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!!

Mine are 17 and 11 now so a while ago .. I I started off keeping them up and putting them to bed when I went to bed at 11 with lots of white noise a last feed etc then hoofed it off myself .. I got some sleep in 2-3 hour stretches that way. Then as the weeks went on, I gradually brought their bedtime forwards as they got a better sense of mnof
of night and day. I did notice sudden growth spurts with more frequent feeding etc but it didnt last long. By about 6 months they were pretty much sleeping through .. As they got older I was that bit slower at going in to sort them out if they woke up - just to give them ya chance to self settle amd ato see what was happening - by christ it was knackering those early days though - they get a sudden surge of alertness at around 6-9 weeks too - well mine did !! 1st 1 Sorry for all bastard bastard mistakes - my phone is playing silly buggers

I've never gone to pick him up straight away at night. He usually shuffles around in his Moses basket for about half an hour, then starts crying and then I go to him.

I guess I've been spoilt and want my old, 'good' baby back

Oh yes - white noise. I start white noise before I start the final feed, so he is swaddled with white noise going all night which I do think is helping him to stay asleep. Didn't do that with DS1, but I wish I had.

When he wakes in the night, the light stays off and first off I re-swaddle him. Sometimes re-swaddling him in the dark makes him go back to sleep because he's somehow 'escaped' and his waving arms have disrupted him. Otherwise, it rouses him enough that he takes a nice big feed and he goes back down nice and tightly wrapped which (I hope) keeps him asleep longer.

I do think both of mine differentiated night and day much earlier than some PPs have suggested. DS2 most definitely has, and DS1 also had clearly established a night sleeping pattern quite different to his day time one in his first few weeks. He'd still wake frequently, but he'd go straight back to sleep after one of his five million night feeds, which he wouldn't do during the day. If I fed him after waking from a daytime nap, he'd be ready for a play, which he wouldn't be at night. I will entirely concede this is likely to be blind luck, but establishing an early night time routine plus boring night-time feeds and changes may have helped. DS2 has stopped pooing in the night now so he doesn't get changed at all overnight to minimise disruption.

Ah twinkle - sorry !! Wasn't implying you didn't give him chance to self settle - I was just on a roll I tIt It (bloody phone )) 1st 1it might be worth moving his bedtime back again to see how he gets on, and you might get some more sleep ?? Excuse all exclamation ethe etaE question marks - bloody phone that won't let me erase and just duplicates any errors - this will pass - just do what you can at the moment to maximise your own sleep - then gradually bring his bedtime forwards - he sounds a sweetheart !!

A routine at 8 weeks old? That's an oxymoron. Surely?

He will absolute fall into his own natural routine. But he's 8 teeny tiny weeks old.

If he ewas 8 months old then it would be different, but it is really normal to wake every 2 hours. He's probably having a growth spurt as well.
At this age, you just have to feed and lay down when they do, and basically just accept it. I found this much easier with my second, I rejected this with my first. Depends what kind of position you are in, how much help and what kind of baby!

But at 8 weeks an was still very much eat, sleep and feed when be does.

Ah lovely white noise.

I used allllll the props with my second, realising that 'tool for your back!' Was absolute crap (wish I knew that with my first!) he had swing chairs and hair driers on, patting back and singing, but he'd be asleep in seconds. Turn the hair dryer off and just let the swing chair take over.

Spent £9474892 in batteries but I didnt care.

Forget any 'rods for your back' its all a bloody conspiracy. They are amazing, I utilised all rods with my second. And he now sleeps through like a charm and hes a toddler. No effort needed.

From the word go mine were fed in the dark at night and I did not speak or make any noise at all. I certainly did not play any games. BOth slept thorugh 7-7 by 12 weeks. Oh and my cousin gave me a mobile that played Brahms Lullaby for about 20 minutes! Did the trick every time. My son still falls asleep instantly if he hears it and he's 25.

Jezza - it's ok! Was just trying to give as much as info as possible!

Lumpen - I think I tried too soon! Will try again in a few weeks! He's still awake and rubbing his eyes. Just go to sleep!!

