Bedtime routine for 4 week old

[Newmum0113]

Just looking for advice really.

My DD has a morning routine and seems to be much more settled during the day than at night. DH and I decided that we want to set an evening routine to help get her settled for the night.

Last night we bathed her at 9:30, but she was very hungry and screamed cried the whole way through. After we had cuddles in the towel while DH made her bottle and she fell sleepy. But after her feed she was awake and wouldn't settle when I laid her in her basinet. She did have wind though as she has colic. In the end DH had to take her for a drive to get her off to sleep, and was up with her all night long.

What kind of routine do/did you have at this age? TIA

At four weeks we introduced a bedtime routine and it worked better than we could've hoped for. Feed at 6:30pm, upstairs in basket an hour later, keep on going up to reassure him when he cried, and by 8pm he'd be asleep. He then slept sooo much better than when we'd been doing everything on demand. I wish being entirely baby-led had worked for us, but it didn't as ds just never wanted to sleep! (He'd even resist sleeping on us or the sling.) As a parent I now realise that you have to find out what works for you and your baby, and go with that. I have pnd and the risks that me being so stressed, anxious, and sleep-deprived brought to ds in my opinion outweighed the very small risk of leaving him alone with a monitor for a couple of hours each evening.

At 4 weeks my LB routine was bath at 8, bottle at half 8 cuddles then bed. Then slept though til 6. X

My dd is four weeks too. The only routine we have is that the last bottle of the night before we go to sleep is done in bed. I then put her in her cot and she wakes for a feed every 3-4 hours. I don't feel the need to put any more routine than that in place, we just work everything around her really.

If I'm honest the couple of times we have tried to do anything at a set time it has all gone wrong anyway!

As an aside, I agree with pp that the more you cuddle them at this age the more secure they will feel. On the days where I have had to put dd in her bouncer or swing for longer than usual or even if she has been with dh more than me, I find she is hard to settle at night. She seems much happier to sleep in her cot on days when we have spent most of the day cuddled up!