What age to start a sleep routine?

[Stillmonday]

My baby is 4 months old and we practise safe co sleeping. I've started taking him to bed about 8.30 and feed for a while then he will fall asleep around 9.30/10pm ish.
I know he should be going to sleep earlier but is there any point introducing a sleep routine now or waiting until he's a little older?

Do parents never question the wisdom of a baby sleeping downstairs with the TV and lights on? Surely it is obvious that everyone sleeps better in a quiet and dark room?

Well, whatever you do you're told by somebody you're doing it all wrong. When I said that we started putting DS to bed at about 12 weeks because the light/TV was bothering him I was airily told by a million MN posters that they had 'taught' their babies to sleep through such noise and they felt sorry for me having 'trained' DS to be a light sleeper... I also got someone telling me that they 'couldn't believe' that I would risk my baby dying of SIDS just so I could watch TV rather than sit in a darkened room watching him sleep every evening for months. Apparently some mothers love having the 'quiet time' watching the baby sleep each night. I didn't, but they certainly made me feel like I should have. None of that was that helpful, tbh, and nor did it help me trust my instincts (which is that DS is a naturally light sleeper, I didn't make him that way, and he needed quiet and dark in the evenings)

Thanks @Raspberry88, I appreciate your comments.
I've learnt that there are some strange takes on MN and just filter out the rude comments on an innocent thread 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Mississippilessly if I came across 'badly' then so be it, I'm allowed to speak my mind, I want to spend every second I can with my baby, I'm not going to apologise for that just because some of you need time without your babies. I don't.

WE AREN'T ALL THE SAME!

@LittleKitty1985 your routine is similar to mine, hope you've got your hard hat ready for a telling off 🤦🏻‍♀️

I didnt ask you to apologise for doing what you want with your baby. But a bit of sensitivity when a poster has said she had severe PND would be nice wouldn't it?
What the fuck is wrong with people?

breathes now NewAccount is here as a voice of reason. I'm afraid we might be invisible though!

Also we're going on 2 week holiday to a completely different time zone when he'll be 7 months, so should we train him to sleep in his own room before then, or wait till after?

I always think safe co-sleeping with a tiny baby must be easier with a spring or summer born baby. I’d freeze in winter without my quilt!

We started a routine at 5 months, OP, and if we’d have another, we’ll start earlier.

breathes now NewAccount is here as a voice of reason. I'm afraid we might be invisible though!

Aww, this is nice! I always think that peachgreen (who might remember me as lisasimpsonsbff) is the voice of sanity on babycare threads, because she actually does mean it when she says that we should support mothers in all the different choices they make. I try to adopt this attitude too but don't always succeed - it's so easy to fall into the 'this worked for me/my baby SO IT IS WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD DO' trap.

Hope you're doing ok, btw, Mississippily

Oh no Lisa I will totally lose you now, I'm rubbish at name changes Did you get locked out or privacy concerns?

I've co-slept with my October baby and August baby. It was the same both times. I always just put the duvet behind my back, but it's also not the end of the world if it goes over their legs, if they aren't in a sleeping bag. It's their face you've got to avoid.

When we ended up co sleeping DS loved the duvet on his legs - it was terribly cute and terribly concerning (awaits flaming).

We are getting there thankyou. DS now stays in his room all night and is night weaned and our lovely consultant has given me a schedule to follow for the day which is really helpful for me. We are now starting on gradual retreat. Its early days and some.nights arent great (6 wake ups last night) but others we are getting 2 or 3 and we had one night if 1 so I think we are moving in the right direction. I feel a bit lonely because I think the rest of my NCT group are sorted now which is frustrating as some still feed to sleep etc but I just keep telling myself we will get there.
I'm going to deal with daytime naps once I've sorted nights for now he naps best in the car so I'm going with it to help the nights. Not ideal but there we go.

peachgreen I hope you are doing OK now. Sleep - the lack of it and fucking thinking about it - sent me to the edge of PND. Well done for getting through it
It's hard when having a baby doesnt match up to how it was in our heads.

Hi Bertie! Stupidly I locked myself out on my phone, so I'm still Lisa on my laptop (which means I am mostly Lisa when I really should be working ) but have now been using this 'temporary emergency measure account' (look at the date of creation at the end!) on my phone for months. I set it up when on a holiday with DS and my PIL that was going so disastrously that I couldn't do without MN access!

LittleKitty1985 sorry you've somehow been ignored!

