12 week old - starting a bedtime routine

[Mayflower193]

Hi!

My 12 week old has started sleeping through from 11:30pm until 7am which is fantastic but I’m wondering how I introduce a bedtime routine so that he starts going up to bed at 7pm.

I know he won’t just be able to sleep from 7 til 7 straight away but can anyone give me an idea of a good routine that has worked for them? I’m presuming we will still need to feed him at 11pm as usual but at least he will have been in bed for a little while before that.
We just want to be able to have some time to ourselves in the evenings and also ensure LO is getting enough sleep and is starting to get used to going to bed earlier.

As someone else has said, a monitor does not override the protection of being in the room with an adult.

Baby is now 12 years old and flourishing. Definitely no harm done by meeting her needs when she was tiny rather than mine.

Why does it need 2 of you to do laundry and get things ready for the next day? I managed that whilst DD was awake without help. (I know, the award is practically life sized and I have to pay someone to polish it now.)

Same.

Its not at night OP, its every sleep - he has to be in the same room as you

It's guidance, not the law you know!

Mine went into their own beds within a couple of weeks, and back in the day with no monitor either. Always upstairs in their room, in their cot, by 7pm, fed and content. Dream wake at 10pm when we went to bed, another at 3ish. Very soon slept through 7pm/7am. All naps in own room or out in the garden.

Parental choice based on balance of advice.

Why are you twisting what I’ve said? I never said the monitor would override protection. He would be checked on often, the door would be open and I would have a video monitor on. You’re acting as if I have said I would just stick him in the room, shut the door and ignore him whilst I have a party downstairs. I very much love my baby and I do everything I can do make sure he thrives and flourishes and feels loved. All you have done is make me out to be a bad mum because I want some time to get things done in the evening whilst he gets some sleep, which he needs.

I’m not sure what your issue is here but since I’ve had my baby I have always tried to uplift other new mums as I know how hard it can be at the start but you clearly have other ideas with your condescending responses. If you had an issue with a bedtime routine you could have just made another suggestion instead of insinuating I just want to sit and watch tv rather than looking after my child.

I had a bedtime when I was the age my baby is now and I’m almost 30 and flourishing… maybe consider that not every rule that’s out there has to be followed to the letter.

I‘m baffled by how many people have babies and then expect them to fit in with some ideal that the baby is biologically unprepared for. Wouldnt be surprised if it’s a big part of the mental health crisis we’re now seeing

Ha ha ha. I am baffled how you think that the current generations of "baby led" parenting has not led to the increase in mental health issues in both parents and babies/children. You could argue both ways.

You're hitting the highest risk time period for SIDS (3 - 4 months). Having a monitor and checking on the baby is not the same as them being in the same room as you and regulating their own breathing because of your breathing. That's why the guidance is that they should be in the same room as you. Clearly it's just guidance and lots of people put their babies to bed earlier but the risk - albeit small in the first place - drops dramatically after 6 months so I never saw why it was a big deal to wait until you're through the riskiest period.

Do feel free to share your clinical observations/peer reviewed research.

OK - If you share yours 😉

DS is coming up 5 months and we started trying to implement bedtime around 12 weeks but with little success; he just wanted to be with us all of the time! Now he's a bit bigger we take him upstairs (nightlights only and white noise on, don't bath every night as he has eczema) change and in his sleeping bag and then rock him to sleep which takes 5 mins usually. He always wakes up after 30-40 mins so to save my sanity I do a feed then otherwise he won't settle back down. He usually sleeps solidly then until I go up to bed when I'll change him and do a dream feed. Just wanted to say don't beat yourself up if bedtime doesn't work straightaway! I was driving myself crazy with "what am I doing wrong?" But I think DS just wasn't ready when I first started trying.

Thank you 😊I don’t expect it will just fall into place perfectly to begin with and I know we’re probably going to hit the 4 month sleep regression soon so that could make things totally different. Thanks for commenting with some useful advice rather than judgement ❤

OP its a shame this hasn't been very supportive. I don't think at all that it is a sign of being a bad mother to want some alone/quiet time in the evening. Or to want to start a bedtime routine. However I think it is worth understanding what the risks and guidelines are and what they mean, and considering whether you can get the break you need while keeping with the guidelines. I know of someone - friend of friends - who lost a 4 month old to SIDS recently and the only thing they'd done that wasn't in the 'guidelines' was that the child was sleeping on their own in another room.

