How do you put your baby to bed?

[WeepyNsleepy]

Do you habe a bed time routine? What is it? How long does it take? At what time does your baby go to bed?

I used to breastfeed ds (11 months) to sleep bit it doesn't work anymore. Also when it did he used to wake up about every 1.5h. Now I walk and oar him to sleep and bf when he wakes up on the night bit I really need to get him out if that habit. Hoping to steal some ideas...

3dc here, youngest is 15m and bf

Tbh I've found that they go through phases where they want to stay awake/don't fall asleep on the breast from about 10m but then it works again.

I've never found something that worked quickly all the time. Sometimes they fall asleep quickly, sometimes they don't and they'll have rough patches.

Ive found when they're little that it's easier to just go with the flow- they want rocking to sleep? Fine. They want to stay up till 9pm for a week? Ok. They want to bf for 2hrs? I'll get a book

The older 2 grew out of needing "help" to sleep between 18 and 24 months which seems to be when a lot of children start sleeping independently (in my circle of parent acquaintances).

It can be hard to accept when people say "try to enjoy it". In my experience it leaves everyone happier than trying to get the baby to do something it doesn't want to.

I got sick of bedtime being a 3 ring circus followed by hourly waking at about 10m. We already had a pretty excellent routine - bath book boob bed - so I just switched it up so that it was boob bath book bed and then we did CC. Took one night of an hour of crying at bedtime and an hour in the night, and then she slept 7-7.

We did almost exactly this (though it's always been 7-5.30 in our house, I've never silver the early mornings!)

We used to feed to sleep and he was a difficult baby to put down while asleep so it would take around 40 minutes to put him to bed. Since sleep training our bedtime routine is around 4-6 mins, we read his book and sing twinkle twinkle little star 3 times in a row and give goodnight kisses. We have blackout blinds and white noise playing all night. He has his last bottle an hour before bed.

I don't mind if it takes a bit longer as long as I have something that works most of the time and stops the frequent night wakings.

18 month old. Wash/bath, PJs, song, book, bed with audio track, Bf to sleep in her floor bed and roll away. When she wakes in the night, into our bed and feed back to sleep. Mostly just one wake up. Sometimes the ‘boobs are too tired’ which sometimes means she just cuddles and sometimes kicks up a huge fuss. We did night wean for a week but it made no difference and then she got sick.
Last month after some bad nights, I realised she needed to go to sleep much earlier (was 8/9ish sometimes) and now we start it much earlier (6.30) and she’s going down much easier.

She has had a few sleepovers at GP, they rock her or last week she fell asleep watching the wind blow the trees.

I have an 11 mo boy. 4 months ago we bf to sleep (or he wouldn't sleep!). 2 months ago we bf to drowsy but he fell asleep in bed. Now I put him in bed, give him a kiss, and leave the room. For all naps he'll go to sleep by himself, but bedtime is a different story - usually he needs me to sit with my hand on his tummy, though tonight he did actually self-settle. Sleep training really does work!

For nap routines we cuddle in the dark with white noise on for a couple of minutes. Then I pop him in bed. For bedtime he has supper, nappy, story, teeth, and cuddles. he takes half an hour to feed, so the whole thing takes about 45 min until he's IN bed; going to sleep in another matter!

Honestly if he's broken the feed to sleep thing himself that's half your battle. Does he lie in his bed calmly, even if you're in the room? If he does I would just sit with him until he's asleep. I always thought white noise was a waste of time, but it's SOOOO helpful.

For night wakeups, I found feeding an older baby stimulates and leads to more wakes. Do these things:

1. Leave baby in cot, but pat his tummy calmly or hold his hand with white noise on. Give him a good 5 min to calm down and evaluate then decide your next move

2. Baby still upset - pick him up and rock him to calm down. Again, give a good 5 min of this

3. Baby still upset - feed to sleep.

Make a pick up/feed the last thing you try. It won't work every time, but once he starts to settle without feeding it does start getting easier.

Good luck!

5.45ish Change in to pjs, bottle of formula and pop in to her cot with her blanket and dummy (which she sucks for a few mins and spits out). She’ll go until around 4-5am most nights, some times if she stirs I’ll pop the dummy back in. She’s 8 months, been doing this since about 3 ish months. Her bedtime is v early but it’s driven by her and she is so tired by this point that it would be mean to keep her up any longer. Even if she has a late nap she still needs to go to bed by 6pm latest.

9 months old.

Dinner
Potter about and play with toys
Bath and jammies
Bedtime stories
Breastfed to sleep in rocking chair
Dummy and white noise all night

Sleeps in his own room now and currently waking twice after handing night wakings to his dad who can settle him no bother. For me he cries til he gets the milk! Dad takes the first wake up and I take the second and breastfeed. Hoping to gradually tackle these last two wakings. Big improvement from 5 times a night though!

Oh and wind down starts after dinner, so about half 5/6 onwards. Bed at 8 o'clock.

