4-5 week old baby won't go to bed

[gretchinweeners]

So I know she is still so young but my 4/5 week old baby girl has started being wide away between around 7:30-10:30 each night. I wanted to start a routine relatively early, more so because this is my second so needed to have some structure to the evening for the sake of her big brother so we made bathtime 7pm and put her down in her crib about 8ish which was great the first two weeks. She sleeps around 4 hours during the night before needing a feed- however, the past four nights she has had her bath then bottle and when we have gone to put her down she becomes very fussy and is then wide awake for hours. I know they usually go through a fussy period around this stage so I'm not expecting miracles but I do worry about forming bad habits if I don't deal with this in the right way! Any advice?

[Doyoumind]

She's so tiny. I know you feel like getting everything right is so important at this stage but don't get yourself too stressed. This will likely be a short lived stage. I would wait a bit longer before worrying too much about a routine.

[oldbirdy]

My advice would be to work with her rhythm, not against it. Why must your baby adjust for her brother? Do you have a partner? Can't your partner look after baby while you do bedtime routine with older one, or vice versa?
I never put the baby to bed early when they were tiny. Iirc correctly we started a routine at around 4 to 5 months and kept the routine the same (eg bath, story, feed, bed) but moved it 15 mins earlier each night starting at around 11 pm and finishing at 7pm.

She's much much too young to expect consistency unless you are exceptionally lucky.

[Omgyouatetheprincess]

She is very young. Maybe just try and follow her lead, she’s not going to learn any bad habits at this stage, all she needs at the moment is you. When she’s getting fussy have you tried feeding her again? They seem to go through growth spurts constantly when they’re that young!
In all honesty it doesn’t last long and it is just a phase, and will hopefully pass soon