What time do you start calming your baby down before bedtime?

[YRGAM]

Hi all,

Question in the title really - when do you start to lower your voice, stop active play, and generally just calm things down before bedtime? Our son is 5 months old, and there's loads of variation in how easily he goes down to bed, so I'm wondering if it's anything to do with over stimulation. I usually give it 20 minutes to half an hour before bedtime to stop any active play, does this sound too little?

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

Hi! My baby is 3 months old and I do bath/bottle/bed. I suppose the wind down starts at bath time, then he gets a bottle in his darkened bedroom. Once hes finished his bottle he gets put down in his cot. No change in environment because its already dark and calm.

I think it works out as 30/40mins down time in total

[Teacaketotty]

DD goes to bed around 7:30/8pm but honestly there is no wind down time, she’s 100% go go go until the goes to sleep no matter what we do! Bath time and bottle half an hour before but she’s too excitable for calm down time! She’s nearly 11 months.

[RosiePosies]

DD is 14 months and we're still totally crap at the bed time routine!! I've started pulling the blinds down at 6, then it's bath, then we'll sit on the bed and play with some books for 20 minutes, then bottle then bed.

[BabyLlamaZen]

At least an hour before. Then half an hour quiet time with simple toy before taking them upstairs.

5 months is a hard age, don't beat yourself up if it's not working.

[Fivebyfive2]

We aim for about half an hour with our 6 month old but it's difficult because all the stuff that's meant to relax a baby just doesn't seem to work! We ditched evening baths early on as he clearly preferred them in the day. Swapped to just doing a little massage / putting night time moisturiser on, even that makes him excited because he loves rolling around in the nip 🤦‍♀️ We do a bed time story, but sometimes even then he gets excited when he sees the book!

We're going to try getting him ready for bed in his room with it really dark except for a red light projector on and some music playing quietly... Oddly we've found Andy Williams songs seem to soothe him?! Babies are weird...

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

@fivebyfive2 mine wont go down unless Radio 4 is playing!

[YRGAM]

Thanks all. I've started playing him lullabies from about 45 minutes from bedtime and it seems to be working - he went out like a light tonight and is still there as I type. It's quite difficult as I am WFH full time so only really get to spend time with him when I take him off my wife at half 5, so it's not much window to have a chat with him!

[Lockdownseperation]

We have an older child and bedtime is crazy time in our house. Baby still goes to sleep easily.

[Abouttimemum]

Yeah DS is 14 months and he’s always been bottle, bath, stories, cuddle and song, bed. Except without the bottle now. Takes about half an hour. He does get overstimulated so there’s plenty of down time after the bath to chill him out!