bedtime routines

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

can i have your suggestions please? ds is only 1 month and we're still being led by him, but have started doing a bath/evening routine so he will hopefully start associating evening with quiet time then eventually bed. our evenings currently go someting like:

daddy home 6:30pm
bath with daddy 7ish followed by massage if he's calm
keep lights low and tv quiet, feed ds as and when he needs it...normally spend 9pm til midnight cuddling, soothing, rocking, anything to stop the overtired screaming - he normally finally drops off after late evening feed (at whatever tme he needs it, normally between 9:30 and 11pm) or needs more rocking (nightmare)

i know he's still tiny so not overlly worried yet, but wondering if we ought to have a more structured routine around bathtime...should we just put him in his moses basket in our room to encourage him to sleep(he has no tired signs in evening!) to continue keeping him with us (we try to keep stimulation to minium)

also what do you do instead of a bath on occasional nights?

[MrsSanta]

Its seems like you have a good rountine in place already.

I done pretty much the same with both dc's but after bottle bed, when really tiny down with us in basket. pram and then after 5/6 weeks (may be earlier with ds) own bed and monitor on.

Is he having alot of daytme sleep and just not tired enough.

[munkeebiznessunderthemistletoe]

It's early days yet, but is he windy? This might make him colicky- it can build up during the day and cause problems with settling at night.

Sounds like a great routine for his age.

We always did a bath... does he like looking at things yet? maybe looking at a book, or singing a few songs/ listening to some lullabies in a dark room? For a while we did a light show for DS (!). This basically involved shining a light on the walls and ceiling all the while playing soothing lullabies- it completely caught his attention and got him out of the crying habit. Madness, I know!!!

[munkeebiznessunderthemistletoe]

When I say light, I mean torch. Sorry!

[hollyivypoppy34]

sounds like you've got a good start - we did same with dd at that age but took about 6-8 weeks to get her more settled in the evening but I really think it paid off as she is very good about settling now.

[EllieG]

Don't think you can do any more at this stage - sounds perfect - didn't start definite bedtime with mine til she was about ten weeks ish, and that, thinking back, was a struggle and probably bit too early, though we did get one sorted and in few weeks was going down at 8, then 7. Being calm and enabling her to go to sleep if wishes sounds like all you can do at this stage.

[swottybetty]

i agree, it sounds like you've made a great start already. FWIW, i'm now due second dc (first is 8mo) and i feel like i wont worry about routine at all really til 8 or 10 weeks. they are so small then. when dd was a month old, dh and i used to really worry, and like you spent time and thought doing bath/story/feed in strict order each night. i then read a book that said that til they are about three months old, most babies have a two hour window of wakefullness, and after that they overtired! once i read that, it changed everything for us and she slept loads more, esp at night.

[nickymorris]

From about 1 week when we started bathing DS our routine was this.

5.15 feed if asking for it
5.30 nappy free kicking on bathroom floor
5.45 bath
6.00 massage
6.15 down to darkened bedroom, into bed clothes and swaddle (until 8 weeks when he went into Grobags)
6.30 feed
7.00 rock and ssshusssh to sleep
anywhere from 6.45 to 8.45 asleep
Sometimes if we've been a bit quick over our bath we'll read a story with DS sitting on my lap in bed - fairystories with about 300 words and lots of pictures - we get 5 or so out of the library at a time - we also read them in the morning

This works fairly well and I'm pretty much gaurantee to get him to sleep at 7pm now - 7.04 this evening . When he was littler it took longer but he now knows this is the routine. He would then sleep for about 5 hours before asking for more food - the longest he ever went was 9 hours which freaked me and the norks out! Was fab though as I was a new woman the next day as by chance as DH was out I'd gone to sleep when he did so also got the 9 hours!

However he then got an evil cold and is now going through the 4 month old clingy patch at the moment where he doesn't tie together his sleep cycles very well unless I'm with him. As a result I often have to rock him to sleep again in the evening - am hoping this phase will pass.

When he wakes for food I then bring him into bed with DH and I and we co-sleep and BF lying down for the rest of the night - WAAAY better IMO for actually getting some sleep rather than up and down and - for us - struggling to get him back in the cot in the night which reduced me to tears until I gave in to my instincts and told DH we were co-sleeping!

For calming advice definitely read 'the happiest baby on the block' - and the DVD is good too but read the book first - really helps with colicky/unsettled in the evening babies

However if you want to keep baby with you until you go to bed then I would also suggest you read 'the continuum concept' - I haven't read it yet but it's the next one down my pile of baby books and is suposed to be great.

For co-sleeping info I'm currently reading '3 in a bed' which I'm REALLY enjoying.

All 3 you can get second hand on Amazon.

I also read Save Our Sleep which is a Gina Ford type book although slightly more flexible and focussed on improving DC's sleep - can't get it on Amazon but if you google it you'll find the website and can get it from there or abebooks.co.uk is where I got my copy from.

[nickymorris]

Also agree with swottybetty about the 2 hour thing. DS is 4 months and still rarely goes past 2 hours without needing a nap.

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

Thanks so much everyone. So do you reckon best to keep him with us for now rather than trying to settle him in the bedroom? I know it will take a while, but at what stage would you decide it wasn't fair to keep settling him in a room on his own and to bring him back upstairs? I would prefer to get our evenings back sooner rather than later obviously (only limited options on tv when you're trying to keep things calm!) but if we have to continue soothing him throughout the evening, it's easier to do it in the living room than trekking back and forth to the bedroom - any thoughts?

The tears are definately bordering on colic, he's a really windy baby (on infacol and gripe water and 2nd sesh with cranial osteopath this week!)...and I can tell when it then turn into overtiredness.

The issue with the 2hr thing I suppose is I'm still being led by him and often he'll be really happy awake for 3-4hours in the afternoon. During the day he yawns and rubs his eyes so I know he's getting tired and try to setle him but seems to go from happy to meltdown immediately in the evenings!

[nickymorris]

Can you pre-empt his evening meltdowns by doing something that you know will help him to sleep - trip round the block in a car works for some people (not us) or similar? Rather than wait for DS to get tired...

I wouldn't like to say what you should do - you know your baby best and how you hope he will work with your way of life... For me it was great to get 3 hours in the evening to do the jobs that I can't do in the evening, eat a sensible meal and spend some time with the husband. We never left DS to cry and initially there was a lot of scampering up and down the stairs - mostly when dinner had JUST been put on the table .

But if you think your DS would prefer to stay with you then you just need to find a way to get him to either nap or sleep in the evening befoer you all go to bed...

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

good point nicky...not sure there is anything we can do to help him sleep before he goes to sleep, we try to help him go down as soon as we've fed after bath

I def want our evenings, mainly to talk to my DH as oyu say - how long did it take you and what age did you start? We've tried this evening with him in the bedroom, just feels really sad with one of us in the sitting room the other comforting baby in the bedroom! but if we want him to settle there eventually anyway maybe it's best we start now - I would never leave him to cry either