How long does it take to settle your babies to sleep?!

[Poshers]

Well that really, took me 2hrs to settle my 4 month old to sleep .....

What does everyone do? Tips & support would be immense xx

[stuckindamiddle]

It really varies from evening to evening. Last night, out like a light with no rocking needed. Tonight, was about 45 mins. Far too often it's 1hr +!

DC is 18 months and we've never done sleep training or controlled crying.

It's also varied a lot over time. We've had good spells but then teething, illness or growth / development spurts happen and it all messes up again.

[stuckindamiddle]

It's extremely wearing some nights and I do wish he'd settle himself off to sleep. He does mostly self settle when / if he wakes in the night, but he can't settle himself off to sleep at bedtime.

[Lostinspace82]

We've made progress with bedtime (used to be hours with multiple wake ups, now it's minutes) by exhausting him - no sleep after 3pm with a 7pm bedtime and feeding a bottle of expressed milk so he's full and less windy than if he breastfeeds

For naps we can fight for hours to get him down in his cot even when he's obviously tired and he just won't give in...he doesn't seem to have a window where he is tired and easy to settle...we now have a time limit of 30 minutes before I just pop him in his pushchair and walk with him - that usually gets me a 45 minute nap if I walk the whole time

[Poshers]

It's not just me then!! Well ... Comforting thank you ...

Whoever invented the "I slept like a baby" meaning good & restful must have never had a nights sleep in their life!!

Thanks as always

[maui50]

From early days, we've put him to bed based on the time from last feed, combined with sleepy cues e.g. if he started a milk feed at 5pm, he's probably wanting to sleep at 7pm, but if you bring him up and do a sleepytime routine at 6.30pm, he's had time to wind down and then he's out like a light at 7pm.

We found that if we just put him down to sleep at e.g. 6.30pm instead of 7pm, that we were on for a battle because he wouldn't be ready to sleep. Same for naptime; he's almost always showing signs of tiredness 2 hours after the start of a feed.

As I type, DH is trying to put him down for the morning nap a little early because he noticed sleepy cues - and I can hear a battle taking place!

Exact sleepytime varies in our house; depending on how the day has gone, the last milk feed might be at 5.30 or 6 or later - but the 2 hour rule seems to work for us.

[Mamabear12]

bath time helps signal my little one its time for bed. after he gets his milk and he is really sleepy. i burp and put him in his sleeping bag...put him in his bed, give him his muslin cloth to hold on to...put pacifier in, touch the side of his face...he closes his eyes and i walk out. its like that most of the time...except the last two days bc he has a cold...so he makes some noises like he is not comfortable and it takes him about 5-10 mins to sleep. once he falls asleep he spits out the dummy. he is almost 5 months though. when he was a few weeks old it felt like a battle to get him to bed.

with my first born i would always find new tricks to get her to sleep and they would be anything from breastfeeding, rocking etc. she learned how to self settle early on though and never took a dummy so i was lucky. second born...didnt have the time to do all the tricks so have had to rely on the dummy most of the time. he does fall asleep w out the dummy sometimes.

the main thing that has helped in both cases is the night time routine and bath.

what are you doing to try to settle your baby? every baby is different and they constantly change....im sure you are trying many different things...eventually you will find what helps settle your baby. i also found that it has to be nice and dark to get the kids to sleep. summer was not fun for sleep with my first born bc she would wake 5am bc it was so bright!!