HELP help...what are your bedtime routines??

[Fifilottie]

My DD is 15 weeks and bedtimes have always been really time consuming/ although have presumed this to be normal. I Bf her at around 7 and she often wants to suckle til nine. If I take her off she screams unless I hug and rock her for about an hour(within that hour I may have tried to put her down four or five times and when noticed she cries). I can't put her down to self sooth...she just wont and can't. I have been feeding her to sleep which often doesn't work out cos in the day time she seems to want to suckle everytime she is tired and eats her hands practically. Not sure if I have a great evening supply anyway so am wondering whether to just give her formaula at bedtime(at mo she is exclusively BF). I have tried the bath time story time routine but she is too moody for a bath in the evening and a story is just all a bit too much for her and it makes her cry. All getting a bit much now as the last two nights have been quite bad.

Is this all just normal? Does anyone have/had trouble at bedtime? Does anyone have any advice or can let me know there bedtime routines? Thanks

I formula feed but I know a lot of friends of mine who breast feed do use formula for the bedtime bottle, and it seems to work well for them.
My DS is 16 weeks and since he was about 8 weeks he has had a fairly similar routine, but we didnt enforce it,he just got into it by himself - bath, quick play, as soon as he starts to grizzle we put him down and pat him, sing to him etc til he goes to sleep. We try to avoid picking him up when he is settling but never leave him to cry, and over the weeks, the time we spend doing this has reduced dramatically. Can you do this? Put her down but also help her settle?

My son is 12w and is on formula. He has slipped into a routine of his own accord ... feeds about 6-7pm, sleeps in his moses basket until 11pm when we go to bed, has another feed then goes into his cot and sleeps until about 6am.

We're first-time parents and decided to feed on demand and go with the flow, because we have no clue what we are doing, are too soft-hearted to do the controlled crying thing and I find childcare books depressing .

You don't say where your daughter is going to sleep? Is she being put down in a different room and getting anxious? I know our son sometimes gets very upset if he wakes up alone, seems to panic him a bit. Not sure how we're going to deal with that but he's very young at the mo so ...

Hope your other replies are more useful than this and things start getting easier soon ...

You dont need to comp feed if you dont want to. You could try introducing a 'lovey'/comfort item to stop the feed to sleep association. Feed with the comfort item to get the smell right. Try the kellymom or pinky mckay website (or similar) for ideas. TH I would work on the self soothing thing first and chill on the routine and bath and feeding for two hours thing Also, there is a known phenomenon of sleep being disturbed at around the 4 month mark so it could be that coming in to play as well. Good luck and hope it all improves soon!

I wouldn't worry about a bedtime 'routine' per se at 15 weeks - they need to be a bit older than that for sleep cues to work. That is about the time that my dd started wanting to be put down, though, rather than fall asleep on me or dh in the evening. Stories won't mean anything to yours yet, but she might find a bath soothing- do you pop her in the sink? Don't worry about washing, just swish warm water over her skin.

You're right, you won't have much milk left in the evenings - what we found useful was dh giving her a bottle of expressed breastmilk around 6pm (I used to express first thing in the morning before I'd fed her at all) - it gave me a couple of hours off to recharge, because she always wanted to feed loads in the late evening to 'top up' before night time.

Childcare books tell you not to feed to sleep, but I swore by it - it was a sure-fire way of getting her off! And it wasn't a problem at all when I wanted to stop doing that at around 5 months - just started putting her down drowsy rather than asleep, and then progressively more awake. It worked fine.

I also seem to remember that 16 weeks is growth-spurt time so she might just be feeding like mad to get your milk up at the moment.

I think in general evenings are tricky until they're a bit older - there always seem to be dozens of threads on her about evening routines, but there doesn't seem to be a silver bullet that works for everyone. This site is quite helpful. www.babysleepsite.com

This is has all made me feel a bit better and determined. Thank you for suggesting the baby sleep site. It is really useful and made me realise that many don't have a magic switch that makes baby sleep. Just need to give LO a bit more time and may be become more patient myself.

JUst to answer a few questions. I started putting DD in her cot(trying and trying and trying) from about 8 weeks. Before that I to let her sleep in her moses basket and brought her upstairs at 11 ish, same.

