Too pushy ?

[BB12]

My baby was 7 weeks early, now 8 weeks on...
I've started a bedtime routine,
Bath, bottle, bed... after the bottle he is super sleepy, as soon as I put him down he starts crying for at least 5 mins. I have been leaving him to cry and after that time he normally goes to sleep.
I do have to keep him awake after his 3pm bottle to get him to sleep at 7pm.

Am I being a pushy mum to get him into this routine so early on or am I doing the right thing ?

Just feeling a little guilty 😭!

Thanks in advance xx

A lot of people will criticize because your approach is something they won’t do or try. The truth is having a sleep routine when the baby is a newborn does help them as they get older. That doesn’t mean leaving them to try - but babies do need repetition to feel secure so doing the same thing every time they nap or sleep really helps. Even things like putting them in the same place to sleep for naps / nights helps! So keep going

Not unreasonable to have some kind of routine in place, particularly if your baby responds to it well and it helps your mental health.

Unreasonable to keep a 2 month old (well, one week really, corrected) up from 3-7pm if they want and need to nap. My son often didn't nap particularly well but I always gave him the chance and encouraged it where possible, and he was born full term.

Definitely unreasonable to leave a baby to cry in my opinion. At that age (fourth trimester) they need to feel and know their mum is around in case they are needed. It's still very early days and leaving them in another room to 'cry it out' that early really doesn't have any other effect other than to cause the baby to feel when crying, it's ineffective - they cry because they need you, not for attention seeking.

That said, you do you. I had a routine in place around 2/3 months with my DS as he was very comfortable with routine and it worked wonders for my PND. But I fed and napped him on demand, and would never have let him cry himself to sleep at 8 weeks old

The baby isn’t really 8 weeks old- he was born at 33 weeks and would have spent time in the NICU. And there is a lot of research on how the environment of the NICU- the loud noises, the beeping, the handling, all the procedures cause enormous stress to an underdeveloped brain. This is why it is even more important for the brain to be protected (this baby is effectively one week old in medical and developmental terms) and for the baby to not be subject to extra stress. Also remember these babies are deprived of a degree of warmth and touch post birth so they need to be handled carefully with minimal stimulation and a lot of closeness to help rebuild some of those neural pathways.

Now my 26 weeker has an older sibling so yes there were moments when he was left to cry while I did something else. But it wouldn’t be a deliberate choice I did for ‘routine.’ And I say that as someone who did have a semblance of routine with both kids including my preemie.

I never let my baby cry it out and now at 5 months he himself was ready for a routine. Bath, story-time, bottle and in bed sleeping by 7.30pm. Prior to this up until 3 months old he got cuddles whenever he needed - be it at 4am or 9pm.

The real issue is keeping your baby awake - until DS was around 10 weeks it was a struggle for me to wake him for feeds! He slept a good 16-18 hours a day and couldn't stay awake longer than an hour.

I guess its each mother with their own rules - good luck :)