Amother - same here! I always fed and changed in the dark, kept the days bright and busy with normal noise, he just seems to have forgotten all this and changed over the past week or so!!

We had a Reiki CD that sent the DDs off to sleep - but only for daytime naps.

They're all different though, DD1 slept 7.30 pm till 7.30 am with a dream feed at 10 pm from 10 weeks. Was I ever smug...

Then DD2 came along and demanded feeding at 11.30 and 2.30 like clockwork until she was 11 months. No comfort feeding, she took both sides in 15 minutes flat and went straight down again, but it was not fun when I had to go back to work when she was 6 months. No more smuggery from me. And I'm well aware that was amazing sleep compared to what many mums have to put up with.

I started a 'bath, feed, bed' routine from day one because I didn't know any different. It took some altering of timings to get it quite right but it all came together at about 4 months when he learned to self soothe and the daytime naps started happening in a pattern, that really helped. Keep up the bedtime routine, it really does work. Not a stealth boast I promise (!) but DS has only woken in the night once since he was 5 months old and that was due to illness - he's now 11 months. I am religious about the routine though, his evenings are like clockwork. I think they need that stability.

He is PFB though so I may be talking utter rot

We found a wake up routine helped. Whatever time the household awakes, baby should be awakened and fed, if possible. For us this was 7-7:30 am. After a night like last night, it's too easy to let him sleep all morning and the siuation might get entrenched, but try just picking him up for snuggles and feed him if he wakes enough then resettle him. I would aim for an evening nap around 7:30, expecting him to wake and feed around midnight our ds got a bottle from dad them, i tried to pump and go to bed between 10-11 pm. To be prepared in case of nights like yours last night! I tried to make the 2 am feed as good as he would stay awake for, but in darkness so he didnt think it was playtime. Post 2 am i tried to feed him as little as he would take, allowing him to drift off as it suited him. Dhs alarm at 6:30, baby up, changed, snuggled, kissed and being fed within the hour.

A firm wake up time seemed to let the rest of the day, and eventually the night, sort itself into a roughly reliable schedule.

None of mine have settled into deeper sleeps until about half nine/ten at that age.

We made ourselves miserable trying to get a routine with dc1 and rocking her in a darkened room. By dc3 we'd given up and it worked itself out by about four months when she started going down earlier by herself. Going with the flow is much less stressful.

With all three of mine, I basically went with the flow for the early months, and as time went by, things settled down into more of a routine. By the time they were 18 months old, they had a pretty good routine - a nap after lunch, and bedtime at around 7.30pm, and sleeping through most nights, until 5.30 - 6am.

8 weeks is really young to be trying to get I to much of a routine, but you can start with a bedtime routine of bath and feed early evening, with things quietening down in the house after that - in the hopes that the baby will sleep for a while, before a last feed of the night, and then whatever feeds he has in the night.

You could set a time in the morning by which you want to have got him changed out of his night time baby-gro and into a daytime outfit - I did that most days (though there is nothing wrong with a baby living in babygros) - I just liked having them in the nice outfits they had.

But don't beat yourself up if no routine emerges, or if you can't get into a routine yet - it really is early days, and going with the flow really won't mean a baby who never has a routine. I went with the flow with all three, and by the time they were toddlers, we had a fairly regular bedtime and daily routine - but I honestly think it was a good thing that it wasn't too rigid. We made the routine work for us, we never felt that it was in control of our lives - so if lunch was late, because we were out and about, the boys coped just fine with that. Same if we were coming home late from somewhere - they could nod off in the car. They needed a nap after lunch, but that could flex too.

One thing I found really helped with putting them down in the Moses basket was swaddling them - which another poster has mentioned. I figured that it was going from a nice warm cuddle with me or dh whilst being fed, into a chilly Moses basket that was waking them up when they were drifting off nicely at the end of their feed - so if they were wrapped up before the feed, the warm blanket around them provided insulation from the chilly mattress. If you didn't want to do that, you could put a warm hot-water-bottle I the basket, just to slightly warm it up before they go in - not hot, just warm enough not to wake them by being chilly, if you see what I mean.

