3 month old - bed time / evenings help please

[roarfeckingroarr]

We're first time parents to a beautiful 3 month old boy but I'm not sure what to do in the evenings with him.

Current advice is to not leave babies alone before six months old, so I don't want to put him to bed in our room (we co-sleep / he sleeps in his next2me). I know some people do; no judgment, but it's not something I want to risk even with a monitor.

At the moment he stays up with us until we go to bed between 9.30 and 10.30. I feed to sleep (he's EBF) and he wakes up once or twice in the night for food. DH and I tend to chat, cook, then watch a film / series in the evening but I've read that this much tv can be detrimental to babies.

I don't really want to go to bed at 8pm with him either...

What do / did you do when your DC were this age?

What you're doing sounds fine, OP. I doubt the baby is watching TV with you, instead just enjoying being cuddled and being near you

@Missmonkeypenny oh he definitely watches it sometimes. He loves 24 😫 - Jack Bauer.

We did what you do. DS would quite often sit in his bouncy chair or activity mat while we watched TV etc.

My DS2 is quite nearly 3 months. He stays downstairs with us and usually by 7:30 is very asleep, I feed him to sleep and then he sleeps in the Sleepyhead on the sofa until 9:30, when I take him up, change his nappy and put him in bedside cot.

My DD (DC2) is 4 months old, and she definitely became very alert and interested in the TV at or before 3 months. I found she wasn't really settling downstairs any more, so I started putting her to bed upstairs (same as you, bedside crib in my room). Tbh I just left her there and went downstairs with the monitor on and checking her frequently. It's against SIDS guidelines and not everyone would be comfortable doing it. If you wanted to you could stay in the room and watch tv on a tablet/laptop with headphones in. Or read a book with a little book light, or a backlit Kindle or something.

Not so easy to chat or cook in the bedroom next to a sleeping baby, though!

Ds2 is 7 months. At 3 months he would cluster feed on me and doze on and off until we went to bed at 10ish. It's only this last few weeks he's been properly going down earlier and on his own

We had a snuzpod and would bring the top part into the living room and put him to sleep in that. We would then watch tv/films with subtitles until we went to bed, then carried the snuzpod back into our room (we live in a flat so no stairs). At about 4.5 - 5 months we were disturbing him and he would wake a lot so decided to put him down in our room, at first I would stay with him but after a week or so I used the monitor and he slept a lot better.

I kept all 3 of my DC downstairs with me when they were little until I went up to bed at about 10pm. This went on until they were at least 7 months. I would just feed them to sleep and try to eat my dinner one handed without dropping any of it on them! They would sleep in my arms usually, sometimes I would transfer them into their downstairs Moses basket. We always had the tv on, they would just sleep through it. Never did them any harm!

I'm watching tv in the bedroom having fed my six month old to sleep (so not far off what you're doing). He's lying next to me. My first I was mad trying to get him in to a routine from 3 months. I just made a stressful rod for my own back. My second I watched tv in bed and once she started settling to sleep within half an hour I would leave her and go down stairs. I think it was about seven months. I plan to do the same with my lo sleeping next to me. A bit of tv won't hurt and much better for his health that he has a mum that's not stressing and a chance to unwind. Keep doing what works for you

Thanks guys, will keep doing what we're doing.

@Bettyblue2 oh god I've definitely dropped food on him while eating one handed. Fortunately nothing hot. The time he kicked out and I spilt red wine on him did not look good!

Our DD is 3 months too. It depends- I'm finding she now wont settle so I'm having to go up with her and she will only sleep with me so im stuck. However if she is due another nap say at 7 then I'll do that in the sling so I can be downstairs for a bit longer.

Its really hard - no one tells you how to navigate this bit! Immensely jealous of those with babies who will nap downstairs laying in something

DD actually slept very well from about 8-14 weeks and then it all went downhill, we are now in full-blown 4m sleep regression territory and it's brutal 😭 I keep telling myself this will pass! But I'm not afraid to sleep train if it doesn't (this is DC2 and I'm less precious about it now, we suffered for too long with DC1 before sleep training)

@OhToBeASeahorse for the last week DS has stopped going to bed easily and now has a proper scream for anything up to an hour before he will to to sleep. It's definitely tough.

@NameChange30 what does the 4 month regression actually look like? X

Can I just say both my kids slept in there next to me till 7 months partner and myself can't sleep at night without tv so they always had the tv on when in our room but never had a issue when I have moved them to their own rooms with no tv no lights no nothing they both sleep through the night in the dark!

Are you sure you want to know?!

DD was previously sleeping 7pm-7am with just 2 or 3 wakings, she'd have one long stretch of 4-6 hours in the night, and I felt fantastic on that much sleep. Her daytime naps weren't amazing but she was going down pretty easily without too much crying. We could sometimes put her down awake and she would fall asleep in her crib with a hand on her tummy (bedtime) or pram with a bit of pushing back and forth (daytime naps). Not reliably though and we did also hold/rock her or I sometimes fed her to sleep.

Then she started really fighting naps, she cries and cries - even in our arms - so I have given up any attempt at letting her self-settle, she's too young to be left to cry, which means holding her until she falls asleep and then putting her down if we're lucky. She has started waking up when put down or shortly after. Her naps are short, they were for a while but we used to get the odd longer one, not any more.

Nights... well she's been very unsettled in the evening, hard to put down for the night as she keeps waking, and then just waking a lot through the night, a few nights she's been wide awake around 5am and we've really struggled to get her back to sleep... I think the longest stretch I get is about 2-3 hours now.

I should point out she has CMPA and other allergies (I'm breastfeeding so I have noticed symptoms after I eat certain foods) and also has reflux which is linked to the allergies and I suspect is flaring up when she is teething. So that doesn't help the sleep! I swear I'm cursed, DC1 was similar (although we didn't realise about the CMPA and reflux until much later with him).

That's just my experience of course. All babies are different. But there's a helpful articule on the 4m regression here:
www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/03/12/the-four-month-sleep-regression-what-is-it-and-what-can-be-done-about-it

I have a 10 week old and just keep her downstairs with us in the evenings. She falls asleep for the night around 8ish and I just hold her while we watch tv. I change her nappy and give her a dream feed when we go up at 10/10.30ish and then we co sleep. I also have a 2.5 year old and I stressed myself out trying to get him into a routine, and spent lots of evenings in a dark room with him from when he was 3-4 months and it was such a waste. Not even attempting a bedtime with this one til about 6 months. Apart from anything else it’s easier not having to worry about coordinating the baby with the toddler’s bedtime.

Same as many others - did the same as you but LO started naturally settling for the longest sleep period gradually getting earlier until was about 8pm when she would sleep undisturbed in arms with normal conversation/ while we watched TV. At just over five months old we moved her up to the snuz pod in our room at bedtime and had the monitor on. She is having her first night in her own room tonight (at 7 months as I've been putting it off mainly due to convenience!)

I'm so jealous! Neither of mine would just fall asleep downstairs beyond the first few weeks

When I say “falls asleep” I really mean cluster feeds herself to sleep over a period of about 3 hours 🤣