10 week old won't go down for bedtime!! Help

[Kpop]

Hi,

Our LO is just over 10 weeks old.  She wakes at 7 am and usually lasts an hour before she shows clues that she's tired.  She also only lasts one hour before her second nap.  She takes 3 naps plus or minus a cat nap around 430 5 pm.  She again starts showing signs of being tired around 630 7 pm. So we do our wind down routine and put her to bed.  She usually sleeps for about 30 minutes once we get her down and the. Wakes up and won't go to bed till around 9 to 10 pm.  After that she squally sleeps well till 4-5 am.  We've tried putting her t o bed earlier and later with no improvement.  Any suggestions on why she goes to bed so late.

Thank you

[ginger428]

Hi and welcome to BW! 

Does her day look something like this? How long are her naps?

You're doing great following cues and you seem to have a good, loose routine.
It's probably a case of tweaking the routine a little.  It could be too much day sleep. Sometimes the last Activity time before bed can be stretched slightly longer. Depends on the baby. If you could fill in the gaps, we'll take a look and see.

WU (wakeup) 7:00
NAP 1 8:00-?
NAP 2 11:00?
NAP 3 1:30?
NAP 4 4:30/5
BT 7:00-7:30 (When does her eyes close?)
Up
BT 9:00/10- 4:00/5

[Kpop]

HI! thank you SO much for responding!
so this is our schedule:
WU at 7am, i am very strict about this as I return to work in two weeks and this is when she needs to wake up for me to feed her and get her out the door before the nanny will come
nap 1 at 8am, it seems like she gets tired so quickly! but we dont want to miss the sleep window, but still cant seem to "stretch" her
feed at 10
nap 2 is 11:15, there is 1-2 wake ups where we have to shush pat her back to bed for 10 minutes or so
feed at 1
nap 3 is 2/230, this is usually the most difficult nap and we shush pat for 30-45 minutes, and i wonder if she is really tired or just laughing at us
 feed at 4
nap 4 is 5-45
BT is our "disaster zone," we are still experimenting with times, but yes! it is so late!  we do routine at 715/730 ( or as long as she "stretches,' in bed at 745/8 and sleeps for 45 minutes or so then awake, then we shush pat till 945-1030 or whenever she falls asleep, or i give her another feed as a dream feed, but ends up becoming me nursing her to sleep, because she falls asleep on the breast- i am so worried this will become a case of accidental parenting/ bad habit!

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE any advise and help please
Thank you!!!!!

[Kpop]

oh i forgot to say, middle of night wake ups are random, mostly between 3-430- i do believe she is genuinely hungry, she eats energetically and goes right back to sleep

[ginger428]

Yes, random motn (middle of the night) wakes this early is almost always hunger. 
At this age, their nights avg around 8 hrs at night/16 total sleep, so around 6-8hrs day sleep. See the first link below.

If she's waking at 7:00, then her natural bedtime would fall around 10 or 11, which I know is very common for babies who don't sleep 10-12 hours a night straight away.  It is more common for them to sleep 10-11 hrs a night (with feeds) closer to 4 months.

Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep

However, I believe you can guide her to that point if you adjust your naps. How long are each of her naps?? And do you feed as soon as she wakes up? When does she wake at nap 2? I would only resettle her once here. For nap 3, it might be that she's had a lot of day sleep already.

I would be aiming for the LOOSE routine below but we should start with capping the length of the 3rd nap to 1.5 hrs. But please remember that she is still very young and needs a fluid routine. They are growing so fast and anything and everything can cause a sleep time to go awry. =P

WU 7:00 and E (eat)
S (sleep) 8:00-9:30 and E
S 11:00-12:30 and E
S 2:00-3:30 and E
S (CN- catnap) 5:00-5:30
BT (bedtime) 7:00

I don't think she can do this right now, but we can help her get there by slowly reducing her day sleep and increasing her night length. Most of this is developmental, so we have to bide our time. Hope this helps.

[Kpop]

Hi, thank you for responding!

I will make adjustments today . . .  this makes sense and I see how it can shape to 1.5 of A and 1.5 of sleep then to the 4 hour schedule.  But since my LO is 11 weeks, is it fair to say that she probably wont be ready for 4 hours at 4 months and just may be a little slower to develop awake hours?  or will this rapidly change over the next few weeks?

Also, since her bedtime is really 10pm.  should I do another cycle/ cat nap at 7, and then do bedtime routine around 9/930 to have BT at 10?  and how does the schedule slowly transition down to BT at 7-8?
Thanks!
Karen

[ginger428]

Yes, she will change quite rapidly in the next few months.

Try the catnap around 1.5 after the previous nap, wherever that puts you.  What you can do is shorten this CN by 5 mins every week or so to get BT gradually shifted earlier.