Trying to get baby to bed before 8.30pm

I don't have any sound advice but I didn't want to read and run!

DS used to go down for naps around 8-8.30am (he wakes at 6.30am) and around 1pm and those were around 45-50mins each. In the last couple of months he wouldn't go down at all without a fight - it was awful he would just scream and cry. His bed time was the same, he just wasn't tired and would scream and cry so we would have to lay him down on our bed to get him to sleep and then transfer him to his room when he was out to it.

I thought maybe by the end of the day he was over tired so I ended up playing around a bit with his day naps by trying them earlier or later by 15 mins have now switched his naps to 9am and 2.30pm and he will usually sleep for 1.5 hours each time so he back up in plenty of time to be tired again for bed, but not over tired.

Perhaps you could move his nap times out by a few minutes either side and see if anything changes. It's a bit of trial and error but honestly it was worth it - he is so much happier now.

It seems like his afternoon nap is far too late. This could be making him stay up later.

What times are his other naps??

When my DD was this age naps were 830-930am 11-12/1230pm 2ish-330pm. Roughly around those times anyway.

She would go down between 6-7pm at night and sleep until 6-7am but she was still waking during the night for a feed or 2.

I also agree with making the last nap earlier.

Here's a couple of suggested routines from the Sleep Store. I'm using the first one for my girls and it seems to be working well (most of the time)

4 TO 6 MONTHS
11 to 12 hours of night sleep; 3 to 4 hours of nap sleep (2 to 3 naps)

Bedtime 7:00 PM
Waketime 6:00 AM
First nap: 8:00 AM
Second nap: 11:30 AM
Third nap: 3:00 PM

6 TO 9 MONTHS
11 to 12 hours of night sleep; 2 to 3 hours of nap sleep (2 to 3 naps)

Bedtime: 7:30 PM
Waketime: 6:30 AM
First nap: 9:00 AM
Second nap: 1:00 PM
May need to make bedtime earlier as child drops 3rd nap

Same as crafty - DD is up about 7am and has a nap about 9.30-11.30 (give or take an hour) and another nap about 2.30/3-4.30/5 if I put her down for her second nap any later she either stays asleep longer or won't go to bed until much, much later!

What time does he get up? And also last 6 weeks... Could it be day light savings? Anything you can do in his room to make it darker... Also you could try putting him down 5-10 mins earlier than normal each night/ every couple of nights and see if that works. That one worked for us - DD used to go to bed about 6.30-7pm but day light savings happened and it ended up being 7.30-8! We just gradually bought it forward by 10 mins every 2nd day and seemed to work but now teething seems to be happening and that's gone out the window!

Tonight its getting ridiculous. Its 9.30 and hes not looking remotely tired. Have already had a failed attempt at putting him to bed.

if it was me i could eat dinner while he is up. maybe give him something to chew on as well, then do his bed bath routine together or get hubby to do it.

It could be that he's getting too much sleep during the day. Maybe try waking him up so that he's only having 2-3 hours total during the day.

On that note I'm off to wake my girls

Does he need that third 4.30-5.30pm nap? If so, what about waking him after 45min-1hr (assuming he goes down by 4.30pm). Then you could bathe, feed, etc and try having him in bed by 7pm? Good luck, it's hard working things like this out!

I would try dropping that last nap, and make the earlier one slightly later, say, at 1.30pm put him down.

Well despite the late night last night, Riley still woke at 5am this morning : )

Tried your advice today and had his third nap early and finishing at 4.30pm. Then gave him dinner at 6pm and had him asleep in bed by 7.15pm. He did wake at 9.30pm and wouldn't settle so we gave him and bottle and finally got him back to sleep around 10.15pm. So not doing too bad for such a big change. Hopefully it will get smoother if we keep doing it.

Oops thats him waking up again. Has been waking hourly since we put him to bed, so maybe its not going so smoothly after all.