The guidelines are a bit unhelpful as they don't tell you WHY, and to be honest its because they don't know, but one idea is that being in the same room as others breathing somehow 'reminds' the baby to keep breathing, that they regulate their breath against yours. Also, if a baby has stopped breathing due to SIDS, my understanding is it is generally not possible to restart their breathing. So, if your monitor, or your visits picked up that they had stopped breathing, even if very recently, the likelihood is at that point it would be too late. In reality, the risk of SIDS is low, but the issue is to me that the things you're listing that might mitigate - baby monitor, checking on baby - while they obviously show you're a loving mother who has thought about it, don't actually offset that risk.

As someone else said, 4 months is peak SIDS. In your position, I would be tempted to start establishing a bedtime routine that ends with baby doing first sleep downstairs while you chill out/watch tv/etc etc. I know many people who say doing so helped their baby sleep through anything. if you don't want to wait till 6 months, maybe wait till 5 months. Its all ultimately your choice, and sleeping in the same room is only one mitigating factor - non-smoking parents, their own bed, etc etc are all other things you can be doing. But I think a lot of the time people think they're able to mitigate the risk in one way when it doesn't actually work.

at people trying to scare you with the 4 month sleep regression. It doesn't happen to every baby fgs. It happened with one of mine but not the others.
My youngest is 7 months and sleeps from 8 till half 6 every night and has done since they were a few weeks old. My other kids didn't sleep much and I always followed the advice of take them to bed when you go. But with my youngest I feed to sleep at 8, put her in her cot and then have a few hours of evening with my husband.... a completely normal thing to do and not selfish in the slightest.

We did start a bedtime routine at around 3 months as our baby stopped being willing to sleep with the TV on in the living room during the evening (even if sleeping on us) and we couldn’t just sit in a quiet dark room all evening with each of us scrolling on our phones until bed. At that point she was getting very overtired by the end of the day and really needed the quiet dark room to sleep. Initially I went to bed about an hour after her and then 2 hours. Also left her in the bedroom for an hour or so in the mornings if still asleep as I preferred to nab a shower and quick coffee and breakfast before she wakes and I saw no point waking her and moving her to the living room. I didn’t consider it a big SIDS risk but everyone needs to decide for themselves which risks to take (within reason).

We just kept bedtime routine simple, bath, bottle, cuddle with lullabies and then bed. Usually didn’t do a dream feed unless she was stirring when we went to bed.

and we didn’t have a 4 month sleep regression either although her daytime sleep became pretty crap around that time and she is still a catnapper at 7 months.

We’ve done playtime, bath, feed since dd was around 10 weeks. She then goes in her crib in our bedroom and one of us will stay in there whilst the other showers then we swap and will have an early night watching tv on low. She goes down sometime between 6 and 8 depending on when her last nap of the day was. She used to only wake twice in the night but is now up around four times since she hit 4 months. Sounds like you have a good sleeper so far OP, fingers crossed for you it stays that way x

Wow I wish my 11 wk old would sleep this well. He still wakes every hour to be held!! I started off so strict with routines and nothing worked so I guess babies are all so different!

I am always amazed at the way routines are sneered at on MN.
Is there some unspoken assumption that unless you are a complete martyr you are somehow a 'lesser' mother? Although this thread is refreshingly different.
The amount of times I have seen sanctimonious posts about having your baby with you all times because rules then go on to advocate co-sleeping, which is absolutely not recommended but somehow gets a free pass on MN.
If I may be as rude as @GCWorkNightmare up thread, I always think that those who slavishly follow rules as if it's the law without dissecting the sense, logic and/or practicalities of doing so must be a bit thick.
And yy to the poster upthread regarding mental health. We have no idea of the effects of this current baby-led trend will have in the future. I know it would drive me absolutely crazy not to have the evening to myself if I could. I frankly needed the break.
The quest to be the perfect mother (and never be separated from baby) must be extremely stressful.

We started a bedtime routine at 12 weeks and are still going strong with it at 18 months. It's worked well for us - bedtimes have never been an issue although what happens during the night has been up and down. We still do the same routine now, just slightly later with her in bed by 7.15 and we've dropped the massage.

We started bathtime at 6.15/30 followed by baby massage, dressed, story and then last feed before into basket around 7pm. We put her to bed upstairs at this time and enjoyed 1.5-2 hours downstairs on our own before having an early night. She would tend to wake around 11pm for a feed and then again around 3am, and would be up from 6.30/7am. Fully aware this was against safe sleep guidance but all other factors were low risk and it was a decision we were both comfortable with. The brief period in the evening with her settled upstairs was bliss.

If I may be as rude as @GCWorkNightmare up thread, I always think that those who slavishly follow rules as if it's the law without dissecting the sense, logic and/or practicalities of doing so must be a bit thick.

