What's a good bedtime for 2 month olds?

We are incorporating some of Weissbluth's suggestions but having a difficult time figuring what their bedtime should be. They usually take a nap between 5-645 pm and would like to get them down by 8, but they are usually pretty cranky and finally fall asleep for a good stretch at 10pm or so. We've tried putting them to sleep earlier and the same thing happens. Is their last nap too late? Should I be doing something different? THANKS!

 

We are incorporating some of Weissbluth's suggestions but having a difficult time figuring what their bedtime should be. They usually take a nap between 5-645 pm and would like to get them down by 8, but they are usually pretty cranky and finally fall asleep for a good stretch at 10pm or so. We've tried putting them to sleep earlier and the same thing happens. Is their last nap too late? Should I be doing something different? THANKS!

 

My girls bedtime has always been 7pm. Your last nap may be just a tad late, but those hours you mentioned were what I called their witchy hours because they were always super cranky and tired at that time.

Are they awake and happy after that nap? or just fussy from then till you've been putting them down to bed?

You may just need to keep playing it by ear for the time being. I instituted bedtime very early on (around 2 months) and it worked for us, it might be too soon for your little ones. They are all different. When I started the bedtime ritual, I set it at 7, but early on I could tell that they just couldn't make it that long, so If they were really sleepy/fussy, I'd sometimes put them to bed even earlier (between 6:15 and 6:30 sometimes). Then I would just work to stretch them out to where they could make it to 7:00. It took a while to get to the 7pm bedtime.

Sorry that i'm not much help, just play with their schedule, they'll let you know what works!!

 

Thanks!! They are pretty content soon after their last nap of the day. What I worry about putting them down too early is that they will wake up for the day super early. Now they get up around 7am which is great, with of course a few wake up periods throughout the night.

 

My babies used to have a wake up time between 5:30 and 6:00, but that meshed with my schedule because I work outside the home and we all have to leave the house every day at 6:30. Now, they usually will sleep or stay quiet till they hear me up and moving around. Some days I have to wake them to get them into the car.

Whatever bedtime you are comfortable with, just be super consistent and everything will follow suit.

Best of luck!

 

I am trying to figure this out too. My DS I think is asking for an earlier bedtime which I think I am going to try and work on. He gets REAlly cranky in the evenings after his second to last bottle. I am thinking of putting him down after this and then giving him a dreamfeed before I go to bed. DD on the other hand is more of a nightowl and won't go down before 10pm. So as long as I can make sure they are still sleeping thru the night and waking about 6:30am then I will stick with that.

 

my kids bedtimes became earlier and earlier the older they got...at around 2 mos or so they were going down around 9:30-10 because that would be the last feed of the night - my daughter still woke once around 3 am at that age...then gradually their bedtimes got earlier and earlier as they could go longer and longer between bottles...now they go to bed between 7:30-8 and sleep till at least 6:30

 

At about 6 weeks, we started their bedtime routine at 6pm, they got a bottle, bath and then bed. So they were asleep by about 7:15-7:30. Back then they would still get up at about 10ish and then about 3 for a bottle, and they got rid of the 10pm feed first, but they still wake anywhere between 5:30-6am. This works great for us as I know I am going back to school in January and we will need to get them up, fed and dressed and leave by 7am to go to the babysitters. Good luck!