Any Suggestions?

I need help or suggestions to get Emily to bed earlier. Ever since I went back to work she's going to sleep later and later. She usually doesn't fall esleep now until somewhere between 12-1am. She will sleep straight through until about 7am most nights, but it's still way too late for her to be staying up, especially when I have to wake up at 5:15am to go to work. My husband ends up staying up with her a lot of the nights but then he's exhausted as well because he has to do the morning feedings and get her ready since I'm already out the door by 6:15.

We've tried everything that I've already heard already -- we have a whole nighttime routine that starts at around 8pm. Bath, lotion massage, bottle, then lots of cuddle time with the lights turned down low and just soft music on. It doesn't seem to be working though --- because she's still wide awake until at least midnight.

Any suggestions?

Re: Any Suggestions?

What time is her last nap of the day? That may be impacting the bedtime.

Re: Any Suggestions?

What is her nap schedule?
I would suggest starting her bedtime routine at 7pm and seeing if you can get her down by 8pm. Perhaps she is sleeping a lot more during the day and that is hurting her bedtime routine?
Maybe a late nap is the problem?

Re: Any Suggestions?

I agree with the late nap. Miranda is usually up from 4-5pm until her bedtime which is about 10pm. My next goal is to get her bedtime set at 9pm but with all the feeding issues I am not stressing about that yet.

Try cutting out or cutting down her last nap maybe that will help. The key though is to not get her overtired, at least it is for me. When she's overtired she fights sleep something awful.

Re: Any Suggestions?

The thing is that she only really naps about once a day and that is from around 2-4pm. Sometimes it's 3-5 but it's getting to be a shorter nap each week. She occasionally nods off earlier then that for a few minutes here and there in the morning, but that's it.

I'm also not with her all day long now. It pretty much started when I went back to work. I'm away from her until at least 4:30 in the afternoon.

Re: Any Suggestions?

I don't know how old she is...but we fell into this rut with angela about a month ago (she was 15 months) - all of a sudden, we were spending like 3hours trying to get her to bed, it was ridiculous. I have another on the way in Feb., and I was like, there is no way we can do this come February! So, she got her bath as usual and bottle, like 15 minutes of cuddle time, and then in the crib. The first two nights she cried (screamed) for 30 minutes and then fell asleep. The 3rd night it was 15 minutes, the 4th and 5th nights 5 minutes, the 6th night like a minute and a half, and within one week, she goes in the crib awake and then just falls asleep. I was SO glad I did it!

Re: Any Suggestions?

Emily is only 10 weeks old so I think it is too earlly to try something like that.

Re: Any Suggestions?

I'm amazed -- my baby can't stay awake as long as you are describing at 9 months. When she was 10 weeks old if she was awake more than 2.5 hours she was impossible to deal with from being overtired. Just now is she occassionally able to stay awake for four hours straight with much entertainment. Of course she only naps for a half hour at a time. LOL. Sounds like we have two very different babies!!!

I found Weissbluth's book "Healthy Sleep Habits" to be really helpful. It may be worth picking up at the library.