To ask how the hell you implement a sleep routine?!

[Twinklestar2]

My son is 8 weeks today.

From about 2 weeks he settled into quite a good pattern of feeding every 3-4 hours during the day, and sleeping from 10.30pm at night through to 5/6ish with one feed at 3.30ish. (I'm breastfeeding with the odd bottle of formula given by dad here and there).

In the past week or so he's been getting up every 2 hours in the night and sleeping less in the day! And in the nighttime he's started trying to play! I was up from 3.20 to half 5 with him trying to get him back to sleep.

So today I thought I'd try a bedtime routine. He had a bath at half 6, then massage, then in his sleeping bag. Fed him on and off between 7 and 8pm... He comes off the breast himself but wakes up as soon as I put him in the Moses basket! OH trying to tire him out in the nursery at the moment while I have a cup of tea!

Help!!

He's little still, it'll happen. Maybe 7.30 is a bit early for him to settle down properly at the moment. Sounds like he naturally sleeps a bit deeper from 10.30?

I personally think 8 weeks is too early, I've found that around 12 weeks with both of mine they have naturally fallen into their own sleep routine, bedtime around 7pm etc. Unfortunately it hasn't involved sleeping through the night but I guess that is a small detail (to them…) However I am a bit of a wuss about letting babies cry etc!

We just stayed with him in the dark room from 7-7. Basically setting his circadian rhythm. So if he had multiple feeds they would all be in the dark room. Only a dim light for nappy changes. No they don't like their cribs or Moses baskets at this stage but persevere. Don't bring him outside to play- that's v confusing. If he was awake, unless he is shouting, I would either ignore or provide minimal interaction. Be at your boring best. It was utterly boring for me to be in the dark but we implemented this at 2-3 weeks and by week 10 he got night from day. Would wake for 2-3 feeds but go back to sleep. No playing/staying awake at night. My general experience was that getting DS into good sleep habits involved significant sacrifices on our part,being super consistent, and patient, and even when older sticking to the same routine day in and day out, even on holiday etc.

At this age it's more about going with the flow I have found. However from a few weeks old I have done a bath, breast, bed routine even if they will wake up 2hrs or less later. 8 weeks is still so tiny, both of my breastfed babies were feeding at least 2hrly at this point but it got considerably better about 12 weeks. Keep ploughing through with the bath, breast, bed routine - it won't do any harm.
I'm sure there is a growth spurt around 9 weeks-ish so this may explain the sudden wakings - don't quote me on that though!

Hang on in there

When you say he wakes up as soon as in Moses, does he cry ? As if happy I would leave my ds in Moses even though not asleep and let him go to sleep himself or rock Moses and shhh until went to sleep. We were lucky with ds he always liked his sleep.

Do you make feeding really warm and cuddly for him? I used to feed ds with blankets over him and cuddle and rock afterwards until almost asleep until putting him down so he seemed to sleepy to do anything but go to bed.

If not napping in day maybe over tired. Try not letting him sleep past a certain time. I did this with ds. It made him pretty ratty for last couple of hours before bed but got him into sleepy mode by playing soothing music in kitchen and dancing with him in arms. Used to practically fall asleep on me as I was doing it! Then straight to bed whilst sleepy and down in Moses. I tried not to let him fall asleep on me so learnt to self settle.

Don't worry about implementation/plans and routines. Your DS will start to form his own when he is ready. It could be a week from now or two years but he'll get there. Better to go with them than fight them. 8 weeks is so tiny. Enjoy it, they grow up far too fast.

It's not a routine if you've only done it once. A routine is something you do every day.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to put an 8 week old to bed before 10 or 11. Why have their longest period of sleep while you're still awake?

And another vote for "night time is dark and boring, daytime isn't" being a perfectly good routine. No lights, no playing, no singing, no chat, no TV...

I didn't at 8 weeks. They find their way into one on their own if you leave them to it.

Set a bedtime for your little one that you try to adhere to every day - and have an hour's wind-down beforehand, i.e. bath, bottle, cuddle in bed with dim lighting, not talking to them too much, warm and cosy. I do think 8 weeks is a bit young to expect your baby to sleep through the night yet and automatically take to the routine, but I started doing this with my DC at about 8 weeks and at 4 months old he started to sleep through the night and go all flopsy/rubby-eyed at 5pm (bedtimes at 6 every night).

I currently have DS1 asleep on my chest. He goes up to sleep when we do and will do for quite a while yet. As others have said 8 weeks is so tiny. I might just being thick but do 8 week olds play?! My DS smiles and kicks his legs but that's about it. ..

Skylark - I'm trying to implement a routine. Today is day 1. Have to start somewhere, right?

