Please help- bedtime for 5 week old?

[opalescent]

Hi all, hoping for a bit of guidance as a totally clueless new mum!
My five week old baby is not a bad sleeper, and will generally settle in his Moses basket after a night feed. But we have a bit of an inconvenient 'routine' at the moment, which seems to have developed by itself, and I'd really like to change it if possible.
At the moment, baby stays downstairs with us in the evenings, bfeeding on and off as he chooses. We head upstairs at about 10pm, and around 10.30 dp gives a bottle of formula (I'm mixed feeding). This settles baby, who then goes into his basket around 11.30, and he then takes a good 20-30 minutes of loud (but not distressed) snuffling, to settle himself off. Night feeds then kick off around 3.
It's the actual going to bed bit that's killing me. Because we can't actually go to sleep until he does, his settling period seems to go on forever, and feels like a very anxious period.
Id really like him to be down and settled earlier, but when would be a sensible time to start bedtime? And could we put him up in our room alone, earlier evening, with the monitor on? And will he be more unsettled later in the night if we bring bedtime forward?!
Thanks for listening to my ramblings!!

If he is settling self that's amazing. Try not to be anxious. He will get quicker. If he's happy with you out the room go with it. I had similar anxieties - dreading daughter waking up/not settling so used to help - big mistake. I might go with it for a couple more weeks till a bigger tummy then do the whole bath, formula, bed thing. We introduced that kind of routine about 6 weeks but took a few weeks till baby got it. If you are puting baby down earlier consider a dream feed when you go to bed.

My point is the settling self in cot is that major bit so be happy with that. Sleep on couch/spare room and leave DH to get on with it.

Hiya! My baby is 8 weeks old and doing the same sort of thing in the evening. We aren't going to put him to bed In Our room just yet because of the guidelines that say babies should take all naps and sleeps in a room were you are to help prevent SIDS. With ds1 we waited until he was about 4 months I think. It seems like a pain, but it will become a distant memory ( I promise....ds1 is 7 now and I have to wrack my brain to remember what we did with him!!). In terms of you getting some sleep, I think the introduction of that bedtime bottle could allow YOU to go upstairs to bed though! Take it in turns with you DP perhaps to have an earlier night?

We had lots of snuffling and grunting too and we found that keeping him more upright throughout the day has eloped and raising the head end if his crib too. Lots and lots of winding too.

Remember, this too shall pass!

5 am feed typos and random capitalisation! Clearly, helped, not eloped!

You're doing really well.

As he gets older, he'll get more tired earlier in the evening. This early evening period is cluster feeding and helps to build your supply up. Sometimes it feels like you have not enough milk but actually it's just baby's way of telling you to make more (there's a 6 week growth spurt).

With dd and ds I noticed they were getting more tired around 6pm so tried bedtime then (just a feed in the dark) and it would work sometimes. After a while it started working all the time. So watch your baby and try that.

Iggly you've said what I meant.

I think my DS started falling asleep earlier and earlier until he was going to sleep at about 8pm at around 24 weeks.

v impressed baby is settling himself. THat didn't happen till much later for us... it is hard waiting for bed time to get earlier - I think it started around 12 weeks to naturally drop back with us...to 8/9 ish by 4 months maybe?

It is painful but in the long run it's a short time - could you separate into different rooms so that if you are doing the night feed you sleep somewhere else ? ie. your partner stays up with baby in a crib in living room until he sleeps and you get a longer chunk of sleep early in the evening?

Dunno if this will help OP but my DH used to do the 10.30 feed and settle DD in the Moses basket downstairs ... I would go to bed as early as I could, if possible an hour before DH fed her. Then DH would carry the Moses basket upstairs once she was fast asleep to her bedroom. I found if I got even 4-5 hrs sleep before the 2-3am feeding I could get survive it easily enough. DD went into her own room from the beginning and I slept in there with her. DH slept in our room so that at least one of us would get a full nights sleep!! It might not be for everyone but it worked for us (DH and I are not at our best when sleep deprived!!!!)