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?

@BertieBotts your post is reassuring and I hope it's true... As I finish rocking my son back to sleep for the second time already tonight. 😴

BertieBotts we could just get rid of the sleep topic and put your post. How measured, supportive and insightful.

Thank you.

@mommybear1 my mum describes me as being very like your son as a baby... They ended up giving me a mattress on the floor, a stair gate on the door and some books and quiet toys on the floor 😂 I would still quite happily be up all night reading a book (if I didn't have a baby / work the next day that demanded all my attention!)
Everyone says "I don't know how you do it with no sleep" bit I think we just get used to it... Plus there isn't really much alternative. I can't change ds sleep other than persist with the routines (I won't do cry it out - and honestly I don't believe it would help ds as when he wakes he is standing on his feet and he isn't going to lie himself back down) and still got to get up and go to work the next day to pay the bills so just have to get on with it. I am looking forward to the day when we get a little more sleep than we are currently but ds is a happy, smily boy and I shouldn't change him for the world 🙂

IME once they get all of their "big" gross motor skills down (so, walking is usually the last one) if you're still in the "back and forth for a year" category that's when you'll see consistent/linear improvement, rather than back and forth. It might not be fast - some children don't sleep through until they are three or four or older (rare) but changes should stick, whereas during year 1 they can just be up and down and you'll drive yourself mental trying to work out "what you did". It's usually coincidental, unless you're doing an actual sleep training plan, then it might be that.

Haha - I can't take credit for it honestly. It's partly ten years of parenting with Internet forums, (so ten years of having read probably hundreds of sleep threads) discussing with RL friends and partly reading several different sleep books. An amalgamation of experience.

Agree with cathf

Napping on someone, feeding to sleep, jumping at every squeak, sleeping in the lounge in the evening, sleeping in one room - it's all ridiculous and I agree with a pp, I would like to see figures on PND and how they stack up since these recommendations were made.
The problem is, it is impossible to have a sensible debate about it, because any questioning is met with responses such as some on here, sanctimonious about safety and how much they love their baby.

I honestly think a baby asleep in a cot in a dark room on their own will sleep much better & have a more deep & satisfying sleep. As will both parents. I would agree with others who have said it's not actually that safe to be in charge of a baby if you're sleep deprived. I would say it is far more risky for a small baby to co-sleep with an exhausted parent, or be BF on a sofa with a parent who might drop off to sleep because they were woken up several times the night before. That's before the danger of driving on no sleep is factored in.

MN can be really judgemental of people who want their baby to sleep through. It's not just better for the parents, it's better for the baby too.

So the moral of the tale is - if you want a baby that will sleep longer and self settle then routine is your friend. If you aren't too fussed about sleepless nights & are more relaxed about things, then don't worry too much!

I feel like I'm a broken record but I'm going to say it again.

I dont think many people would argue that a dark and quiet environment would mean better sleep. There arent many people that are OK with being sleep deprived. But there are 3 massive caveats here:.

1. Many babies wont settle without being fed or rocked. That's why people do those things. They dont do them for shits and giggles. they do them to comfort their small babies and that is a completely normal thing to do.
2. Babies are different. As demonstrated by many posters, myself included, a routine does not guarantee good sleep. It will help yes but it isnt a guarantee.
3. Mothers are encouraged to keep their babies with them. Its very tough bring a parent - particularly when it's your first time - and it's really tough when there are competing schools of thought.

I dont know why people find this so hard to understand!

I started a sleep routine at 12 weeks....
We cracked it two years later

mississippi I genuinely don't understand why people jig and rock their babies & don't just put them down. Sometimes I think it makes them cry more as they are craving some peace and quiet.
Did you ever try putting them down in a quiet room with blackout blinds? It honestly works. Of course there will be exceptions e.g. babies with reflux/colic.
Did you ever try a set routine? Again it really does work. It's very old fashioned it would seem, but I think this generation probably has more babies with sleep issues than previous generations.
My DD did all of this with no work at all. DS I had to get into a routine & it was hard work as he used to try and nap all afternoon then keep me awake til midnight. Both slept from 7-6/6.30 from a few weeks old. Dream feed til about 4 months old, but not awake for it. I had to work really hard to get them into this e.g. setting alarm for 7am to start the day at the right time, not letting them nap in the late afternoon. It meant being home for naps as much as possible. But for me it was worth it to get a full night sleep - the 10pm dream feed was before my bedtime anyway so didn't impact on me.
I think the sooner you start the better - if you wait a few months then it is going to be much harder to put it into place.

ijustlost nightmare :( there are always going to be ones who don't play ball.

