Gentle bedtime routine for baby - should I wake him?

[JohnLennonsSpecs]

DH and I are just trying to introduce the beginnings of a bedtime routine for our baby. Nothing too major, but just trying out the same pattern each night before bed. We plan to feed then bath and change, as he is always incredibly sleepy after his baths (and we hope to avoid teaching feeding as a sleep cue).

Anyway, whenever the new "bedtime" comes around, baby is fast asleep in his Moses basket or on one of us. So we keep pushing it later as we don't want to wake him to feed and bath! Should we wake our sleeping baby to get him fed and bathed ready for bed? Or do we just leave him to wake up by himself later and end up with a far later bedtime?

How do you introduce a bedtime structure if the baby is asleep?

How old is your baby? I wouldn’t wake him... I would bathe earlier in the day (ours only bathed once/twice a week anyway) then either dream feed or just feed when they wake up again.

But that’s me.. if mine conked out, they didn’t like to be woken up!!! (Albeit they were happy to wake me up...!)

What age and what time are you trying to do bath, bed etc?

Depends how old. Younger than 6 months I wouldn’t try.

I used to wake mine at 10pm for a bath, massage and last feed in a dark room. The next feed would be around 2.30am and the morning one would be around 6.30am.
The 2.30am feed began to get later and later and before long they were sleeping through to 6.30 / 7am
I think a bath is a good relaxing wind down and this worked for me. My children continued to have a bath every night until they were teenagers.

We plan to feed then bath and change, as he is always incredibly sleepy after his baths (and we hope to avoid teaching feeding as a sleep cue).

Has it occurred to you that you might be teaching feed+ bath + change = sleep cue? Which is fine if you can guarantee you will be at home every night and able to do the whole routine as he gets older. But if not you might be setting yourself up for problems in the future. Also worth remembering about day time naps. They won’t be preceded by a bath.

Do the bath earlier. Then he can go to sleep til 10.30/11pm, have either an awake feed with nappy change or a dream feed and back to sleep.