Pratical advice on getting baby to sleep at night

[feedmecake]

We have an 11 week old baby who is good as gold until it comes to bedtime when she screams the house down. We followed her lead and started to put a routine around her for the evening that starts with a bath, story, milk then rock to sleep (she won't go straight in her cot until she's properly asleep) but she has started screaming as soon as she is out of the bath (which she loves) and will not stop. Tonight we had screaming for 1.5 hours, then she tired herself out and fell asleep. We're cuddling her all of that time as if we try and put her in her cot, the screams get louder.

Any practical advice? How do we get our baby to drift off calmly to the land of nod?

What time are you doing this?

We were starting the routine at 7.30, but tonight we moved it forward as she was grumpy and tired at 6.30. Incidentally, we skipped the bath tonight as she was already crying and I couldn't see it helping her calm down - if she's already grumpy it doesn't help - tried that.

I wonder whether 11 weeks maybe too soon for her to be put to bed in a formal sense? I know many people do but unless she is in a day/night routine already, this might be the only part of the day when she is left which might be a bit alien to her yet if she's not the hang of night/day?

Is she sleeping your room and doe she sleep in the same place for her other daytime sleeps? This might affect her familiarity with it.
Does she then sleep for a long period after she eventually goes?

Has she recently moved to the cot? Maybe she feels a little exposed once out of the bath and into a big cot from still being used to your womb / moses basket. Do you / have you tried swaddling?

Have you tried a comforter toy which she could have a bit in the day to bond with and then take to her cot so she doesn't feel alone?

Do you have the room pitch black? Maybe a night light would help to comfort?

Is it silent at night and does she experience silence other times of the day as this may be a new / scary thing to get used to together with the dark if the rest of the day is not quiet.

Not sure if you're BF or bottle but if she is starting to recognise night and day and form a routine, are you sure she's getting enough milk at the last feed and she's not crying because she's still hungry? Maybe she needs to take on more ready to try and have a longer sleep without waking to feed again?

Good luck. It's still really early days

My ds never settles after a bath, and never has! We have found after a lot of trial and error (ds never been a good sleeper) that we put away noisy toys at 6.30, have quiet time until 7 when we brush his teeth, snuggle up for a story then go into his room. We put on a lullaby cd, cuddle him while feeding him his bottle then when he's dozy but not quite asleep he goes into the cot. For a long time we did all this but let him fall asleep in our arms and he never really learned to self settle, so at 10 months old would still wake frequently through the night as he couldn't just doze off again. So just be aware of this, not something to be concerned with at 11 weeks old but if you find something that works just be aware that habits can be very difficult to break! Good luck with it.

She was all smiles this morning. Little monkey.

The routine you suggest Rock is exactly what we're aiming for but with the bath, and I've been aware that whatever we implement now will have to keep to or have trouble breaking. We can't yet put her down without her yelling even if she's sleepy, - largely she's already screaming when we're getting her dressed from the bath!

Flowers, she's definitely in a night time mode as she finally drops off and sleeps solidly until 3am, then feeds, then sleeps again until 7am. During the day she's feeding every 3 hours or so. We're bottle feeding.

I think we'll try the comforter. We have a teddy lined up for the job but he's not been brought into daytime play yet so we'll do that.

She's not really being left at all, as we stay with her until she goes to sleep, but it is quiet at night which will be different for her. I think that has actually helped us get her to sleep longer though so I'm not keen to up the noise level at bedtime.

She probably is hungry because she's screaming so much, sometimes I can't get her to take milk. When that's the case, I dream feed her before we go to bed and she then sleeps as per ususal.

Generally she's pretty good you see, just this hour of monkey business before bed.

My ds is 10 weeks and can be difficult to get down i gave up on the night time bath get pj's and everything ready at 6 and the first sign of tiredness from them on he goes up stairs gets his pj's on has a bottle and gets rocked to sleep. I don't worry to much about the time exactly just between 6 and 7 if i leave it to late it all goes tits up!

I also just bought an ikea rocking chair £80 for the chair and £15 for the cover and it is amazing! He always cried for a while before he slept but the motion of the chair calms him to the point sometimes he tries to start crying but is to sleepy to get a good cry out just a little whine with eyes rolling quite comical really.