Do you put your 9,10,11 month-old baby to sleep at the first sign of being tired?

Question

Or do you try to keep them up as long as possible? Or just put them to bed the same time each night no matter what? What are your experiences (i.e are they sleeping through the night? still waking up?)?

Answer 1

There's a nice book by Tracy Hogg - the baby whisperer that explains how to manage babies of a certain age and introduces various tips on sleeping etc.

Basically she explains that babies shouldn't really nap too long into the afternoon, so that they are slightly tired before bedtime, i.e. 7:00-7:30. Considering that you might give a bath of 20-30 minutes and have some wind down period, this gives you a nap ending at 4:00 pm max.

Sometimes you have to gently wake the bubba up if napping too long, so that they get their energy out by the evening. By introducing the same routine every evening: bath, food, book, etc you are setting habits that even if the baby is not too tired, they know it's coming and are relaxing just before bedtime.

Answer 2

my daughter has literally slept through the night since she was 2 months old....I've always kept her on a schedule. she is a year old now, and her schedule is as follows

7am wake up

10am nap till 12 or 1

4pm nap till 5

8-9 pm bedtime..depending on when we get done with dinner and cleaning up, baths, etc

Answer 3

We started putting Ian down at 8 pm no matter what every night when he moved to his crib but we've found since that going with the flow works best for us. Now our goal is to have him in his crib asleep between 8 and 8 30 *some nights it ends up being between 8 and 9 because some nights daddy gets off work at 7*....so around 7 Ian gets his dinner (and he's normally rubbing eyes by then, after dinner he gets his bath or a wipe down, then we go in his room (if he's still wide awake by this point we play a few mins), we read a book (if he's still wide awake we read 2 or 3--until he's decided he's done reading), then he tells daddy good night, daddy gets his blanket, taco dog stuffed animal, and paci in the crib, puts the crib rail down, turns on the night light, tells Ian night nights (kisses and hugs), turns off the light and leaves the room, we nurse and rock until he's decided he's done or until he starts falling asleep, I tell him night nights, and it's into the crib he goes...he was sleeping all through the night but now he's starting to get another tooth in so he's up once a night again normally (anywhere between 4am and 7 am) Normally we can reinsert his paci and he goes right back to sleep with that or a few mins of head rubbing.

Answer 4

Same time every night (same nap sched too). She has slept through the night since she was three weeks old.

If she shows signs of being tired earlier than her bedtime, I speed up the process

Answer 5

When my 9 month old is at home with me, I put him down when he is tired and let him sleep as long as he wants to (unless he's sleeping right through supper, then I do wake him up).  He goes to bed around the same time each night, between 7:30 and 8:00.  Usually he's tired by then anyways.  When he goes to daycare, its a different story.  The naps are scheduled and so are the wake up times, but he does fine with that too.  My son has always been a great sleeper.  He is sleeping through the night, from 7:30-8:00 until 6:30ish (sometimes earlier like this morning, 5:30 eesh! and sometimes more towards 7).  If I let him get too tired, he has a really hard time falling asleep and cries a lot.  I'd rather he goes to sleep without crying.  He sleeps with a stuffed animal, so if he's not quite ready to sleep yet, he plays with it for a bit, and eventually falls asleep.

Answer 6

mine is 9mos and I always try to put her to bed when she starts rubbing her eyes but it never works.  it always takes 3-4 tries.  she use to sleep through the night up until about a week ago now she's acting like a newborn again getting up about every 3-4hrs.