I def do the keeping everything dark at night and bright / normal during day. He used to get up at night, change nappy, feed and go straight back to sleep. I'm not sure why he's stopped doing this!!

Think we've done it wrong today then as OH is with him in the nursery playing with him trying to tire him out!!

A little early for a routine, but what I always did was low light low noise and generally just keep everything calm.

Ds aged 8 years still don't sleep through, but DD aged 5 slept through around 7 months.

The 'routine' you have now (waking every two hours or so) is more typical of an 8 week old than the one you describe him having when he was younger, I'm afraid.

8 weeks could be a growth spurt.

Agree it's probably too early at 8 weeks and things change rapidly as feeding demands change.
Best advice is to keep your nerve and make sure the days are busy ( constrast for them to work out that night is calm).I found the snuggling up at night sent him off and keeping everything dark and boring calm

Also think about how you were pregnant and what routine would suit you. I always worked early in the morning ( 6am start) until the week I had him. Figured he would naturally assume lots of movement could be expected at a similar time once he was born. He was knacked by 6.30pm quite early on and the early bed early rise thing continues even now. If you are an owl perhaps a later routine might suit better?

8 months is really too young to try for routine. His body is not yet producing the hormones needed to distinguish between night and day, that starts at about 4 months. Both of mine developed a routine naturally round about that time. At 8 weeks, mine were still down with me of an evening, cluster feeding like mad.

It also sounds as if you've just had the 6 week growth spurt - you need to be demand feeding if you can handle it, that way your supply will adapt quickly.

What you can do at night is keep things as unstimulating as possible - low lights, no conversation, just feed, change, burp and settle. That way you can gently 'nudge' your DS in the right direction by way of preparation for when he is ready to find a routine.

Cleo - if I put him in Moses basket he shuffles around for a minute or so then cries.

I feed him lying down so we're cuddled up together and he falls asleep. He used to then be easy to transfer to Moses basket.

Thanks everyone for tips - am on app so can't name check everyone.

Ok looks like I've been spoilt so far!!

I'll just have to go with it and ride it out

Thanks all.

just to let you know, I take dd to baby massage and apparently it stimulates rather than makes sleepy (according to hv who runs it) they need to feed after too as can be dehydrating

i think ds2 was having bath, feed bed routine when he was around 8 weeks but mostly because ds1 did, i decided that he then ought Togo tp bed so he associated the routine with being put to bed, rather than just an early evening activity/ change of scenery. must say it often took me an hour or so of feeding rocking etc to get him off to sleep and i found that trying to put him down soon after he had fallen asleep didn't work, i needed to cuddle him for 15/20 or sometimes 30 minutes so he got into much deeper sleep before i put him in his cot, i think others who say best to put him down sleepy but awake are absolutely right but that rarely happened with ds unless he was at exactly the right level of tired e.g not too much or too lively. feeding him seemed to help chill him out.

Thx Beatrice, he did feed for an hour afterwards!

Thx Redcar

Been here 3 hours with him! Feeding him again!!

Maybe I'll move the routine an hour later.

I started a bedtime routine with both of mine, pretty much from day one, more so with DS2 (9 weeks) because he has to fit around DS1's (2.4yo) routine. DS1 was the worst sleeper known to humankind, but because he was so used to his bedtime routine, the going to sleep initially bit was never a problem. It was the staying asleep bit which took him an inordinately long time to grasp But then, I did feed to sleep with him, which I am avoiding like the plague with DS2.

With DS2, I follow the bath, boob, bed routine suggested by a PP. He cluster feeds from around 5pm, either of his own accord or via hefty encouragement from me to get him tanked-up for the night. Bath is at 7pm (with his big brother), then about 7:15 I take him into our room, while DH takes care of putting DS1 to bed. I swaddle him then turn out the light and give him one last feed, off both sides if possible, without letting him fall asleep. Then he goes into his co-sleeper cot. Under no circumstances would I take him into another room and play - far too stimulating and you'd just push him into over-tiredness. If he starts to get at all agitated, I'll try a hand on him first, then maybe give him a finger to suck very briefly. If this doesn't settle him, I take him out again for another very quick suckle, just to settle, then back in the cot. Repeat until he falls asleep, but after several weeks of this, he's going to sleep pretty much straight away (at the moment...I know from bitter experience how drastically it can all change, without warning). Thus far, he's going fairly reliably until after 11pm like this - he went until 1:20ish the last couple of nights - and, yes, I sleep then as well. I heard a great quote in MN once along the lines of 'an hour's sleep before midnight is worth two after' and it's so true. It lasts for such a comparatively short period in yours and your child's life, I can always catch up on the missed TV when he's older

Natwebb - I class kicking and smiling as playing at this stage!!

Thanks elphana