Bedtime routine help!

[Mamatoabeauty]

I’m really struggling to create a relaxing bedtime routine for my 7 month old. We start off with a bath but the moment it’s time to get out and she’s wrapped in the towel she cry’s. I want to do something like bath, massage, feed, book. At the moment it’s bath, change as quickly as possible to minimise length of time she cry’s for then feed to sleep. Has anyone else had this? We’ve tried bedtime at 6,6.30.7, it happens every single day regardless of short/long day naps. I loosely follow huckleberry so don’t think it’s over-tiredness, she is teething at the moment but she’s always been the same. I used to think it was because she didn’t want to get out of the bath but she sometimes reaches out for me to get her out.

What do you think she wants? Because that's important here really, I've got a 3yo and we've never had what could be described as a relaxing bed time routine! It works for him though as we've never had many problems getting him off to sleep. He didn't like books till after 1 when they became a big part of the bedtime routine but before that it was roll/crawl round in nappy for ages to burn off the last bit of energy, bath, quick change, milk & sleep.

Bath book bed never worked for my ds, he just loved a bath too much so I used to bath him in the day as an 'activity'... Still do to be fair!
If the bath isn't working just cut the bath out. Babies don't need a bath every day anyway, what a hassle!
Try just stripping her off for a massage, new baby gro, maybe a relaxing nursery rhyme while you're changing, then fed and bed.
The whole bath book bed is based on a sleep signal for baby to know its bed time. You can create this with anything.
My ds used to know when the gro bag came out that it was bedtime

Babies don't like being changed. It's just the way it is!
We do bath earlier, at 5pm. It signals that the day is slowing down. Then dinner, books, is she wants one last play time, then feed to sleep at 7:30pm.
But always she cries when we get her out of the bath (now 14 months) and that's perfectly normal.

Thanks for all of your replies. It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one, everyone else around me seems to have a lovely relaxing routine with their babies. I might try moving the bath to the day to see if I get the same response! I would prefer to give her a bath every day because weaning is very messy and a wipe can only do so much! She has started to learn it’s bedtime when the gro bag comes out so she might not even be associating the bath with bedtime!

I have a 7mo and it's always been the same for us!!

My baby used to be exactly the same! She’s 10.5 months now and I’d say in the last 3-4 weeks she’s calmed down a lot after bath and is much more patient now.

We do bath, dress for bed then read or rather try to eat a book. My baby loves the bath but does always get upset when I get her out and lay her on a towel. At this point I pop a dummy in which calms her so I can dress her. Dummy is also used for sleep so it helps add to them bedtime vibes. If we didn’t use a dummy we would probably have a similar situation to you. My baby is 8 months old

Thankyou it’s very reassuring to hear! Just thought it might be the one part of the day that I could improve but seems it’s fairly common

Having one of those weeks where I feel like I’m doing everything wrong from start to finish.

Is putting a baby down in the cot and them falling asleep as you walk away a myth? my little girl naps on the move or feeds to sleep. Mainly catnaps with an occasional hour chucked in if on the move. Night time - for the majority wakes every 40 mins - 1.5 hours at night from bedtime. 2.5 -3 if I’m lucky.

Seems to get very easily bored, will not let me put her down for longer than a minute without crying.

Rejects pretty much all food!! Home made, ready made, purées, mashed, finger food!!

Just don’t seem to be winning at any aspect of this parenting malarkey! I’m bloody exhausted. I hear other parents recommend toys/tv programs that entertain/distract for 20 minutes, have two hour afternoon naps, sleep through the night - or with 1-2 wake ups, can self settle, can put away cup fulls of food and think wtf am I doing wrong!

Sorry this has turned into a vent 😂

Ignore what anyone else says (apart from mn of course) , comparing yourself to them will drive you mad!

Something I've always done is create a routine that is so consistent that I'll even say the exact same thing at the exact same time, sing the exact same songs, etc. I have nothing to compare this to so i can't say it makes a difference, but my boy hears a certain bedtime song and flops his uead on my shoulder because he knows whats coming

Head, even