How does night time with a baby work?

[purplefixes]

I am totally clueless about babies and a bit worried I'm going to have no idea what I'm doing. I understand baby's will sleep in their pram/Moses basket during the day wherever you are but what happens in the evening, do you put baby down for a nap upstairs if they are tired even if it's too early for you to go to bed and just stay with them for the evening, or do you keep them downstairs and take them up to bed when you go? What if they've fallen asleep downstairs it's getting late? When can you start to leave them upstairs for the evening? Would be really helpful to hear of other people's experiences/routines.

A baby has to sleep in the same room as you for the first six months, so in the evening they sleep downstairs until you go up to bed together.

This all depends on the age of the baby.

Newborn - 3/4 months: both mine had witching hours. Basically they cried every evening between 7pm and 9pm. Totally normal newborn behaviour. It's just a phase. That meant I'd be breastfeeding / rocking them in front of the telly all evening. They'd come up to bed with me at 9 /9:30 and be in a next to me crib.

4 months - 6 months: they'd grown out of the witching hour so we could do an actual bedtime routine. 7/7:30 they'd be in their cot in their room and go to sleep there. At 10pm I'd go to bed and bring them into our room for a breastfeed abs the rest of the night in the next to me crib.

6 months +: as above but no longer move them into our room. From about 10 months no 10pm feed either.

We started putting ours upstairs around 6 months when they went into a cot.

Before that we had a Moses basket that just got carried upstairs when we went to bed. Mine both seemed to be more alert in the evening and #2 was breastfed so liked to cluster feed for the first month's so that would have been a pain running up and down stairs.

For the first few months at least you’ll just keep the baby downstairs if you’re downstairs.

Try not to overthink it. A lot of early parenting is about following your gut instinct and it trying to stick to a script.

Safe sleeping guidelines say that the baby should be in the same room as you until 6 months. Some people choose not to follow this. Some people do. We, like most people I know, followed it until about 5 months. Before that, DS would dose / play on his mat / sit in his bouncy chair / whatever until we went to bed. We were not particularly keen on a routine so just followed DS' lead and what worked for us.

and not* trying to stick to a script

@TankGirl97

A baby has to sleep in the same room as you for the first six months, so in the evening they sleep downstairs until you go up to bed together.

They don't 'have' to sleep with you.

It's guidance not law. You can keep your risk of SIDS low by no smoking, breastfeeding and putting to sleep on their back.

When they are very little they are likely to wake quite regularly. We used to either have Moses basket downstairs (open plan so they could be at one end in darker area) until we went to bed. Or, if we were having a bad run of waking, I would just go to bed early to get as much sleep as possible!

It depends a lot on your baby though. Some babies do sleep long stints from early on and others don't - how you manage your evenings will depends on your baby (and on how you are managing night wakings).

Don’t worry, just see how it goes. All your plans will go out the window. All 3 of my children were different.
Baby 1: Sleep? HA!! Sleep is for wimps. Will only sleep if upright and on the move. So “naps” are marching the streets in a sling. Evenings are spent bouncing about on one parent or others shoulder. 2am drives and 4am pyjama walks are pretty normal, just to stop the screaming. Hates everything and everyone.
Baby 2: will sleep when fed. Will need fed every hour, which means being beside mum at all times, but will actually lie down in a cot.
Baby 3: scream time 4pm til 12am see tactics for Baby 1. Hates the cot, prefers to lie on mums head.

You’ll find your way!