Hw do I get a Better sleep routine for my 6 month old?

[molley21]

Hi, my little girl Taneile has just turned 6 months. She sleeps through the night....I guese!!! She goes from between 10 and midnight and then sleeps through to about 9 or 10 the next morning. I was just wonderig how I would get her to bed earlier, like at around 6 or seven. I do have a bathing routine where she has a bath around 5 then she has her bottle, then I'll read a book to her. After that she will stay awake for an hour or so then go to sleep and wake up at around 9, have another bottle then go to sleep some time in between 10 and midnight. I do wake her early at around 7 but it still doesn't make a difference. I try keeping her awake longer during the day by amusing her, but she ends up getting too cranky and ends up falling alseep at the time when she is due to have her next bottle so that feed ends up getting missed.
So what do I do? any suggestions.........please!!!

[mami1323]

Are you a stay at home mom?  When I wasn't working my son would go to bed later.  Once I started working we some how just fell into an earlier bedtime.  Does she wake up on her own after that 9 pm feeding?  Because how I started him off going to bed sooner was by just leaving him alone and making the 9 pm feeding his last feeding.  Before I would wake him at around 11 pm for his last bottle but once I started work I stopped waking him.  He just learned how to sleep right through.  Of course he doesn't sleep until 9 or 10 am, he wakes at about 6 - 7 am and I feed him and can get him to sleep another hour or two more.  As they get older they get tired earlier in the evening.  I don't know if I've been of any help.

[kris123]

good luck - my son is one and wakes at least 5 times a night - so feel lucky that you get a whole night of sleep.  I would die for this.  At most ryan sleep 3 hours staright.  He goes down about 7:30 or 8 and gets up around 630 or 7 - of course you got to count the five times he wakes grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[molley21]

mami1323 - The bottle around 9 or 10 o **** is her last feed, then she'll stay awake for a bit then go to sleep, no later than 1 o clock, but in saying that, for some reason last week 2 nights in a row she stayed awake til 2 in the morning, and I mean wide awake!
And yes I am a stay at home mum.

kris123 - My god!!!! waking up 5 times a night still, thats one thing I do not miss, Taneile stopped doing that at 3 months, that was because I was feeding her breast milk during the day and started feeding her formula at night to keep her fuller.

[molley21]

oops!! I meant to write "clock" up the top there but I think I missed out the "L", so it came up as something else. lol

[mami1323]

Hum, interesting.  How does she nap during the day?  It's strange because the more frequent naps my son takes the better he is at falling asleep and sleeping through the night.  I have trouble getting him to sleep sometimes if his father is home from work early and overstimulates him.  Sometimes he has too good a time with us and doesn't want to go to sleep.  

[ma2isiah]

I would try to wake her up at 7am, then give her a nap at around 9am and again at 1pm. Then bath, bottle and bedtime at 630-730pm. That schedule is recommended  Dr. Weisbuth and his book Healthy Sleep habits Healthy child. My dd has been on a similar routine since 6 months and it works great. According to his research babies have sleep rhythms and certain times they go down better. Now all babies are different, but this has worked well for me and some of my friend's babies. Good luck!

[meiram]

When she wakes up at 9, do you turn on the lights for her feeding?  My daughter did that for a little while, but we kept the lights very low and did nothing that encouraged her to stay awake.  We stayed in her room to eat, and I held her and rocked her, but didn't talk to her or make eye contact.  I know, I know, what a big meanie.  Now she goes to bed between 8 - 9:00, wakes up at 2:00 to feed and again at 7:00.  But everytime she goes right back to sleep.  I would go insane if she woke up and stayed up!  

Also, I agree that napping during the day helps.  Does your daughter take naps?  

[tiredbuthappy]

i was like mami- while i was still home, dd went to bed very very late. no matter what. i would occasionally try to wake her early and it wouldn't do much. within a few days of going back to work, she was on a regular, early schedule. i think it was getting up early a couple days in a row. i thought she would never got on a normal schedule and was so relieved when it happened.  .

[Crritter]

I'm so jealous!  My boys are bad sleepers.  Cam didn't sleep through the night till well into his 11th month, then he got really sick and hasn't done many whole nights since, he's 14 & 1/2 months old.  At 6 months he was still getting up every 2 hours, sometimes less, and I could not get him down till at least 10 or 11.  Made for long days at work.  Now if Cam goes down before 10, he's up for the day at 4 am.  Try moving the feedings just a little at a time, maybe 15 mins. every week, you will slowly back the routine up.  Try skipping any early evening naps too.  Cam still goes down around 10:30 or 11 and he's up by 7.  I have asked our ped about it, he just needs less sleep.  He takes 1 nap in the day too, but you can tell when he hits a growth spurt.  Keep in mind that if you back up the bedtime 4 hours, your little one will probably be getting up much earlier too.  I don't mind the late nights, I work all day and love the cuddle time.  I hope to get sleep in another year when he sleeps all night....

[tiredbuthappy]

another thought as well... I find dd sleeps later when she goes to bed earlier. Also, even if she takes a long evening nap, she still can go down (ex: 5:30-6:45 nap, she'll still be asleep before 9 PM), . The thing is, a lot of times she doesn't look tired. By the time she does look tired, she's actually over-tired and gets wired. then it's sooo much harder to get her to settle. i remember reading that when babies are overtired they may actually sleep less. I think this holds true for my little one. although... you are getting 10-12 hrs out of your dd, so i doubt that's the case.

[BabyHardiman]

What are her eating cycles like?  Our daughter's cycle is this ... feed, wake, sleep, as soon as she wake she gets a fresh diaper, then she eats until she is ready to pop, then she'll have some wake time, and then she has a little sleepy time.  She usually goes about 3 hours between feedings.. sometimes a little longer.  She sleeps great at night, but my little princess is an early riser (around 6:30 or 7ish).  =)  As soon as Daddy yawns and stretches, I can see her little arms and legs moving.. must be that Daddy energy in the air.

Ava is 2 days shy of being 2 months old.  We used the basics of Baby Wise, I know MANY people disagree with that book, but we have the revised copy that is less strict, and breastfeeding friendly.  It's rare that she wants to suckle on mommy to fall asleep anymore... at the beginning it was tough, but my nennies are producing a plentiful supply right now.  I did not really start the basics of feed, wake, sleep until she was 5 weeks old.  Ava was born jaundice.  

[mami1323]

It sounds like you have a good routine there.  I think you made it work for you.  I think it works well for you and since you have started her on a good cycle now, she will probably continue to be on a great pattern.  It gets a little more difficult as the baby gets older though.  They are more easily stimulated by things.  So as she becomes more aware of her surroundings, they get easily distracted.  I don't make eye contact with Jayden either, I shut the lights completely off, he needs to know it is bedtime now.  However, there are those nights where he simply refuses to go to sleep and fights me tooth and nail.  You will notice that getting her to sleep becomes more of a task as she gets older.  I hope you don't have a difficult time because it really can drag the night on.  There are times I'm in the room with Jayden for an hour trying to get him to sleep.  That really *****.

[mami1323]

Why the heck is the word "s u c k s" not allowed.  I mean I know what context it could be used in but it's still a word in the English dictionary...geesh.  You can type butt but you can't type s u c k.