is it possible to have a 'down at 7pm' routine with a bf baby who cluster feeds?

[stillinpjs]

DD is 5 weeks and we are managing to ebf (had to ff top up ds as he lost too much weight)
Anyway she cluster feeds...
9am-11/12 cluster feeds
4pm - normal feed
8-11pm - cluster feeds
during the night she sleeps with me and latches on 3/4 times

Because i'm still so nervous about the whole low milk supply/ weight gain etc i've very much fed on demand.

So has anyone got any tips for how i move from the above to some sort of routine (where shes in her own bed preferably)?
Or am i expectint too much too soon? (ds slept through from 11 weeks but as i said that was with formular top ups which certainly helped before bed)

pjs, feeding in response to your baby's needs is how bf works.....so you're doing the right thing there :)

Sorry 'n' all that but 5 weeks would be very young for a 'down at 7pm' thing - easier at this stage to go with this (normal) flow and wait for things to change on their own, or maybe if they don't look like doing so, work towards having an evening pattern of feed - bath - feed, integrating the bathtime with your ds's if he is still young enough (won't work if he's a teen :) ) , so you at least know when bathtime is.

Honestly, it's a lot simpler to expect a baby of this age to be doing exactly what yours is doing, than to face the struggle of trying (and failing) to change it.

Hope life gets easier soon - it should do :)

O did with dd but ds isn't built that way

Thanks tiktok, I think i just needed to hear that! Seem to keep reading post where newborns are being tucked up in bed by 7pm and i just think, how???
DS is 21mo so dd goes in bath with him or sits in bouncy chair and watches.
Putting her down in her moses basket just doesn't work, she screams immediatey and i'm starting to think shes got reflux as if shes horizpntal, she seems to gulp and cough then become histerical uptil i pick her up to burp her. That is the main reason shes in our bed as i'm there to help her burp etc. she also sleeps with her head and shoulders slightly raised up in my arms.

It varies from baby to baby, but my DD stopped cluster feeding around 11 weeks, except for when we were hitting a growth spurt when it started again for a few days. We still cosleep at 2 years old, but I nightweaned at just over a year old when I offered water at night instead of milk.

We didn't put her down at any time during the first few months. She would naturally fall asleep during the evening on my shoulder, and we'd carry her up to bed when we retired ourselves.

Want to say my DD stoppped cluster feeding sometime in her second month too. She goes down at 6pm which is her natural clock, but gets up at the ungodly time of just before 6am. It's all a blur in the early months though. I can't rememebr the exact time but started sleeping through 10pm to around 6am at 11-12 weeks.

It will get better. Just hang in there. And every baby is different, but they do all eventually gets feed in lesser frequency.

I found a sling really useful in those first few weeks. Not during the cluster feeding time but say at lunch time when DS wanted to sleep on me. He could be in the sling and i could eat lunch with both hands. q1

Mine started showing an interest in being asleep in the evening around about the 2 month mark, I think. It just sort of happened.

DS was about 3 months old before he started going to bed at 7ish. Before that it was cluster feeding until we went to bed at about 9.30ish

Both mine started being settled in the evening around 4mths. One is bf, one ffed. Both were fidgetey in the evenings - it's normal.

Sounds like you're doing great. My DS stopped cluster feeding when he was about 8-10 weeks (I think!) but it did happen very naturally & gradually. Good luck!

To answer your question - not until 4/5 months ime.

It sounds like you're doing a great job - stick at it for now.

Depends on the baby. No with DS or DD2, yes with DD1. But she was very easygoing (as a baby... is an extremely stroppy 3yo ).

Wouldn't stress over 7pm bedtime for a baby of 5wks. Sit on the sofa with a book or telly on, feed her as required, and put life on a hold for a bit longer (if that's possible). We used to put our BF DS1 down at 7 (from about 3 wks) but DS2 (also BF) used to latch on till about 8.30-9pm, for best part of a year. Rather than setting targets that you can't meet (and getting stressed about it), I'd go with it. Won't last forever.

My baby is 4m old and exclusively Breast fed.

at about 3 - 5 weeks she would cluster feed all evening from 5ish until 9/ 10pm ish.

quite simply i got fed up of feeding her all eveing (+ up several times per night, + about every 1hour 45 mins (for an hour at a time) all day) so i OH started giving her a bottle of expressed milk at 6.30pm ish

we started at a 5 weeks 4 days, and since then she has gone up for a bath at 6pm, then bottle (which she downs so fast, about 1oz per min) the fast asleep for the night by 7pm latest

BUT she is now 17 weeks and normally wakes twice a night for more milk

not sure if its related but my BFing friends who got through the cluster feeding thing have BF babies who go down a bit later (8 / 9pm) and sleep all night

for us it works because OH takes over baby duties at 5.30pm and i dont do anything else (except cooking / housework / laundry / express / have a bath etc) until she wakes between 11pm and 2am.

My DS is 3wo and still down us in the front room atm! I won't start a full-on bedtime until he starts sleeping for as long as DH and I are sleeping (so roughly 11pm -6am or similar) when I will make bedtime the same time DH and I go to bed.

When he starts dropping the 11pm feed I'll put him to bed earlier at the feed before, and so on until we get to a bedtime around my older DDs.

It's what I did with DD and it was pretty stress free and worked so sticking to what I know.

I put my end 11wo down at between 6-7 BUT she usually gets back up at 8-9 ish and then cluster feeds til anything up to midnight ( I am typing this one handed!) but she does seem to be sleeping from then till 7-8am so can't complain
I like the MN saying of this to shall pass

We found it much easier to cluster feed till around 6, then she would nap till around 9.30 /10 in evening when we would be on our way up to bed. DD usually slept in moses basket next to us while we had a few hours of chill out time, had dinner etc. Then after 10 it was 'proper bed time' and she woud have a big feed and go to sleep for around 6 hours which totally coinsided with when we slept more. She would wake around 3 for feedn, then 6 and we'd be up for the day and I would nap in the afternoon while she did...

My theory was there was plenty of time for 'routine' and that 'survival of lack of sleep' was the more urgent issue.

Congrats byt the way, hopr you are all enjoying your new bigtger family

This is a really interesting thread, great to hear real life experiences that show the range of 'normal' for newborn bed times.

Our 7 week old naps well in his pram or moses basket in the day and at night time, but between 5/6 ish until around 11, he will only cat nap between cluster feeding and wakes quickly crying if we try to put him down. My DH has been mooting the 7pm bedtime idea, but we tried it once last week with bath, BF and put down, but he screamed blue murder!

Am happy to see that he might regulate his habits naturally to incorporate an earlier bed time as although I love constant cuddles at the moment, in a few months' time I think it might be nice to have dinner and movie / cuddle time with DH again.