Babies younger than 6 Months - evening routine?

[ivanapoo]

We're following the "baby sleeps in same room as you" guideline but I'm at a loss how to make this work in the evening and wondered if you had any tips.

Now DS goes into his Moses basket around 8pm downstairs while we eat, wash up, chat and so on, we try to keep lights dim and noise down but he is awake most of the evening and then sleeps late in the morning (9.30-10 usually).

This is fine with me as I can have a lie in too and he is pretty chilled out on the whole - but in a few weeks I want to start going to groups and meetings that start at 9 or 10 and will be going back to work eventually so it can't continue like this forever.

Should I start getting him up earlier? What should I do when he outgrows his basket? Any tips on what we can do to encourage him to sleep earlier? Or should I just stop worrying about it?!

Is this a new guideline btw? I have three kids and only remember faintly reading this in a leaflet thar i got in hospiral when I had the last child - born in 2012. I didn't heed that advice because I just can't believe that it is so dangerous to let a baby sleep by itself in a room... Isn't it only the deep sleep that could be dangerous? So if you bustle around baby's room from time to time or are noisy in the living room that would keep your newborn in a lighter sleep and hence less danger of SIDS? Anyway that was my solution: the risk of messing up a good sleeper seemed quite big compared to the risk of SIDS..

Wondering what others are doing now.

Stop worrying about it. When you want to go to groups, get him up, change etc stick him buggy and off you go. Chances are he'll be awake for some of it, the bits he isn't you can have some adult chats.

Once he starts to take more interest and be alert at group times he'll probably get tired earlier in the evening.

My ds is 9 weeks old, he is most awake in the evening so I don't encourage him to sleep early. Our routine is dp and ds shower at 9pm, then I feed ds one boob whilst he is wrapped in his towel. Dp comes and dresses ds and puts him in his sleepingbag. We all go to bed at 9.30. I give ds the other boob then we put him in his bed (a normal 4 sided cot with one side taken off and attached to our bed) ds then sleeps till 3.30/4-ish when he wakes for a feed. Ds wakes up at 6.30-7, sometimes I pop his dummy in and he sleeps for another hour or he lies and looks at things above his cot and I snooze, sometimes we get up.

Dd is now 16 weeks and until recently had been up till 11pm, as she'd have her last feed of the day around 10pm ish and would be awake in the evening before then. Recently she started demanding her nighttime feed earlier and I have been managing to get her down around 9.30pm (in her bassinet in our room). She then sleeps, bar a bit of early morning grizzling which I ignore as she usually dozes off again, until around 7am. We have the school run to do with ds (4) so she has to be up and fed in good time for that. Babies seem to fall into their own patterns if you don't impose a strict regime on them, and I think that's absolutely fine. They are not going to get wildly upset if you deviate from their usual pattern from time to time, so you can make groups etc. Dd has to fit in with whatever we are doing during the day. Ds fell into his own sleeping pattern at around 4 months, I think.

Baby groups will give you some much-needed adult contact and I think you'd be better just getting baby up early on those days and giving an early feed. A happier mummy = a happier baby, and that is the most important thing.

Sorry, meant to mention the moses basket too - with ds we put him straight into a cot bed when he outgrew the basket. It seemed too expensive to be buying a cot too that he'd only use for a year or so. He looked tiny in it to start with but he was always happy in it. With a grobag it didn't matter that it was big. Dd is in a bassinet given to us by my SIL, but will be moving into ds's cot bed in maybe a month or so, and ds will graduate up to a big bed.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like I don't have anything to worry about really. I just feel pressure to get him into a routine for some reason but will give myself a bit more time.

If you give them a timed routine rather than a loose one (dd knows to scream after bath time as it's bed right after that) you will drive yourself mental every time the baby steps out of it and you get scared to have dinner out etc as it will screw the routine.