Am also going to try and use something for a sleep association while feeding(eg some soft material or something??any suggestions). Am still interested to hear other people's bedtime routine though??? Also at what age do baby's sleep through. I wake DD for a midnight feed but just in the past two or three days she hasn't fed much and DP wants to encourage her to sleep through. Just think 15 weeks is too little...anyway enough of the waffle :-).Feedback much appreciated

It's just a difficult time, from memory. I think that whatever makes it easiest is probably the best approach. If she likes to be nursed to sleep then that's what I'd do to be honest. It won't last forever and their routines change so much. I tried not to nurse to sleep and then at about 6 months ds decided that was all he wanted, so I needn't have gone to all the trouble! Try to take a break and hand her over and go easy on yourself.

Fifilottie, I started to introduce a bedtime routine from around 8 weeks and I have found that being consistent really works...DD is 14w now and consistently sleeps 9pm - 5am.

We are first time parents and initially thought we were doing the right thing by keeping DD downstairs with us in the evenings until we went up to bed. She was extremely fussy in the evenings and we would pass her back and forth between us trying to keep her happy. I too was feeding her to sleep, but she would wake again at very short intervals. I eventually thought that maybe she actually needed to go to bed (actually it was a friend with a slightly older DD that suggested it) and so we implemented a routine. From the first night, she went to sleep herself (albeit with lots of patting/shushing etc) and slept for 8 hours solid!

We don't wake her for dream feeds as she sleeps through until 5am herself and if she is hungry earlier, she wakes me up to let me know, but generally I try to make sure she has plenty of feeds in the day to make sure she's had enough calories. DD is EBF and has never had a formula top-up (in fact she point-blank refuses a bottle and will only except the real thing!) Her weight gain is fine.

IME if you persevere with helping her to settle herself, obviously without leaving her to cry, then she will get there. I disagree that it's too early for sleep cues to work. DD seems to know that when she has bath/wash, feed, put into sleeping bag, cuddle, then it's time for sleep. I have also got a really cute soother 'blankie' thing from Boots which I tuck down my bra/top to make sure it smells of me, and she sleeps with it right next to her head - in fact she now snuggles up to it!

I do find that sometimes DD likes to have a shout and a moan just before droping off, it's not so much crying, but must be her way of releasing all her stress/energy before drifting off. It took me a while ro realise the difference between this and her really being upset.

Sorry to waffle on, but hope some of that helps

We didn't have a bedtime routine until dd was about 6/7 months old. Until then, I breast-fed her to sleep late evening (anytime between 8pm and 11pm), sat on the sofa cuddling her then put her in a crib next to our bed. We often ended up co-sleeping as it was easier for me to pull her into our bed for mid-night breastfeed and then drift off back to sleep cuddling her.

This worked for us, as no stress at all, we just went with the flow, so to speak!

By 8 months dd had settled into a bath/story/milkfeed/bed routine at about 7.30pm, usually sleeping 12 hours straight in a cot in her own room. We did have to do three nights of controlled crying to achieve this though.
We enjoyed having the freedom to stay out at restaurants/friends' houses till later in those early months too.

From about three mmonths we introduced bedtime routine of bath, then breastfeed to sleep - she would normally go down by about 7.30. THis was after having her with us and realising she was getting very tired and grumpy in the evenings and we were walking around trying to soothe her. And it did feel good to reclaim the evenings!

I woke her for a late feed at 11 before i went to bed and she would then go through to about 6-7.

If you can try not to feed much or sleep more than short nap from about 4-6.30 or so, she should be ready to go down in the evening.

But she's still only little so don't beat yourself up about it, if you're not ready to introduce a routine.

Wow...it is soo useful and reassuring to find out everyone's routine at bedtime. I realise that I shouldn't worry too much about feeding her to sleep...Curly J...You are sooo lucky. I think I might test out DD at the weekend and give her the midnight EBM at bedtime instead of midnight. You see I already give her EBM at midnight and it takes two expresses a day to get this so don't know how I could possibly make a bottle for bedtime am soo tempted by the formula option...aaahhh. You see tonight, I bf her at 6.30 and shuished/rocked/hugged her to sleep for about a half an hour then she took three attempts to put her down before she would.......half an hour later she woke up for more milk. Wish she could just take it all at one time I guess. Will keep persevering

bump...any more ideas

was she definitely waking up for more milk, or did she just need to be fed/comforted back to sleep?

When my DD wakes very shortly after going down (which she often does) I send DH to settle her with some shush/patting and she usually goes straight back - within a minute or two.

The reason I send him is that she assosicates me with the boobs/milk so we see if she will settle for him before I go up. Obviously if she doesn't settle and we do think she is still hungry I go up and feed her a bit more...

good idea.....will try that tonight!!