Ideal bedtime routine and time

[Willow4987]

Hi, just as title really. What is the ideal bedtime routine for a 10week old to set good habits and rough time to do it

At the moment I’ve got a 10 week old DS who has basically got himself into a rough feeding routine and wakes between 1-2 times in the night

However I want to start establishing a bedtime routine to set good sleep practices (I’m aware that this might take a while to bed in so I’m not expecting miracles). I’m thinking something along the lines of bath, change, feed and story/song

He normally feeds about 7pm then 9/10pm however he won’t sleep between those times and typically goes to sleep about 11pm. Ideally I want to do the routine before 7pm so it’s consistent with my ultimate goal of him sleeping from 7 etc

This is where I’ve got my main queries really...he doesn’t sleep between 7-11 so am I on a losing battle if I do the routine and then sit upstairs with him and try to get him to sleep. If I do this should is stay with him or come downstairs in the knowledge that I might have to keep running up and down to settle him?

Or do I do the routine and then take him back downstairs for some awake time as he’s not asleep anyway?

I really just don’t know what to do for the best so was hoping for some advice

Sorry for the long post

I have no advice, but I have an almost 7 weeks old an wonder the same thing! And she’s also awake at the same time you say.

I’ve tried taking her up at 9ish but feel I fight a loosing battle as she just doesn’t want to sleep! And baths are out...she loves them, but when we get her out...all hell breaks loose! So figured that wasn’t too relaxing lol.

We put the same music on and hoping she’ll associate that with sleep and sit in our bedroom with a night light. Will introduce books in a few weeks.

As you say it’s very early and I’m not really expecting anything! Starting it now more for my own sanity so I feel like I’m doing something to help get past the sleepless nights!

My son in 11weeks. I take him up at 5.30 and let him kick about with his nappy off while I run his bath etc. Then after bath we do massage, story then milk. Feed takes about 40 mins so it's about 6.50 when he goes in his cot. Sometimes he's already asleep sometimes he goes down awake. Then that's him until I go to bed around midnight when we usually disturb him so I feed him again and after that he usually sleeps until 6.30.

It depends what time you want him to wake up to what time you put him down. I woke on around 12 hours so that's when they start to sleep right through for the 12 hours I don't have to change the routine to match.

@3boysandabump yes I was thinking the same. I want him to go down about 7 so that we start our day at 7am but he just will not sleep at that time. At the moment we get up about 8am but even then he won’t go to sleep at 8pm....it’s closer to 11pm

I think it may be because he’s asleep too much in the day

How much is your LO sleeping in the day roughly?

He usually falls asleep as we do the school run at 9 and then I take him for a walk in the pram so he gets a good nap. Usually wakes when we get back about 10.
Then he has a big nap from around 12 until around 2.

DD1 was just the same. Wouldn't go to sleep until about 11pm and she did sleep a hefty amount in the daytime. So we started making bedtime 15 mins earlier every few nights. Eventually it was 7pm. Took a while but got there in the end and she really thrived from it. So did we!

@3boysandabump your LO is definitely awake more than mine. I reckon this is where I’m going wrong. How I get him to stay awake is my next challenge! He’s either feeding, sleeping or awake for about 15 mins in the day and saves it all up for the evening

@mavericksnoopy did you do the whole routine at that time and move it forward or just the putting to bed part?

I know there's only about 4 weeks different age wise between mine and yours but that's quite a bit when they're this young. I think at that age my lo was having a nap between 4-5 as well.

Maybe strip him off and give him some nappy free time. Warmth makes babies sleepy so he'll be a bit cooler. If I don't want lo to sleep I avoid car seat, pram and sling because he will fall asleep in there every time .

Plus my lo has 3 noisy big brothers to keep him awake 😂

My DS now nearly 13 weeks used to drive us mad all evening. He'd be in the living room and just annoyed at life, he wouldn't sleep but wasn't chilled either, just really unsettled. He'd then get overtired and so putting him to bed around 11pm could take ages

So around 9 weeks we decided to give bedtime routine a go and it blooming worked!! Bath around 615, into bedroom which is dimly lit to get into jammies and fed bottle also in dimly lit bedroom. Then a quick song and plonk him in his cot.

The first night we were up and down for about 45 minutes replacing his dummy and shushing him - but never picking him up or turning lights on etc. He eventually went to sleep and we've been doing this routine ever since, now normally only one dummy replacement/shush and sometimes none.

My top top is we make sure he sleeps at some point between 430 and 530 just for 30 mins or so to make sure he's not overtired for bedtime.

As for daytime he still sleeps quite a lot, only ever awake about 90 mins at a time. At night we wake him for bottle at 1030 then he tends to go through til about 5ish. Hope this helps!!

Forgot to say we settle him again/keep him quiet til around 645am when we get him dressed and give him morning bottle to start his day

@pennyw85 so would you say your DS goes to sleep roughly 7pm then? And when you started the shushing, was it when he stirred or full on meltdown??

What’s your feeding routine like? If last feeds roughly 7 what would time is the previous feed?

At the moment we’re working on an 8pm bedtime and then bringing it forward as my husband wants to do bedtime routine and he’s unlikely to be able to do it at for 7pm

I just don’t know if we should be doing this or just going straight for 7 now

We were doing 3 hourly feeds (so previous one around 4pm) but he's started to be disinterested in some so now reduced to what Gina Ford suggests - 7am, 11am, 230pm and then around 630 for bedtime one, finishing around 645, asleep by 7 after a bit of stirring.

We listen on monitor downstairs and normal noises and stirring we ignore, if he starts to do even a low level cry we rush up to shush and replace dummy as we don't want him getting worked up. Hope that helps!

PS I would adjust for what time you want to do bedtime, I think a lot of people prefer 8pm. For us 7pm works better as when he starts nursery we will need to leave home just after 7am and we want him to get full 12 hours sleep (if he's willing!)

@pennyw85 yeah that’s really helpful! Thanks so much

Our feeds are like every 2-3 hours and he’s having well over his recommended daily allowance so I’m hoping he will start sleeping more soon

Fingers crossed for you!