Bedtime routine?

We have a bedtime routine, but I don't think 5pm is the time your little one wants to go down, its too early. Babies should be getting near around 4hrs of napping time and sleep no later than 6:30pm so they go back down for bed around 8ish. It might be worth pushing times of other naps to get your little one to be up by 6/6:30

If that also suits you guys as a famiky I would always recommend following the babies need x

My little one gets very tired around that time and sleeps but will wake later about 7/8 for a last feed then goes back to sleep x

We start bedtime routine at 6pm where my LO has a bath then baby massage and in bed clothes. Bottle in a light room so she doesn’t associate bottles with bedtime and then bed. She’s asleep by 6:45-7pm. I then go in at 10:30pm, change her nappy which usually wakes her up a bit then give her another bottle and down to bed again. She then sleeps until around 6-6:30am where I give her her dummy and she goes back down until 7:30am-8am. She doesn’t have anymore bottles throughout the night as she’s having 5 x 7oz bottles from when she wakes up to the 10:30pm feed so getting plenty of calories / milk. She has 4 naps a day at the moment as the sleep regression has affected her naps only so she only sleeps 40-45 minutes for her naps. Her first wake window is about 1hr15 then the rest between 1hr30-2 hours depending on when she shows her sleepy cues. I try and do her last nap between 4-4:30pm for 30-45 mins so she has a 1.5-2 hour wake window

I want to add that we didn’t put this routine in place per se. She is 4.5 months old and kind of put herself in it! Newborn she was up every 2-3 hours for bottles then by 10-12 weeks she would have a bottle at 10-11pm at night and sleep through until around 5am ish, have another bottle then wake up around 8ish. I kept her in that routine and she stayed downstairs with us until 10ish when I went to bed but I started to notice her getting increasingly agitated and wanting to go to bed earlier so I randomly tried 9pm one night and she went down easy but was still grumpy leading up to it (despite following appropriate wake windows and naps) so tried 8:30pm and so on until we found the sweet spot which is 6:45-7pm. She is now just gets a little grumpy around 5:30pmish when she is starting to get tired but nothing like before. When she started wanting more oz in her bottles she then randomly just slept through and has done ever since. So my gut says follow babies cues / instincts…..

Thanks ladies this is very helpful! @Charlotte thank you for the detail, this is amazing! Well done you guys! Wanted to ask when you wake your LO for the 10:30 bottle does she get upset being woken up? xxxx