about 4pm and usually sleep until about 6 or maybe 7 and then he would have his bath a little "play time" then bottle and then bed at about 9pm. He would then sleep until about 1am, have a feed then back down until 7am. As he got older he would still go down at 8 or 9 but sleep right through until 7 or 8. We never put him to bed round 6pm cos he would just wake up at round 2 or 3 and that sucked lol. So putting him to bed later worked better for us and him. Now at nearly 7 months old he is wanting to go down for the night at 6.30 to 7, and he will usually sleep right through to the morning. Every baby is different. Oh and we never did a dreamfeed, couldnt see the point in waking him up to feed him, if he was hungry he would wake up. I didnt want to feed him when he didnt really need it. ETA-If he wont go down for a sleep at 4pm maybe try and keep him awake until 6pm, then do your bath and bedtime routine and try and get him down at 7.30-8 instead and see how that goes? ------------- |
Posted By: mandz
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 1:08pm
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Not really sure this will be much use as we did do the dreamfeed...
Basically Oliver would go to bed whenever he had been up for about an hour or so, sometimes that was 6pm and othertimes it was more like 7pm. Then DH would get him up for a feed (he was bottle fed) at about 11pm and then he would go back to sleep until about 3am, another quick feed and back to bed until 6 or 7am. We then just started to bring the dreamfeed back from 11pm until we got it to 9.30pm and then stopped altogether. Oliver now goes to bed anywhere from 6pm to 7pm and wakes at about 6am, sometimes as late as 7am. When we stopped the dreamfeed, he was still waking for the early morning feed, but I just starting trying to get him to go back to sleep instead of having a feed by putting his dummy in his mouth and he very quickly stopped waking for it. He was 4 months when he started to sleep through. I was able to sleep through until the early morning feed cause DH did the dreamfeed, but if you are BF that is not really an option unless you express. Whenever I had daytime sleep issues it was because Oliver wasn't getting enough sleep, so I was reasonally strict on the hour turnaround with him, right up until he started sleeping through. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
Zack Robert Henton - 29th December 2009 |
Posted By: first
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 1:58pm
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My boy goes to bed at about 6pm and he often wakes for a feed about 10ish or maybe a little earlier but then he will sleep through the rest of the night. It was a while before he did this because like you he would go to bed at 6 and then wake twice throughout the night but now he only wakes the once and its no problem.
SO I dodn't know how you could change it. What time does he wake up in the morning. Maybe work on getting him to sleep better in the day time (2hr sleeps) instead of his short ones and that might help. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://pregnancy.baby-gaga.com/"> 
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Posted By: LeahandJoel
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 2:02pm
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Joel very rarely sleeps btween his 3pm feed and his bed time feed, that is just his up and sometimes grumpy time. He is normally in bed around 7pm and most nights sleeps till 7am. Both he and Leah didn't do the dreamfeed thing, they would both still wake in the at the same time as usual. We were having one feed around 2am and then he just stretched it out as he got bigger and now goes through. Some babues don't do the dreamfeed thing very well and others do. -------------  
 
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Posted By: JessDub
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 6:59pm
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Thanks everyone, it's all food for thought. We just put him to bed at 6.30 (later than normal) and will just extend that time a little bit each day.
It was a conscious effort to keep him entertained and when he started cracking up, distracting him. So far, silence in the bedroom. Fingers crossed he'll awake again on the other side of midnight. |
Posted By: hannibal
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 7:15pm
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Hi,
Have a look at www.thesleepstore.co.nz - they have some great tips on getting the littlies to sleep. I was having problems with bubs getting past the 1st sleep cycle during the day (she is just over 3 months now) and after having a read up on there site we are getting better at the day time sleeping thing. We do the bath routine between 6-7 most nights and then a feed at 11ish and then she sleeps thru till anywhere between 5ish - 7ish. I haven't really done a dreamfeed (yet) as I like her to have a fresh nappy on for the nightime sleep (and every though we wake her she settles back to sleep quickly) and I just let her settle during the night if she wakes, she has been sleeping thru with the odd grizzle for a while now and I have probably in the past month only been up 3 times during the night for a feed - mostly due to her being sick with an ear infection. Hope this helps and good luck. |
Posted By: Lulu
Date Posted: 18 January 2009 at 7:27pm
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My 17 month old Daughter has always gone down for the night by 5.30/6.00pm and has slept through since she was 10 weeks old. We have just readjusted her sleep time by dropping her afternoon sleep and extending her bedtime to 6.30/7.00pm as it was becoming a bit of a battle at bed time and I figured that she had just reached that next stage and didn't require as much day time sleep and could go to bed a little later. So I reckon that you should probably just go with the flow for now. ------------- Lou http://www.babysfirstsite.com"> 
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