If it were me, I would do what works for you. If you are happy with this set up then go for it. You might have some issues down the line - but you might not. You will probably have a little upset changing the routine now anyway as he is a little older. Perhaps start with a routine of bath book and bed even if he goes to bed with you downstairs for a few hours? Id have loved to do that but DS was having none of it!
Whatever you do I wouldn't bother doing anything until after your hols because that can be unsettling for them. Have a lovely time.

Missi have you hired a sleep consultant?

Yes I said that up thread.

Sorry to hijack but I also have a 4 month old... does everyone do bath every night? My baby is prone to slightly dry skin, my partner is Caribbean and he is quite adamant that a daily bath will dry out our DS skin.... I've been doing every other day and I do a little massage on the non bath days before pjs.

I don’t think you have to bath every night. Mine had sensitive skin so some nights I just did a massage with coconut oil. You can still have a wind down.

@Mississippilessly good luck with the consultant - I hope you feel better. I really do think sometimes we do everything by the book and they just get there when they are ready. It will get better. Mine was terrible until she was 13 months then she dropped to less wake ups. The bad phases pass.

Thank you x

Oh lisa, bless you! I feel the same way about you. I think having been through a lot to get my baby (as did you) and then even more to keep her while keeping my sanity intact I have a deep appreciation for how bloody hard this motherhood lark is and honestly, whatever way women choose to get through it, providing its their choice and they feel comfortable with it I'm all for it! Plus I had such fixed ideas in my head about the kind of mum I'd be, and they all went completely out the window because not only could I not cope with being that mum, it wasn't what my daughter wanted! She's a quiet dark alone sleeper too, has never slept well with us in the room at night (naps are another matter...!). It's a tough gig made even tougher by judgement from other mums. Thank you for always being the voice of reason on these threads.

miss thank you for speaking up for me. I really hope the consultant helps you - sleep deprivation is the worst thing I've ever experienced and you've done so well to make it so far. What an amazing mum. If it helps, mine was an atrocious atrocious napper until suddenly she just wasn't and started doing 2 hours a day in her cot. Almost overnight. But I'd tried EVERYTHING before then! Sometimes they just go when they're ready, no matter what you do.

Re: bath every night. It is a great routine to have a nightly bath. Just be cautious about the products you use. Johnson and Johnson’s baby products for example are really harsh on skin. So are the other generic supermarket brands. Soap can be drying. I just bath my kids with plain water and a flannel. Add a bit of body wash to the bath only if the kids are super-grubby.

I’d only start nightly bath once they’re sitting up independently and enjoy playing in the water though. Otherwise nightly bath for a younger baby is an almighty faff and not worth it.

What cathf said. Excellent posts.

If we want babies to sleep in empty cots and bassinets (which are the safest place for them), then some semblance of a bedtime routine usually helps that to happen, unless you have been cursed with an unusually challenging sleeper. Having the baby in the same room in a noisy living room with no bedtime routine massively increases the odds of a baby waking throughout the night, which means parents quickly give up on the cot and end up in bed with the baby. Hence the rise in suffocation and strangulation deaths we are currently seeing. Safety is complicated.

The hum of background noise and ambiance of the average household in the evening is going to stop babies from going into deep sleep during the evening hours anyway. Mine stirred and did mini-wake-ups constantly during those hours. But being in the bedroom meant that they actually got some sleep too.

As for sitting alone in a darkened bedroomI can't think of a better recipe for PND. And I have an older child and a partner who works very lateI need to be supervising DD and putting her to bed etc.

I have to say sitting in the dark is what saved me. I also have an older child, put him to bed first then DS2. And for both for roughly six months someone or the other sat with them (I might nip down to make tea or grab dinner from the microwave). It forced me to rest. I used to be asleep by 8, DH would give expressed milk at 10ish and DS2 would wake at 1/2 so I got some consistent solid sleep. And I was more than happy to sacrifice a bit of my social life for good long term sleep and good sleep for me.

I have to catch up on essential housework after the kids are in bed, so going to sleep at 8 is not an option. And my baby gets tired by early evening so putting her to bed after older DD (who is 8) is not an option either. She needs help with her studies and other things in the evening. Sorry, not being argumentative as I am sure the above worked for you--just describing how different circumstances mean that people have to adopt different solutions.

Missi if you are hiring a sleep consultant perhaps you are not best placed to offer advice to others having trouble with their babies sleeping

@Copperandtod seeing as how you fail to grasp any situation might be different from your own I’d say the same about you.

I’ve found @Mississippilesslyposts honest and interesting.