First time mum confused about newborn bedtime

[Secretlifeofme]

This may be a silly question but please bear with me! Our first baby is due on 29th October and we're really excited of course but I'm a bit confused about one thing. Obviously it's a good idea to get the baby into a good bedtime routine as soon as possible... but we'll be putting the baby down at about 7-8pm I guess? Of course we will be following the guidelines and not leaving baby alone to sleep, but does this mean that i have to go to bed at the same time as the baby? Or is it ok to put baby down in the Moses basket in the living room so I can actually have an evening with DH?! Once again, sorry if this is a ridiculous question!

We kept baby downstairs with us until about 5 months when we started to have more of a routine. As I was bfeeding most evenings for hours on end, I preferred watching TV while doing it!

Yes you put baby in the living room until age six months. You will need to use a travel cot when they outgrow their basket.

Ah that's great, thanks! Just confused because the baby books seem to suggest baby needs a darkened room, lullaby, white noise etc to 'differentiate day from night' but maybe that only applies when they're older?

We use a Moses basket in the sitting room and then take DS (6 weeks) to bed whenever we go - usually around 11ish and do a last feed and hope he'll sleep for a few hours...what we have found though is that DS is pretty wide awake in the evenings still so is generally crawling on us or demanding food. Plus he much prefers cuddles and sleeping on us to anywhere else. We've decided it's too early yet to introduce any kind of to routine so we're just going with the flow for the moment and DS is gradually falling into a pattern which will form the basis of a routine in due course.

That sounds like a sensible plan @mynameiscalypso, thank you.

Bin the books, they're bollocks.

Newborns don't need routines. They need milk, cuddles and nappy changes. That's it. It helps to remember that they've barely even separate people at that age.

Routines are useful from around four months maybe, even that is young for some.

Saying that, I used to go to bed around sevenish with my newborn. I needed the sleep as he cluster fed one til three AM!

To start with do dark at night no playing etc from when you go to bed. You may find after a couple of months that keeping the living room dimmer in the evening helps. I found DD cluster fed a lot in the evening so spent most of it on me.

Just keep baby with you, there's no 'bed time' as such for a newborn. Like PPs, we kept ours downstairs in the moses basket until we went up to bed.

I have a next to me crib and put DD up there at 7.30ish and then I just watch tv in bed or read for a bit as up in night anyway. It’s not really to get baby in routine it’s suits us.

Thanks all, you have made me feel a lot less confused!

Just to add, we do follow the advice to differentiate day and night, just choose to start night at about 10.30/11 and keep it relatively dark and quiet from then until the morning.

The plan was to put the babies in our room about 8ish and go to bed around 12. It used to happen a fair amount of the time. So basically they'd be sleeping alone in our room for a few hours. No professional that visited us and we had a few because DS2 is adopted ever said that was in violation of "sleep in your room for 6 months" guideline.

Agree with PP - parenting books led me to develop anxiety around DDs sleep. Nothing was good enough and she would only sleep in short bursts.
I also BF her to sleep and now have 8wo DS, and the idea of being able to put a BF baby down in a moses basket for 4 hours whilst I eat dinner and watch TV is, to me, absurd.
I feed DS on demand and he is always on me or my DH. We eat in front of the TV and I drape a muslin over DS so I don't drop hot food on him!

At about 4-6m a routine will develop and I'll try to get him in his cot around then, but for now I'm used to slings and a lot of company.
Good luck with your lo OP

From my understanding newborns are too young to understand routine. You pretty much are at their mercy follow their lead and then routine comes later.

The only 'routine' your newborn will be in is feed, sleep, poo / wee & repeat I'm afraid! Sleep (you and them) is in short stints which is why it's exhausting.

Every family does things differently but I believe we introduced a bedtime routine around 6 weeks and then a day time routine a couple of weeks later.

