When and how did you get your evenings back?

[luckysocks]

With DS,I remember starting the bedtime routine when he was 4 weeks. However, I still have some of the records I made showing when he fed/slept and these show that the evenings didn't actually settle down for quite some time after that! I don't know quite when, though.

DD is now 7 weeks, I run her bath/massage/feed/settle routine at 6.15pm (as with DS) which is nice but a bit farcical, as she stays down for roughly 90 seconds before the evening madness begins.

Can you remember when / how things started to settle for you?

I think by about 8-12 months

Enjoy your evening time while you can because my 12 year old is just off to bed now so I no longer have any evenings again

Um, my DS is 10m and goes to bed at 8, is often awake after 30min and asleep again by 9.30. I often go to bed by 10 due to all the night wakings I have to deal with so if half hour before bed counts then - 10m. Look forward to the day I can watch a film in the evening.
I think you are being very ambitious at 7 weeks hoping for some time to yourselves

when they leave home?

(have a 18 year old)

Closer to 6 months here before either of mine would reliably sleep for the evening.

6 weeks. Instigated bed time. Even if they woke up later
Get them upstairs.

With DS at about eight weeks. He was a really easy sleeper, I had no idea how lucky I was at the time.

With DD I just kept her on the sofa with me. She wouldn't settle and I just had an evening with a baby hanging around. She only started going to bed when I took her to cranial osteopathy at around 10 months.

6.5 months for me.

Oh dear, maybe we were lucky with DS!

We went away when he was 5 months so I remember that by that point we had our evenings to ourselves, and were pretty confident about that so it must have been the case for a while.

3 months was hard until we had a structure going in the day, so maybe that's what did it. How have I forgotten - it was all-consuming at the time!

Between three and five months. The time they settled just slowly crept backwards.

With my ds I have it in reverse! He was into a really good routine from about 8 weeks, however then he turned 3/4 and it all went wrong, now he is 9.9 and it is still going wrong, I can't remember the last time he was asleep before 10.30. We have a feeling he doesn't work on a 24 hour clock, maybe 27 instead. He has ASD and other spld so it's a high possibility.

I can't remember. But I know as the dc's get older you lose your evenings again

Ours with DD were intermittent - started putting her to bed around 8.30pm at about 8 weeks I think, was peaceful and lovely til 16 weeks when she went back to cluster feeding all evening, then months of horror in the evenings ensued - finally at about 9 months I discovered that putting her down on her front meant she fell asleep straight away (like flicking a switch, it was bizarre) and then evenings back for good - bliss! Not that I am advocating sleeping on the front at a young age - DD was robust and could turn by then and I checked her obsessively.

8 weeks here but we miss her!

Reported

Started bedtime rountine at 8 weeks and acouple of weeks after that got our evenings back.

It was about 3 months for us after the unsettled evenings and cluster feeding had passed.

Er, about 18 months-2.5years with each DC really. However, the eldest is now 7 and starting to go to bed and to sleep later, and we're imminently expecting another newborn.

So I guess the real answer is never, or at least not until they're out all evening or leave home .

The SIDS advice is that babies under 6 months should sleep in the same room as an adult, and this includes evenings and naps (you take them up with you when you go to bed). Sleeping young babies alone puts them at increased risk, and SIDS is at its highest at 2-3 months.

8/9 weeks upstairs to bed at 7 staying down until 12 earliest

DS started having a reliable bedtime around 4 months, but it was about 13 months before he'd reliably stay asleep all evening.

That's interesting re: the SIDS guidance Declutterbug, I had DD in my room until 12 months but put her to bed from maybe 8 weeks - there is no way she would have settled to sleep with us downstairs making dinner, watching TV & chatting. I will look into this as expecting DC2. May get a movement sensor monitor...

I don't know anyone who kept their baby with them in the evening til 6 months, I wonder how widely known it is that the guidance applies to naps too?

I just kept DS downstairs until we went to bed until he started crawling - didn't find it impinged on my evening having a baby to snuggle

Started properly having "evenings" when he was about 18 months old I think? Wasn't really bothered before then, I think I was weird though.

mine slept downstairs in the evening either on me or in the carrycot until about 7mths or so? ds4 went upstairs earlier at about 4mths as he slept better that way.

dd slept in the carrycot downstairs until 9mths as she liked the carrycot and it was easier to plug her dummy back in if she needed it!

once they started sleeping upstairs (the 1st 3 anyway) i would invariably only get an hour or two until they wanted a feed, then it gradually got so they would go longer ie 8pm-12pm etc without a feed.

and i wasnt bothered having a baby downstairs in the evening either tbh, generally i would hold and feed them and then put them down or if they were unsettled then myself or dp would hold them, they would sleep and we just watched tv etc. it didnt bother us but they are little for such a short time that 6-8mths with them downstairs in the evening isnt much int he big scheme of things :)

I put DD to bed because she was happier & more settled being in quiet & semi-dark, not because I found having her with me a hardship... If she'd happily slept downstairs, either on me or in the carrycot I'd have continued having her with us in the evening, but she didn't, she just whinged and got overtired.

emsyj - The FSID info from 2007 on daytime sleep is here.

This is the latest NHS/Dept Health leaflet from 2009. It says to keep baby in same room as you under 6 months. It doesn't mention putting babies alone upstairs to bed or for naps, so is in line with FSID advice.

One suggested mechanism for some cases of SIDS is that babies fall into too deep a sleep and fail to rouse. Being near adults helps them to come into lighter sleep (or wake) when appropriate. It's a theory, but the implications if it is correct are that settled babies who don't rouse well are actually at increased risk and that sleeping for extended periods might not be a good thing for young babies...

ISIS is an excellent and fairly new resource for parents and health professionals providing evidence-based info on infant sleep. the health professional sections are more detailed, but perfectly readable. References are included.