Remember, parenting is a marathon not a sprint, and you have lots of time ahead with your beautiful baby to get into a routine - and you might find it easier and less stressful to put the routine aside for the moment.

If you take nothing else away from this essay post, take this. There is an amazing book by the Radio 4 journalist, Libby Purves, called "How Not To Be A Perfect Mother" - full of the things she and her friends learned at the coal face of motherhood - the practical,hints and tips for getting through the days.

As she says, we are told we need to be the perfect Madonna, the mother who does it all right from the word 'go' - but even a Madonna needs time off with a cup of tea and a good book! And it doesn't matter if, occasionally, the baby is in a disposable nappy, and his older brother's jumper with the sleeves rolled up - as long as he is warm, fed, clean and happy.

Basically we don't need to stress about every little falling away from perfection - we need to be good enough. That is what I lived by, and I have two strapping healthy sons at university, one graduating in Law this year, and the other reading Maths, and a third equally healthy and strapping lad in his final year of school, doing his university applications.

Pointythings: they do knock the smug out of you, dont they? i was smug for years over how easily and well my DDs ate and enjoyed quite a mature range of foods. But I swear, my oldest never slept through the night, even now, as a 30 yr old mum, she gets by on almost no sleep. Youngest child, sleep easily sorted. But food issues.

Thanks everyone. He has finally fallen asleep. I'm playing womb noises on my phone and fed him. Will read more and reply tomorrow - off to bed now to make the most of it!

Sleep well!

Thanks very much all for your replies and to you SDT for that marathon post full of info!

He woke at 2 and then 5 last night and went straight back to asleep again. Much better!

Think I'm going to stick with the bath / feed / bed routine but do it much later - was stuck upstairs for 4 hours last night! Bit pointless!

Thanks again everyone

I was thinking about you last night, Twinklestar, and remembering when ds3 was a little baby, so I had him and a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. Obviously the older two were in much more of a routine - ds1 was just about to start school, so a fairly regular bedtime was a necessity, to my mind.

Ds3 basically ended up with two bedtimes. He'd be part of the bedtime routine with the older two - it was easier to do it all at the same time for the three of them, and ds3 just got a quick dip in the bath whilst his brothers were in there having their bath - but his brothers went to bed after the bath-bedtime book routine, whilst ds3 came downstairs with us, had a feed, and then usually went down in his moses basket for 3+ hours, whilst dh and I had supper.

He'd then wake up for a last bottle and change of the evening at 11-ish, and then dh and I went to bed and he went down in his moses basket again, and we moved him upstairs to our room when we went up.

Somehow it helped to think of the early evening as his bedtime, and to see the later waking up for a bottle as part of the night.

So you could keep the bath/feed/bed routine at the time you want it, but let him sleep downstairs with you (maybe on you, maybe in his basket - whatever works), but label that 'bedtime', and any later feeds/changes as part of 'night time'. Maybe he will be more likely to drop off if he is downstairs with/near you than upstairs?

Don't stress about it - you are doing a wonderful job!

I think at this age, the best thing you can do is to simply do the same thing EVERY day/night. You sounds like you're already right on track - it's no instant fix.

I found that expressing during the day so that I could give an extra feed after bfing in the evening worked really well for me. Rather than topping up with formula I would just keep on feeding DS until he was totally comatose on milk. We used to call it the fois-gras-hour.

I agree with one of the earlier posters that it might be better to do this a bit later so that his sleep more closely reflects your sleep (unless you can go to bed really early too which is also fantastic!)

Tummy time in the evening can also work well to tire them out.

Whatever you adopt, just stick with it so that it becomes habitual. Babies are (generally) creatures of habit.

I just keep my little one downstairs dozing on me until I go up to bed. Then I feed him as soon as he makes any noises in the night. So he never really wakes up. I keep him warm and snuggly and he goes back into a deep sleep and I pop him back in his cot which is next to my bed. He is 5 months old - will probably go into his own room at around 7 months depending on whether or not I have sorted his room out by then! I've never bothered with a sleep routine with either kid, and I sort of believe that folk are just making more work for themselves, especially by doing it from a very young age.