My husband made me write this post.
Now that I’ll be an official sahm, my first order of business will be to move the baby’s bedtime back a couple of hours. Maddie’s current bedtime is 6:00pm. Now, before you get your undies in a bunch because that sounds REALLY EARLY and we must be THE WORST PARENTS EVER, let me tell you why she goes to bed at 6:00. We get up at 5:00AM on workdays. Therefore, Maddie must be in bed by 6:00 to be functioning and awake at five o’god o’clock in the morning.
Since she, nor I, will have to get up that early, there’s no need for her to go to bed that early. I’d like to move her bedtime back to 7:30pm. I’m thinking the best way to do this is to move it by 15 minute increments until we get to 7:30. However, my husband wanted me to post about it and ask if any of you have any advice on the matter.
Please leave said advice in the comments. Those of you who are still to uptight to leave a comment, may continue to email me directly…. ahem, Aunt P, this means you.
Thank you for your support.
You’re not “bad” parents for putting your child to bed early; remember, she came into YOUR life, not the other way around.
Your rules, as long as they are fair and loving, and they are. 
As Maddie gets older, bedtime will keep changing according to her needs. For instance, I’m guessing she still takes maybe two naps a day at this point? One in the morning and one in the afternoon?
But eventually she’ll get to one nap a day and at that point, the bedtime might go back to being earlier again because she’ll be really tired and cranky from just having one nap.
So play it by ear. I wouldn’t bother with increments at all; see if she can stay up until 7:30 the first night you try it. If she can’t then whatever time she passes out, fine.
I never really had a set bedtime for the kids; just a “limit” time. Like, if they weren’t sleeping already by a certain time, then they would have to be put down to sleep. But if they fell asleep earlier, then I’d put them down then.
Sometimes they’d sleep-in in the morning and sometimes they’d wake up at the crack of dawn; it seemed to fluctuate depending upon their needs and moods.
I remember Lucy freaking me out once because she fell asleep at 6pm or so when she was around Maddie’s age and then slept all night until 9am!!! I kept going in to check on her and then finally I just had to wake her up, I was FREAKED OUT!
She was fine, lol! Blinking at me and probably wondering why I was waking her. After that, I just let her be.
You never know; sometimes they might be fighting a virus or something and they need that extra sleep. Sometimes it’s the opposite; they don’t sleep well because they have an ear infection starting and you don’t know this yet so you’re wondering why they are wakeful but it’s because there is something else going on, not what time or whatever.
Within certain time limits, let her determine how much she sleeps. I mean, not like letting her stay up until 9 or whatever; be firm about it but not *too* firm.
It’s like the food/bottle thing; generally they usually know what they need. Hope I helped some!
I’ve put my son to bed at 7:00PM since he was 2 months old. He just needed an earlier bedtime, and it still works for us. Well…until this summer. He’s been wanting to stay up later. So I allow it until 8:00, then it’s off to bed (most nights, of course there are exceptions for good reasons, like being away all evening or something). And he sleeps until about 7:30AM most days.
I say you just try keeping her up until that time. If she gets tired before that, then put her to bed. Just keep trying it. I think she’ll adjust quickly. Does she get up on her own in the morning, or do you have to wake her? If you wake her, you might find that she’ll sleep longer on her own. Just figure out what works for all of you.
She may like getting up early (even if you don’t) and you may have to go with that. I know, I know, ugh! That would kill me too, but I know that’s what my friend does. She gets up, because her kids are ready to get up.
I never allowed Zachariah to get up before 6:00AM. If he woke up, I would lay him back down and tell him it was time to sleep. He didn’t do it that often, then he just got used to sleep until 6:30-7:00 or so. You’ll figure it out.
I think your idea is good. Also, if you WAKE her at 5:00, you could just start not waking her that early, and she’d probably start naturally staying up later. Also, you could just let her stay up to the new bedtime, if she’s not drooping like a little flower. Also, I see I am not the first person to think of these things.
I second what THEY said!
HUGS!
grace