Better evening habits

[ladydolly]

My DD is 5 weeks. I know that's too early for a routine but I'd like to get some good habits in place. She currently sleeps around 9 or 10 hours a night with 2 feeds during which is great but it takes houra and hours of screaming to get her off. We bath her at 6.30 and feed at 7 in a quiet darker room and sometimes she'll drift off for 10 mins then wake and scream until I can settle her or until another feed at 10/11pm (or later). If we don't do the bath and quiet room she screams anyway, just more violently. She cries alot anyway, pretty much anytime she's not being fed or rocked in some way. I'm getting ok sleep, 6 hours, but I'm physically exhausted from all the carrying/rocking/walking to settle her. Any ideas?

[FATEdestiny]

I keep DD (13 weeks) asleep downstairs and she is carried up asleep when I go to bed.

If you a breastfeeding, you can just sit cluster feeding her all evening on the sofa. If not clusterfeeding, I insert dummy and bounce her on the bouncy chair until asleep.

The only thing that is important at this age is feeding and sleeping - and learning to do both well. Do not worry about how/where/when - just get her to sleep however you can and wherever you can. The time for routines is much later when the 'good habits' of actually sleeping a lot and feeding well are both in place.

[Gennz]

My DS is 5 weeks as well. I'm conscious ofggetting into "good habits" too, more for me than him (I.e. I don't think it matters now but I think it might start to if I continue with a bad habit further down the track. )

I track his feeds and they tend to be 2.5-3 hourly. If he sleeps much longer than 3 hours during the day, I wake him up to feed him. I let him wake me at night and he's almost 3 hours on the dot!

He's going through an evening cluster feeding phase right now so from 5 - 7 I pretty much just feed.

I don't rock him to sleep in my arms ever (though I do hold him) - I sometimes put him down drowsy but awakw but not always.

Try to have 1 -2 naps in buggy even if at home so he's a bit more flexible/used to noise.

Night feeds are strictly business, feed in dark & back in cot!

Not sure if it will help getting hom sleeping through or not, who knows!