I didn’t have to establish a routine with mine, they did it themselv3s. DS from 3 months slept 9.30 pm till 9.30 am every day... dd from 2 weeks from 7-7.

Bangs head against wall
Yes I have tried everything you have just said!! Just like ijustlostthengame probably did too. Just like lots of people on this thread have. Just because itworked for your baby/ies it doesnt mean it works for all. Please read BertieBotts post

By the way, many many babies are comforted by rocking. It's a completely normal thing for a baby to be contorted by.

As you've said - some dont play ball!

^converseandjeans

mississippi I genuinely don't understand why people jig and rock their babies & don't just put them down^

Really? Are you so unobservant of the world around you that you haven’t noticed that some babies need rocking to go to sleep when they are little? Honestly I do wonder about some posters on this board.

OP - basically it is all bollocks. Just figure out what works for your individual baby and do that. Personally I’ve never understood why you WOULDNT feed to sleep if bfing- it releases sleep hormones, that’s literally the point! You can wean when you and:or your baby are ready (and you’ll know when you get there).

I have two kids - roughly the same approach for both. Complete opposites with their sleeping -ds, now 2, didn’t sleep through night until he was 1, and is still a tricky customer. DD, now 5 months, has slept 7pm-7am every night bar 3 since she was 5 weeks old. 🤷‍♀️ They do what they do !

@converseandjeans likewise I tried all of this no difference. I’ll say it again for those in the back row...

Babies are all different. They learn to crawl at different ages, they talk at different ages, sleep skills develop at different ages.

Those with problem sleepers WILL have tried routine etc. Some babies just don’t play ball.

Not necessarily, Gin. Do you ever read the sleep board? It is full of parents who think it is wrong to impose, a routine on a baby and who are at pains to point out that everything is baby-led and follows baby's cues. In this, world, newborn babies 'refuse' to sleep in a cot and 'won't' be put down.
All very cute and achievable when baby is weeks old, but then reality hits when return to work beckons, and these parents, wonder why the baby who is used to sleeping when and where they want won't settle into a routine when one is needed.
So no, I don't think everyone with no-sleeping babies have tried routine.

I agree cathf. Mississippi is at pains to say her and every baby is different (yes mine were all handpicked from the good sleep department) she says she has tried everything but she said she went to bed with her baby or settled it in the living room for months and now wonders why she’s had to get help from a sleep consultant. There’s a clear resentment towards posters who have repeatedly said that routine involving self settling at an early stage is the answer. Name calling amongst it. Yes it’s all lovely until work beckons or they’ve just had enough of their “routine” but then they wonder why their established routine of cosleeping, rocking or feeding can’t be changedovernight. They also quite brazenly hand out advice to others who have not mastered it by saying do what works for you. It’s not working for you ladies or you wouldn’t be on here trying to justify your situation by directing your bitterness towards those of us who know what we are doing.

