Bedtime routine - confused

[harrietm87]

My baby is 12 weeks old and ebf. We've coslept from the start as he hates his cot (next2me co sleeper) (he also hates being swaddled and has rejected every brand of dummy I can get my hands on). This has all been fine so far - he comes up to bed with us at around 11pm, we all get in, feed him to sleep, and then he feeds once or (usually) twice in the night. I barely wake up though as he kind of helps himself. During the day he sleeps in arms, sling or pram (bit of crying before falling asleep in pram usually).

However, the 4th trimester is over now, and I'd like him to sleep in his cot (more flexibility for eg holidays and daytime naps etc) and also feel like I should be putting him to bed earlier and doing a bedtime routine.

My questions are:

• since sids guidance is all naps in same room, do people who do bath, lullaby, story etc at 7pm then bring their baby back downstairs?
• where do they sleep until you bring them up?
• is it better to prioritise bringing his bedtime forward (so sorting routine etc) and letting him continue co sleeping for a while, or should we try get him into the cot then start routine, or both? (Feel like that's a lot of change for him).

Sorry it's long - thanks for reading!

Following!

I think you'll get a lot of contradicting advice here. I have no idea what to advise, just wanted to tell you what worked for us and our cosleeping breastfeeding baby.

We joked that we did "baby led sleeping", ie whatever works as long as it works. Coslept until cca 6mo, as nothing else worked. Then at 6 mo randomly tried putting the baby in the cosleeper after a feed and seeing what happens. He slept. So we did that. At 1y moved to his own room - again, worked immediately. Gradually introduced a bath teeth story routine, then moved it forward when he started nursery and we needed to get up earlier for work. Worked for us. He is now 2 and sleeps great.

It seems to me that at the age of 3 months, a bath and story routine means absolutely nothing to them. I'm not sure they have the mental capacity to understand "oh this is the bit where they read to me and then I go to sleep, it happens every day". It also doesn't really matter to them if they go to bed at 9 or at 11, as long as they are getting enough sleep, so I would not worry about that either. (Of course, if you ask our families, we were doing EVERYTHING against the rules and our son was NEVER going to sleep properly because we were RUINING HIM FOR LIFE.)

Upstairs with monitor on from about 6 weeks old. Bath and milk about 545.....moses basket just after 6......think I moved him into cotbed about 3 months old x

carboholic thanks for your reply - sounds ideal!

With the co sleeper cot - did you try and fail with it before 6 months? And what time did you go to bed in the evening? Did you put the baby down first?

I don't like the idea of him sleeping alone even with a monitor, but maybe that's a bit pfb.

I cosleep on and off and I found a next to me and a sleepy head helped transition my 4 month old to the cot. She still wants to come in with me though occasionally. If I do that, I try and set an alarm for like 20 mins later and move her back over and she'll settle back in her cot.

I tried a routine for a while but she's just too young. I ended up frustrated and bored trying to get her to sleep at 9 when she wanted to sleep at 10.30. Now she'll sleep anytime between 9 & 11! I wish it was we earlier but she's not a routine kind of baby!

Oh and if she goes down at 9, I just put the monitor on and enjoy an hour and half downstairs to do what I need to get done and just keep checking on her!

So most people ignore the sids guidance that says all sleeping in same room as parents until 6 months? My understanding was that there was something about being physically present (as opposed to monitor) that was important. I can understand why people don't follow it as I'm struggling with the practicalities myself.

I did keep my DS downstairs with me for the first 6 months and we went up together about 10.30 after the final feed.

I used to do bottle, bath etc and then downstairs snoozing in bouncy chair or even pram. I used to set the pram up at the back of our front room where it was quieter and darker and this meant I could relax watching tv or pop in and out doing odd jobs etc.

DS then was ‘put to bed’ upstairs with monitor fron 6 months and then went into his own room at 12 months, but only because he never slept through the night and I was too lazy to traipse backwards and forwards

I’m expecting DS2 in a few weeks and will probably do the same.

My 8 week old daughter has luckily taken really well to the next2me crib. I have a lot of friends who have said their babies slept through from 6-8 weeks so I started doing a bath and bed routine from 4 weeks. We started doing the bath at 11pm and I noticed she would always sleep for 3-4 hours afterwards so I continued this. Now she starts to fall asleep for the night earlier so I do the bath at 9:00pm and she's usually asleep by 9:30/10:00pm and I stay with her. However last night, we had ordered a take away later than planned and she was falling asleep during it so I took her to bed and had her upstairs alone with the monitor for no more than 10 mins! She usually sleeps for about 5/6 hours and then wakes for a feed and then sleeps again till 6/7 am. However she's in her 8 week leap at the moment so her routine is a little off.

Oh and she is also ebf!

We've put dd to bed for the night in her cot from 8 weeks old.
Did the same with my first.
Both never settled downstairs at night for a sleep, they are great sleepers and seem to like a dark quiet room.
Both go up at 7 and my husband stays with the baby while she sleeps watching football on the iPad and then I come up at 9/9.30 and he goes downstairs for a couple of hours.
Will do this until she is 6 months'!
With my first we just used the monitor but she would have her bottle at 8 and be asleep around 8.15 and I would go up to bed at 9pm so she wasn't on her own for long.