Baby hates going to bed

davemuscato

New member
My eleven month old hates bedtime. She’ll start getting upset when she realizes we’ve started her bedtime routine. My husband and I go to bed when she goes to bed and she’s usually tired enough that she falls asleep nursing (she’s EBF), but not always, sometimes she tries to get bitey and I trade her for a pacifier, but her entire life I’ve held her to sleep every night. And she’s almost always woken up anywhere from 20-40 minutes later. She used to just take a little settling and she’d go back to sleep, but after she hit nine months. Nope. It’s not always an event, but there’s often crying and some nights it takes an hour or so to get her to calm down and a lot of just cycling through nursing, patting rocking. She’s not hot or cold, not wet, she’s fed- she just doesn’t want to sleep despite obviously being tired. I thought it was her top teeth because they took FOREVER to fully erupt, but they’re both out.

Her bedtime is 9:30 but sometimes it takes her until 10 to pass out for the first time. I’m a sahm and she and I usually wake up around 9:30/10. Her first nap is usually 12/1 and anywhere from forty minutes to an hour and twenty. Second is usually 5/6 and the same length. The only time I ever wake her up is if she’s still asleep at 7pm. Naps are all contact. Bedtime she’s been in a mini crib next to me most her life, but I’ve recently started bed sharing and it doesn’t make any real difference with how she sleeps at night, but I like the cuddles and after figuring out side nursing, my sleep has improved.

The crying at night sucks. Especially since she can get pretty hysterical, but once she’s asleep it’s fine. I can get up to go to the bathroom and if I disturb her, she’ll look at me and just turn over. She wakes two times a night to nurse and goes right back to sleep. I think while she’s not a “good” sleeper as our friends babies, we’ve got it pretty decent. HOWEVER my stress about the situation is feeling like my husband sees it as a problem. On the nights when she gets especially worked up or if we actually do have a difficult night, he brings up how I should keep sleep training in mind even thought he knows I don’t want to do it. Specifically Ferber.

She’s tired. She’s fighting sleep. If we let her sit up and we turn on the lights, she’s instantly pleased as punch. She’s likely going to keep pitching a fit about bedtime. Putting her down into a crib and leaving her while she’s already crying would just feel like I was punishing her and doesn’t seem like it would actually solve anything. Maybe he thinks if we deprive her of stimulation she’ll just give up on being awake? I don’t know. The occasional nudge about considering sleep training if this keeps going has taken a situation that isn’t fun to deal with and makes it insanely stressful for me. If I’m having an especially hard time calming her Im also internally panicking because I’m worried that if I’m not getting her to sleep fast enough, my husband will start pushing for sleep training.

I guess I just want some input. Anyone else deal with this? Am I being unreasonable?

TL;DR
Husband keeps bringing up sleep training. I think that baby sleep often sucks and we don’t really even have it particularly bad. And I’d rather be drawn and quartered than not go to my baby when she’s crying
 
@davemuscato That is a pretty unusual nap schedule. I know my kid needed 4-5 hours of awake time before bed in order to be tired enough to fall asleep easily and stay asleep overnight. This will lead to not falling asleep or waking up 40m later.

Also expecting her to stay asleep for 12 hours (or 12.5!!!) overnight is a lot. A lot of 11 month olds will only do like 10.5 or 11 overnight. So if you don’t wake her up till 10am, that would mean an 11pm bedtime. No wonder she is fighting 9:30pm bedtime.

I would trying waking her up at 8:30am every day if you want to keep the 9:30pm bedtime. Then first nap at 11am (starting nap routine at 10:30 or 10:45am). Second nap at 3:30pm, wake her no later than 5. That gives her 4.5 hours awake before 9:30pm.
 
@godsdaughter78 I hadn’t even thought of adjusting bedtime, stupidly enough. I’ve done enough obsessing over her naps for her age, you’d think I would have. I guess because my friends kids all do about 11.5 hours. We did some adjusting today because we were out of town. Got her up a bit before nine and she passed out at about 10:30. No wake up and drama. Just some light fussing when I put her down next to me and shifted her around, so I could lie down too. So we’ll see if we can make a habit of this :)
 
@davemuscato It took me longer than I’d like to admit to think of and try adjusting wake and sleep times too!

I’m glad to hear today went so well! That’s excellent. I hope for you all that that continues. Don’t feel disheartened or like it’s it’s not working if you do still have some dud days here and there, it might take a little bit for both of you to get the hang of the new times. What a win though! :D
 
@davemuscato When my son was that age I tried to make it less about bedtime and more about “time to relax”. That helped him to regulate and took the stress/pressure off of me to get him to sleep. I focused on just enjoying the cuddles.

If she doesn’t fall asleep nursing, is it possible she isn’t tired/ready for bed? Maybe wait 10-15 min and try again?

FWIW: being responsive has actually helped make bedtime easier now that my son is older (23 months). We have floor bed and he actually crawls in it and tucks himself in lol. He associates bedtime with mama cuddles. :)
 
@marleyandreed Lately I’ve started trying playing music while getting her ready. Seems to help.

And yeah, that’s how I feel about being responsive, I feel like it’ll help me her be more independent and stable later down the road and it feels like the right thing to do.
 
@davemuscato Love that! Hang in there. Your instincts are not going to lead you wrong. I don’t regret my choice one bit now that he’s older and if I have a second child we will do the same thing.

Oh also, my son went through the season of waking 45 min after I nursed him to sleep, also. It was so annoying lol. I gave in and would just go to bed early with him and watched Netflix on my phone. He now can easily go 3 hrs before I join him in bed.
 
@davemuscato My almost 13 month old has that same natural sleep schedule. It's rare she sleeps more than 3 hours total between two naps though. She also wakes after about 40 min but she usually settles with 5-20 min with a boob.

We co-sleep and I roll away during naps and at night to work or in the am. For my daughter lots of exercise is really important. If she hasn't gotten enough movement I will take her for an evening walk 3 hours past her wakeup. We have a push wagon and she can do 2 blocks. She also shifts her schedule based on when she wakes up. So I wake her around 7 if she isn't up before then. Or she will be up until 11 pm some days.
 
@anna67 I feel like she could absolutely do with more stimulation and outdoor time. Yours does sound a lot like mine. Our sleep schedule is very much just off her cues. Granted, I think part of the issue is that my husband is often convinced she’s tired. He comes home and she rubs her eyes and he’s immediately asking if she’s winding down for nap and she’s only been up an hour lol. I had to talk him into not trying to get her to bed at 8:30. She won’t have it.
 
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