DD 2 months ....when does bedtime begin?

[justlookatthatbooty]

DD is 8 weeks old and I'm starting to really miss time with my partner in the eve, incl intimate time! When did you start to putting your DC's to bed in the eves. She's still with me day and eve til we go to bed. We co-sleep and her brother is in our family bed in the eves so I would need to put a lot of cushions round her if she joins him. The bed is 3.5 metres wide and I can put them on opposite sides for extra safety. but the actual question is, when does bedtime begin? I really can't remember!
thanks

[alexw]

I did bath, bedtime from day 1. Meant dh and I had an eve together from 7 til feed about 10.I would def try to get your eves back. But I didn't co sleep or have a toddler to contend with...

[olivo]

my dd is nearly 6 weeks and we are starting bedtime soon. we have a 3yo who goes to bed about 7.20 so the plan is to bath, feed and bed DD2 after that. of course, it's not likely to go according to plan...

[Orissiah]

Right from day one, we treated 7pm onwards as night time. So every time DD woke up from 7pm we fed her in a darkened room upstairs, never brought her downstairs and kept "communication" to a minimum.

She began sleeping through quite quickly (from 3 months) so I realise we were lucky and that this is unusual.

But we always woke her at 11am when we went to bed to give her a feed then quickly put her back to bed and she rarely woke again until 6 or 7am. If we didn't feed her at 11am she often woke around 2am or 3am.

We stopped waking her at 11pm when she turned 7 months old and was eating solids well.

This routine suits us though, and may not suit you.

[Orissiah]

I meant "we always woke her at 11pm" doh!

[1stMrsF]

I did bath/feed/bed routine with twins from 6 weeks. Started at about 8.30pm and then worked back slowly. Now (5 months) they have bath at 6pm and are both asleep by 7pm. When I first started, the evenings were still sometimes disturbed by feeds, but gradually we got more and more of the evening back. Good luck!

[PortAndLemon]

With DD it was when she started reasonably reliably sleeping sort of 8ish-11ish -- until that point we'd have her with us and treat sleeping as napping until we went to bed, but when she settled down to having a reasonably long nap/sleep at that time we started treating the start point of that as bedtime.

I don't remember exactly when that was in terms of chronological age, though. I know DS was doing it fairly reliably by 3.5 months so probably started a couple of weeks to a month before that(?) and I seem to remember that DD did it earlier than DS, but I'm not sure.

But DS was in his own bed, at least for the beginning of the night, by the time DD was a newborn. TBH I don't think I'd leave a 2 month old and an older child alone in a family bed at all.

[NellyTheElephant]

My 3 were all v unsettled whingy in the early evening for the first 6 - 8 weeks, so although we did the whole bathtime routine from pretty much day 1 with each of them I then tended to bring the baby downstairs in the moses basket in the early weeks. With all of them once they became a bit more settled in the early evenings (6 - 8 weeks as I said) I made an effort to get a 7pm bedtime sorted. It only took a couple of days each time - after bath and feed I'd put them into the moses basket and rock it for a bit then leave, if they cried (more than just wind down winging I mean) I'd go back and cuddle and rock etc a bit more then leave again, the first couple of nights I was up and down stairs like a jack in the box, but after 2 or 3 days they seemed to get used to it and that was that.

[KEAWYED]

I bathed DS3 and done pyjamas etc from the first day but kept him downstairs with us. From about 7 weeks we put him bed at 6.45 and the older 2 go bed at 7.30.

He's 19 weeks now and he will sleep until 7-8 tomorrow morning. I used to give him a dream feed at 10-11 just to keep him going.

[mmrsceptic]

now!!!!!!

choose a time, bath, feed, dark room, bed

all subsequent feeds in the dark room

bit boring for you in the evening though

[Caro1302]

DD is 8 weeks tomorrow and I put her in a bedtime routine at around 2-3 weeks. At 5pm I BF her, then 5.30 she gets nappy-off time in her cot watching her mobile while I run her bath and get PJs for her and DS (2.5) ready. Then it's bath, sleepsuit and grobag then back downstairs by 6ish to BF her to sleep. She sleeps in her pram in the front room with us then I take her upstairs whenever I go to bed- 10 or 11ish. I love having my evenings back to myself.