@Copperandtod mississippi has said she had tried routine whist still following the safe asleep guidelines at by the NHS which say baby should be in the same room for all sleep including naps until they are 6 months old. I also can say we have followed a set routine with my son since he was small... Before 6 months this was bath, feed, settled in moses basket in living room. After 6 months bath story feed bed in own cot at 7pm every single night. Regardless my son is 14 months old and apart from 5 nights in total doesn't sleep through the night. He has a routine. He goes to bed in a dark room. We get him up for the day at 7am every morning (he's usually awake already anyway) he doesn't nap past 2pm (usually a 2 hour nap from 1130-130) Does not stop him waking during the night. And for @converseandjeans who says that babies want to be put down in their for alone in a dark room to go to sleep themselves.. I urge you to meet my son who would scream until he is sick if you dare to put him in his cot and walk away.. Believe me we have tried.
We have never Co slept. He always gets settled back into his cot even if that means we are up 6 or 7 times in the night so it isn't that.
As to just a dream feed once from they are weeks old. Again that only works of you have a child who isn't hungry. Ds was born with a very low birth weight after igur. After a week in nicu we were followed up by consultants for the first 5-6 months of his life. Every time we saw them until the consultant told me to feed him as much and as often as he would take as he was a "scrawny wee thing" he started on 2nd percentile for weight but 91st for height. At his 13 month check he has jumped yet another percentile to the 75th for weight still 91st for height. We did stop night feeds at 12 months. Hhe is now used to no feeds during the night but again he is still awake a couple of times a night. On a good night he has a cuddle and goes back down again.
He can self settled a lot of the time like last night at one point I watched him as he sat bolt up right before deciding to lie back down and go to sleep again. Last night he was only up once in the middle of the night from 130-215. I lift him cuddle him and try putting him down again..we don't talk we don't turn on any lights so really not sure what more of a routine we could have from what we are already doing.
I work as a special needs teacher for children with severe behavioural difficulties and autism believe me I would rather not have the sleepless nights.

I went back to work full time when my son was 4 months old also so nothing to do with not needing a routine until much later
I think what the point of mississippi and others like myself commenting on threads like this one is to (try and get some advice that might work for us also) but also to reassure others that they aren't the only one with a baby that doesn't sleep because there is nothing worse than thinking you must be doing something wrong if everyone else can get their baby to sleep.

This has got be a wind up. those of us who know what we are doing. Oh my days.
I'm off. There's life going on while I'm on here.

The thing is, I do not believe that sleeping through is better. I can completely understand it may be better for parents, especially if the parents don't want to co-sleep, or are bottle feeding, or the baby's night wakings are long and complicated, or the parents can't catch up on sleep in the day or any number of other reasons. I can absolutely see that, and if that's the case then it makes sense to try and achieve it. I don't believe it's harmful for a baby to sleep through either. I just don't believe that it's better. I don't think they need to sleep through to have "good sleep" from their perspective. I think it's unhelpful to present the belief "It's better for babies to sleep through" because it leads parents to think that they should be changing their baby's sleep patterns, which might be causing them no (or minimal) problems. I also have problems with adding judgement to babies' sleep in terms of them being good/bad sleepers, because again, it makes parents feel responsible for how "well" their baby sleeps and like it is something they are doing well or badly at. (I also have the same issue about food, but that's a whole other thread.)

That's why some of us get irritated about advice being thrown about to get babies into routines, or encourage self settling, or sleeping through from a young age. Not because we are unhappy about our own babies' sleep - more that I hate seeing new mums in a flap because "the baby won't sleep alone" but they don't want to put in loads of effort into changing it now (because they are tired) or they don't want to leave the baby to cry (which is reasonable). Or feeling like they are doing something wrong if they hold their baby for naps, which is one of the loveliest things ever. (And can also make you feel trapped, in which case that's different.) The reality is you can do all of these things for as long as it is working for you and change them when it becomes an issue (unless you have one of a small number of babies who is resistant to sleep training - then you are just stuck with it unfortunately, but guilt that you "caused it" is neither helpful or likely to be true). No it won't happen overnight, so if you have a return to work or study or whatever else planned and know you'll need better sleep patterns it makes sense to start working on a plan 2-3 months in advance, but I hate the narrative that if you've not got them in a routine by say six weeks then their sleep at say a year is doomed - this is just nonsense.

Obviously, it's foolish to be completely baby led for months and then suddenly expect things to change overnight with no effort at all but I've never actually met any proponent of attachment parenting (even if just for newborns) who believes or says that. It's clear that these changes happen gradually. However perhaps we do need to be more honest with new parents about when they are likely to happen, because I think maybe we do them a disservice by being reluctant to explain to the exhausted mother of a six week old just how long the "normal" broken sleeping will last. Because I think most assume that it will get better by itself, if not by 6 months, certainly by 12 (which covers the period of most people's return to work in the UK), and if you are completely baby led both of these milestones are unlikely - anecdotally, 24 months seems to be about the average. However, by 6 or definitely 12, if you're looking to make small changes, the older a baby is the more receptive they are likely to be to those changes, so there can be a benefit in putting off a routine, or independent sleep steps, until they are older. And as I said earlier, I do think (again, anecdotally) that for formula/bottle fed or breastfed-in-a-bottle-like-pattern babies they do tend to get there gradually on their own that bit earlier too. And TBH, those babies are in a majority in the UK, so it starts to become a bit more clear as to why people might expect this kind of thing from all babies.