Try not to overthink things or worry about books, they have an agenda. Every baby is different for starters, I had night owls who cluster fed through the evening until around 11pm but would sleep until 4.30 ish, one feed then until 8am. They stayed with us usually being held until bed time

Yes, we kept our DD downstairs in a Moses basket. Small lamp on, tv audible but not too loud and took her upstairs when we went to bed around 10. You will be fine and will adapt to your own little routine.
Congratulations btw - enjoy every minute - before long they'll be a gobby teenager - Sorry, I digress and another thread! xx

If you want to read up on anything, make it about the fourth trimester. I’m due with my second a week before you, and am just going to be winging it as much as possible. Baby will be in the living room with us until I head to bed, most likely cluster feeding all evening, if my daughter is anything to go by. Don’t overthink it. The first 12 weeks is mostly about doing what you need to do to get through it with as much sleep as possible. Don’t put pressure on yourself to have baby in a routine from the word go, that just won’t happen.

I would say our little guy started to go down at 3 months by 10pm by 10 months his natural bedtime is 6:30-7:30pm now ... it takes time we had his bed downstairs until we wanted to go to bed.
At about 4 and half months he had to go upstairs as noise and light started to impact ability to sleep but before that could watch tv and chat when he did sleep if we were not passed out ourselves 😂

I started a rough bedtime routine around 3 months. But DS didn't usually go down till around 9 then, moved it lower as he got older, he's 1 now and goes to bed at 6.30!
Before 3 months he stayed with us downstairs. I turned the big light off and put the lamps on to differentiate from day till night. He still slept like shit till about 10 months though haha!

Ours slept in our arms or her carrycot in the evenings. They are happiest on you in the early days anyway. She usually wanted milk at about 10pm so we would all go to the bedroom then and she would go in a sidesleeper cot next to our bed.

Thanks, that's really useful I'll be taking the books with a pinch of salt from now on

My LO napped on me during the day until 6 months! So for the first few months he would just stay downstairs with is until we went to bed then put him in his moses. Then at around 4 months we found he would scream blue murder if we disturbed him after 8pm so we started putting him in his moses then. He gradually got earlier and earlier to 6.30pm over a few weeks.but at 11 months we aim for 7 otherwise hes up too early.

I wouldn't worry too much about what the books say. There was NO WAY my LO was being put down in his moses in the day (thankfully he would sleep in it at night!) and as such I couldn't put him down earlier than 10/1030. I remember spending an afternoon trying to fruitlessly getting him to nap in his moses one afternoon - he woke within minutes every single time! Then one day at 6 months I had to put him down so I could check something in the garage and he didn't wake... I showered, cleaned a bit then didn't know what to do with myself! I'm sharing this cos I realised sometimes you just need to be guided by your baby. I thought I'd never get a baby evening, thought hed be napping on me until he turned 18! But they just decide they're ready and looking back it really is such a short period. You'll be grand!!!

DS used to be a massive cranky pants from 5pm - about 10pm when he started to be sleepy, but was often still up till about midnight. We kept every where dark and quiet and followed his lead on when he wanted to sleep and eat. By about 4 months he was having a bedtime of around 7pm.

For the first few weeks there's no routine and it's just tough and crazy. After that they settle into a routine where the longest period of sleep without waking is when you first put them down. So most people keep them up until whatever time you go to bed yourselves to maximize the sleep you'll get before the first night wake. Both of mine were about 6 months before they were sleeping long enough that I moved their bedtimes forward to around 8pm and reclaimed evenings as adult time.

The books lie . We read one about getting the perfect 7-7 routine, as ds has been part owl since birth. It made him worse.. he apparently had to have x amount of milk prebath and x after.. which meant he was an absolute bear in the bath or would puke in his bath or immediately after, or refuse to drink before or after and then was up unsettled even more than before.. it went through reducing milk by the hour of the night, which meant he wasn’t full enough to sleep from x to y and I had a tiny banshee awake in half the time furious that I wanted to give him less than he’d have during the day.

He sleeps from 11.00 to 7 and then naps to 9.. he went up at 9 and I watched tv in bed n fell asleep quickly after 9 as broken sleep in the beginning made it worth it. We do make the room darkish, use white noise if he’s upset as it helps calm him but if he’s calm I don’t I don’t turn the tv off or down.. My friend actually gave me the tip of don’t be silent whenever they sleep simply as you can’t guarantee silence (neighbours doing diy/fireworks/animals/dp snoring/squeaky floor boards) she done the whole silence for naps and night in dark rooms.. would her dc nap or sleep in anything less, hell no. It took ages to break that habit.