No idea why you would think that. I can’t see any suggestion that OP has done any research into why the SIDS guidance is as it is at all.

You can do a bath (I didnt), I put on some classical music, then read a story with a dim lamp, then BF and bed. I was quite surprised how well DC settled in his/our room. Prior to that we had him in the lounge with us while watching TV until we went to bed.

DS is 10 weeks and his bedtime is 7. We gradually started to move his bedtime back each night from 11 until we got to 7, he also showed signs of tiredness earlier.

We do bath at 6 followed by massage, bottle, book, swaddle, white noise & bed.

He sleeps 7-6 or 7-7 which started at 8 weeks. Before that, he'd have a bottle at 11 or 12.

Nothing wrong at all with a routine and having an evening to yourself.

Honestly, what is your problem? Are you really that sad and lonely that you have to come on MN to criticise other parents?

If you read my original post and all my replies, I asked for suggestions on a bedtime routine, not permission to implement one, so why are you still commenting? You’ve shared your views and put your point across (albeit in a rude way) and I’ve responded, you might have made more impact had you been a little kinder and not made assumptions. Not everyone on this thread agrees with a bedtime routine for babies but they haven’t been rude and unkind like you.

Everyone has their own way of doing things and I’m 99.9% certain that you haven’t followed every single piece of guidance to the letter when bringing up your child.
If you have nothing useful to say, stop commenting and go and get a life!

I find it best to know about the actual research when it comes to things like this. If you look at the key research that these guidelines are based on, baby sleeping in another room does increase the risk, but by a very very small amount. ‘Safe’ cosleeping actually increased the risk more in that study, and I agree with previous posters that people give cosleeping a free ride on here.

Apologies OP. I’ve reflected on why I have reacted so strongly to your post. I’ll explain, and appreciate that it’s an extreme situation, but it’s true (and should probably come with a trigger warning).

There were 6 families in our NCT group. 2 were determined from the off that baby was not going to make a difference to their social lives, work opportunities or anything else. Had plans for sleep overs with grandparents from the second or third week, date nights and all sorts. Didn’t judge. There were others in the group planning on home births and baby wearing etc. It was a diverse group.

Mine was the last baby to arrive. Oldest baby was 3 months old and the above 2 were 2 months old. DH went back to work after 3 weeks and this group became my tribe. Only the parents of the eldest baby had forgotten about what week 3 and 4 were like and the 2 month old babies’ parents were at home enforcing routines and cot naps and couldn’t often make our coffee dates. Fine. Their choice. The sole purpose of the routine was to protect their evenings and opportunities to socialise. It was very alien to me.

We would meet and have a joint play date a couple of times a year, and when they were turning 2 one of the mums was complaining that their toddler was getting out of their toddler bed multiple times a night and shouting down the stairs. The other mum said theirs was doing that as well, and putting a stair gate across the bedroom door hadn’t worked. So they had put a hook and eye lock on the outside of the bedroom door and would LOCK THEM IN at bedtime and not let them out till morning. The other mum thought this was a brilliant idea and implemented it immediately.

Playdates stopped soon after. My daughter has just gone to secondary school and one of the above children is in the same school. She is deeply unwell mentally. DD asked her if she wanted to do something one weekend and she said she spends every weekend with her grandparents so her dad can play golf and mum can “relax” so she wouldn’t be able to. DD says she doesn’t seem to have many friends but is trying to be there for her. It breaks my heart. I hadn’t linked it back to those early days until last night, but I guess that early determination around independent sleeping and “having an evening” makes me worried.

I’m aware the above is extreme and not suggesting it’s where you’re headed, but hopefully it explains my reaction a bit.

Not as young as 3 months but not as old as 6 months (shock, horror!) we have had both our babies in bedtime routines and upstairs so we can have the evening to do whatever.

Can't remember the exact ages, just whenever they outgrew their Moses baskets so I'm guessing about 4 months.

What exactly could happen to them in those 3 hours of the day a whole 2 months before they turned 6 months old is beyond me - some of the rude replies on this thread have been really eye opening!

My baby is literally with me all day long as we have no family support. She has an extremely secure attachment to me. Are some posters seriously thinking that a robust 5 month old would just randomly stop breathing if left with the baby monitor for an hour or that their attachment to me would be affected? Absolutely ridiculous.

My youngest is ten months now. Her routine is as follows:

5:30-5:45 upstairs for teeth brushing then top and tail or bath
Nappy, moisturiser, bedtime clothes and sleeping bag
Brush hair quickly
Say goodnight to big brother and daddy if he's home
Breastfeed to sleep / goodnight cuddles with mummy in dark room
Down in cot by 6:30.