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My babies have all had a 7pm bedtime since day 1. Currently have a 3 month old and we’ve been doing a bedtime routine and early bedtime since the day we came home from the hospital. And those wakeups you mentioned were his wakeups at that age.
I really think it’s a misconception that they don’t have an early bedtime from day 1. Not sure why or where it came from. In fact, Weissbluth (I think it was him) said that’s what the witching hour is. Babies should have a bedtime between 5-7pm and that’s why many of them have that fussy period - they are tired and want to go to bed! It’s not a mystery witching hour, it’s them asking to sleep.

Bottom line, resounding YES from me that the 5 week old is ready for an early bedtime.

@Pumuckl: what time do your two kids go to bed? I’m still trying to sort out my timing because my older one is a crazy person and I do bedtime by myself. LO1 is 3, LO2 is 4 months.

YES! I think it was around 6 weeks my baby started HATING the afternoon and fighting sleep.

As soon as I started putting him to bed between 6 and 7 and putting him down for naps in a room with darkening blinds...world of difference! Such a happier baby!

Wow-how do you guys stick to a consistent bedtime for your little babies? DD is 3 months and her schedule varies every day by 2 hours! So bedtime can be anywhere from 6:30-8. We do find she gets the longest first stretch if bedtime is 7/7:30 but we usually can’t control it. Although it sounds like we should do earlier anyway so it stretches?

Are you waking your babies from naps so they stay on schedule? I thought we weren’t supposed to expect a schedule until 5 or 6 months but would love one now if possible!

ETA: also can’t believe how much your LOs sleep! At 5 weeks we were still every 3 hours!

ETA again: we do schedule in th sense that she is down after 1.5 hrs awake and we don’t let her go more than 3-3.5 hrs without eating but that can mean bedtime really varies based on the previous night.

@JJ2626: i have found with both kids that it will vary by about 30 mins based on the last nap of the day. I think schedule isn’t really the Right word at this age, more like predictable routine.
One thing you can do is wake them for the day at the exact same time every day. Say 7am. If they wake sooner, don’t go in till 7am or treat it like a night waking (boring, dark). If they are still sleeping, wake them.
This begins to set their internal clock to wake at the same time every day, or know that if they wake sooner you won’t come in and get them.
Once they are starting the day at the same time, and you know how much time they can handle awake, your day starts to fall into place. So wake at 7am and I know my guy can’t do more than like an hour in the morning. So I know he’ll always be back down around 8am, give or take a half hour (if he actually woke at 6:30, it would be back down at 7:30 which sounds insane but he’ll sleep another 2-3 hours! Sleep specialists say that the first nap of rhe day is the most important nap - it’s almost like a continuation of their night time sleep) . I then decide how long I want that nap to be. For us at this age it’s at least two hours. So again, I won’t go in and get him until that two ours has lapsed. So even if he wakes up a half hour earlier, I leave him be. Or if I do have to go in because he’s getting really worked up I treat it like a night waking - keep it boring, don’t talk don’t turn on lights don’t interact. Then when the nap is up I go in and make a big production turning on the lights and talking cheerfully and interacting. Again this begins to set their clock to know how long the nap will be and when they should expect you to come in. Rinse and repeat for the next nap and the next. The final nap of the day is what sort of sets the tone for bedtime. Bedtime in our house can be anywhere between six and seven. If the last nap of the day didn’t really happen or wasn’t very good it’ll be closer to six. If the last nap of the day was pretty good, say 45 minutes or more, that time will be a little closer to seven. All the while taking into account the max time he can spend awake before getting overtired.
I also find that he can pretty easily do less awake time at the end of the day and still go down pretty easily for bedtime. For example if his last nap goes until 530 I don’t necessarily have to wait until 7 before he’ll go down easily. I could still put him down around 6:15/630 and although it’s only been 45min to an hour he’ll go down. Their bodies do start to recognize bedtime versus naptime. Remember sleep begets sleep for babies. It’s not like us, where if we took a 5pm snooze we’d be up for hours.