15 month old. 630 into pjs then book, bottle. Into cot about 7 still awake but drowsy. Sleeps through to 730

9 month old.

bedtime routine takes 30 mins

bath
into pyjamas
breastfeed downstairs
upstairs into sleeping bag
read two short stories
say I Iove you
sing twinkle twinkle
into cot awake
stroke him a few days and say it’s time to go night night
leave the room

he is usually asleep in five minutes

Ours is 7.5 months, bedtime routine takes 30-45 mins, bath/wash, change, feed, story, into bed, usually falls asleep within a few mins.

I have 2, my eldest went through a phase of not bf to sleep at a similar age. We did a few weeks of rocking (or pushing in a pram when my arms gave in) then I got fed up and just kept him up a bit later and he started bfing to sleep again.
Hes 4 now and sleeps amazingly, a few stories, a kiss and then he says good night and drops off.

I also have an 18 month old, she still bfs to sleep in my arms and then sleeps on the sofa until I go up to bed.

I'm very much against sleep training and would have been unnecessary for my kids as they have become great sleepers without it.

I'm going crazy. He's up every half an hour and putting him back to bed takes longer than that. Could it be teething? I couldn't see any signs of teeth earlier. Hubby just walked with him for thirty mins and that didn't work at all.

No, he doesn't lie down calmly. He cries and screams and tries to get up, which is very difficult in his sleeping bag so I'm always scared he'll bump his head on the sides of the cot. I'd be very happy if he just lay there. I wouldn't mind waiting in the room till he's asleep either but we aren't even at that stage yet.

I don’t have a baby anymore but 3 of mine all self settled at bedtime from very young but unfortunately that didn’t make any difference to their frequent night wakings. At around 9/10 months they all went through a stage of being harder to settle. I kind of took the line “if you’re messing around and taking ages with me cuddling/rocking/whatever you I may as well just leave you to it”. Sometimes I had to go back in multiple times but mostly no more than three. They all slept through between 18 months and 2

Oh sorry I cross posted with your latest updates. I wouldn’t leave them if they were screaming and crying, only when they went down ok. Sometimes they had to cry for a minute or two while I dealt with another child but I couldn’t just leave them to cry. Some swear by it but it wasn’t for me.

I was lucky, they did scream sometimes but usually I could just keep repeating “it’s bedtime, time to go to sleep” and they’d settle

For those whose kids self settle at the end of your routine how did you get to that stage?

Mine never slept in their cot without some sort of help. Even as newborns and vsry young babies they would start screaming they moment they lay down in the cot (which is why I breastfeed.to.slsep in the first place)

My youngest dd was fed to sleep with multiple night wakings until she was 10.5/11 months old and was still in her room.

We changed the routine when she moved into her own room starting with naps. Just changed from story, bottle, bed to bottle, story bed. Then put in cot awake. Dummy in her mouth and 3 in the cot for her. shes asleep within minutes.
She had a few groans at first but it was like she needed her own space.
Shes 13.5 months now and sleeps from around 6.30/7 until 7ish, sometimes 8am.
We use white noise machine and a sleeping bag for her.

You get to the point you need to let them cry it out if they won’t self settle/soothe….go back every five minutes or so to reassure
, minimal interaction….it’s horrible but within a few days it works….no pain no gain. Otherwise you’ll end up shackled to an awful routine for years and won’t get your evenings back!

Just re-read that.

It should say at 10.5/11 months she was still in our room.

As far as how to get to the self settling stage , we just made sure the environment was right and all her physical needs were met and she just took to it. We couldnt have done cry it out after being traumatised from attempting it with ds1 so i feel lucky that dd just took to the new routine.

Maybe try a new routine op? Hope things improve and you all get some sleep

Bottle at bedtime! Works like magic

I’d agree with this. My little one is 10 months and sleeps 7pm-8am. He’s always been a great sleeper but has always sucked his thumb. He can struggle a bit more during the day for naps so I have to go back in then sometimes but I just walk in and without speaking pick him up so he’s chest to chest with me. I hum the to and fro song from baby sensory, without saying any words (not sure why, have just always done it and he seems to calm right down). At the end of the song I very slowly lie him back in, ewan the sheep back on and I walk out again. If I faffed for longer or spent longer rocking him etc I don’t doubt that he would want it every night. 9 times out of 10 one quick reassurance is enough and he’s off to sleep himself. I think you will just need to break through that barrier to be able to get to that stage though, there might be a bit of crying and being unsettled for a week or two until you’re both used to the new routine

For me it started at the point where they stopped feeding to sleep, so I’d feed, give them a cuddle, tell them it was time to go to sleep and put them in their cot. I’d have to keep repeating the process at first but we did get to the stage where they’d just lie down and go to sleep fairly quickly.

They did all have ‘props’ of some sort; dummies/lullabies/white noise etc.

None of this worked for one of my children and I also tried shush pat, PUPD and controlled crying with them and they just screamed until they were sick and soaked with sweat each time so I fully believe that there is no one approach fits all, I was just lucky that it did work for the other three!