Actually NHS don't specify including naps. Lullaby trust does (uniquely in the world) but NHS just say baby should sleep in a cot in a room with you until 6 months.

I honestly want to laugh out loud at questions like "Why do people rock and jig and not just put the baby down?" - it's nice that being put down worked for yours but honestly, can you really imagine that people start out with the most complicated option without trying the simplest?

I don't think it's attachment parenting, or having babies in your room with you, or not using CIO as a method, or any of the above listed reasons that contribute massively to PND. I'd say it's enduring constant judgement from people who ask you questions about whether your baby sleeps through and being utterly smug and at pains to tell you it's your fault if they don't. But those people are often so blinkered to any other way than their own that they don't see that, so the cycle continues. Just let people parent in their own way. If someone asks for advice then you can give it to them without being massively self-congratulatory and going on to hector them about it. Otherwise, just don't, unless you're deliberately trying to be unpleasant and upsetting.

Babies are all different. I have a friend who tried a massively rigid routine with hers. Worked beautifully for first baby, second was, and is, a terrible sleeper. Although personally I'd replace the word "terrible" with "normal for a baby". No difference in parent, parenting style, techniques, anything. Just a different baby. For my part, I listened to all the people who told me my DS should be sleeping through and ended up fretting constantly and becoming very despondent about it. I think if I'd continued down that road I could have ended uo making myself quite poorly mentally. Trying to impose strict schedules etc. on him just made both me and him unhappy and meant I spent a lot of time fruitlessly shushing him in darkened rooms as he refused to sleep. I've now relaxed my expectations significantly, adhere to a bedtime "routine" in that we do the same things every night so he naturally starts to realise it's sleep time, but I am otherwise baby led and am now very much enjoying my son and have a much more contented baby than before. He doesn't sleep in the living room as I find that he cat naps and then isn't ready to settle at night. He does a long nap in the late afternoon in his pram when we're out walking, then is up for the remainder of the day before bedtime, which is whenever he starts to look like he might be getting tired. We then do bath, cuddles, short book, feed and bed. Crucially, now I am more relaxed I also get significantly more sleep because I don't sit upstairs in a dark room trying to get him to sleep when he's not tired. He usually does a 4-6.5hr chunk first thing, another 2-3hr chunk after that feed and then is up for the day, unless that's before 6am, in which case we might co-sleep for another hour or so. That wouldn't work for everyone but it does for me and I feel well-rested. He's coming up for 4 months soon and I'm sure that regression will throw everything up in the air and we'll have to work to find a new normal again, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Ultimately, I expect him to behave like a baby, and part of that, for me, is accepting that he is going to continue to wake at night for a while. We're all trying to do our best, there is no 'one size fits all' approach to parenting.

When DS was three months I didn't think I'd ever sleep train and was horrified that other people did. Because I was still measuring severe sleep deprivation in weeks not months. We got to a snapping point at 8 months and for us it was the right choice to do something then - no amount of 'just accepting it' would have got me through (and being told repeatedly that I loved my child enough I'd just cosleep and that would solve everything really, really upset me). Also, things had changed, and not for the better - at three months he could just be fed back to sleep quite easily, by eight he was resisting all ways of 'getting' him to sleep and it could take two hours in the middle of the night. He was 20 pounds so rocking him wasn't like rocking a newborn. He was also sleeping much better at three months that at any other point post four and pre-sleep training.

I agree with Bertie that we give new mothers unrealistic expectations of when it will 'sort itself out'. I think at three months I thought we were on the home stretch as his sleep was lengthening - that was so not true, as it turned out!