Some of it is Watching the clock. But mostly it’s getting to know them and their needs and their own patterns. How much time they can spend awake, etc. and then nurturing those patterns and needs versus fighting or resisting them. I know many people whose babies are super cranky in that 5 to 7 window, but because they think that’s too early or they want to keep them awake for a spouse or whatever, they fight that earlier bedtime and instead put the baby down later. And then they are sort of an overtired mess. If you start to really pay attention and monitor the baby and don’t be afraid to try an earlier bedtime, I think you’ll see that it works out quite well. Baby sleep is very counterintuitive. Earlier bedtime usually means longer and better sleep with less wake ups. That might actually be why your baby is still waking every three hours or so overnight. Overtired and wired makes it hard for them to go down and also harder for them to stay asleep. With my own current three months old we used to do bedtime a little more between 7:30 and eight because that’s how things were working out. Once I fought that urge to keep him up (it’s natural I think) and started putting him down closer to six/6:30 That’s when his first stretch of sleep for the night magically stretched - instead of 8-11 it became 6:30/7-2/3am. Which is LIFE CHANGING!
I could go on and on but I’m on my phone doing talk to text and now I have to run some errands. But please feel free to reach out to me if you have more questions! I read about baby sleep constantly and it’s kind of my obsession.

@MaryM: so what time is ideal for him to wake up (for you)?

@JJ2626: I also just wanted to say that I think there is a lot of variation across babies in when and how easily they settle into a routine. My almost four month old is now in a pretty consistent routine, but as a younger baby wasn't on anything like the schedules I saw written in sleep books. He is now going to bed and waking for the mornings at the same times everyday - I think it was more a matter of him being ready for the consistent bedtime than anything I've done. And he does this now despite daycare naps being pretty variable.

Sounds like your baby is ready to me and that’s great! I feel like it makes it way easier when you don’t have to work on moving their bedtime Allier. With my first we put her to bed when we went to bed and that was 11 ish and it worked great because the long stretch coincided with my sleep. I tried to do the same with our second and it didn’t work at all. He put himself on an early bedtime of 8/8:30 and slept crummy at night after the first 3-4 hour stretch. But I could not wake him up at 9 and feed him and play to keep him awake before a later bedtime like I did with my first so I had to go with his schedule. I know not all babies dictate their schedule, but if they do and it works for you and is appropriate for their age then roll with it.

@SweetiePie: That's not really going to be possible because of our commutes. We're usually getting home right at 6 or 6:30. We've pretty much been winding him down for bed as soon as he gets home. And that's been easy since I'm home. Once I go back to work, it might end up being a little later.

I've been trying to gently/gradually wake him earlier and earlier. I'm not tiptoeing around as much, I'll gradually turn on lights/open blinds, etc.

It may come down to me actually having to just get him up and wake him, but I've been doing my best to try to get him to stir on his own so he won't be as angry!

If he wakes at 5, I'm fine getting up at 5 with him. The day he did that, he took a great morning nap at daycare. It's the just slightly earlier wake up that's harder because I can't keep him awake for two hours, but if I put him back down, he'll sleep too late.

@JJ2626: it’s possible that 1.5 hours is too much wake time. I would toy around with it. Like if she wakes at 5:30 you might want to try to have her in bed by 6:30 and see how she does.
Also, do you have a solid bedtime routine? Like literally the same things in the same order every bedtime? And are you really differentiating between daytime and night time? Like once bedtime is initiated, it’s night time. No talking, no lights, etc.

@SweetiePie: So we don’t have a bedtime routine (I was told by a sleep trainer friend that it’s not necessary yet) but we do make sure it’s dark and are quiet at Bedtime. Could start a routine I guess? That’s interesting that 1.5 hrs could be too much. It’s possible but she’s 3 months so I thought she should be stretching now but I’ll watch it. The same thing happened last night though-we woke her from her nap at 5:30, had her swaddle by 6:50 and she was falling asleep and then at 7:20 she wanted to eat again. She hadn’t finished her bottle at 5:30 so we gave her another couple ounces. She then fell asleep and slept until 2:30 which is great and then until 7. So I’m wondering if this is just what she needs in the evenings right now? It sucks bc we spend all night getting her down but then she sleeps well. Or should we try for earlier? I feel like maybe she needs those extra couple of ounces to sleep well!

And I seriously can’t believe you guys have 6 week olds that sleep for 6 hours. You are so lucky!