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.

We started a bedtime routine at 5 weeks as suggested by my wise MIL.

Much milk (cluster feeding), bath, milk, cuddles, milk, cot, stories, light off, leave. For a few weeks she'd cry and we'd take her back downstairs.

And then at about 7-8 weeks she started sleeping through 8pm-6am. She was EBF.

It's not for everyone but my babies like routine. We had a rough daily routine and bedtime routine too. They slept through from an early age so it worked well for us.

The sleeping in the same room thing is because if they can't hear you breathe, they might dream they're in the womb again and forget to breathe. A baby monitor won't pick that up.

My DC used to just snooze on me in the evenings until I was ready for bed.

A monitor doesn’t help with SIDS. Dead babies don’t make a noise. The safe guidelines are that an adult needs to be in the room.

With such a good sleeper already, I would be reluctant to change anything.

If you cant put your babies safety first for the first 6 months then maybe having a baby was the wrong decision! Just because some people used monitors and thier babies are ok it dosent mean its safe!! Its called survivors bias!!

My 8 week old has had a routine pretty much from birth. She just naturally started to get grumpy at 7pm every night so I take her up and breastfeed her to sleep in bed with the tv on low. She’s usually asleep by 8. I then either watch a bit more tv or go to sleep as well. My partner loves that he gets to watch his crap downstairs every night 😂

And it won’t be forever! Ill stay with her in an evening until she’s 6months and then I’ll start taking her up half an hour earlier and then coming downstairs again when she’s asleep.

I’m so confused by the number of posters ignoring safe sleep advice. All sleeps should be in the same room as you until six months to protect against sids, a monitor will not do this. It’s the act of you breathing that helps the baby to regulate their breathing as sometimes they forget to breathe.
Of course they are just guidelines but the consequences are very serious.

@Onceuponatime56 do you honestly think my baby at 5 and a half months was at risk of suddenly not breathing when she literally spent 22 out of 24 hours right by my side? (She's never once been away from me as I have no help so it literally was 22 out of 24 hours constantly, no exaggeration).

I love this as I also like going to sleep early.

My 8-week-old’s routine from birth has been to cluster feed relentlessly from 5pm til midnight, dozing off at each feed but within seconds of sleepily coming off the boob his beady eye opens and he’s rooting away again. So we do that all evening until I get tired, then I take him upstairs and carry on with the endless boob til finally it takes.

Gradually he’s shown signs of crankiness with the TV and light so going upstairs has gradually got earlier and now pass-out time hovers around 9.30, so his bedtime routine is into his sleeping bag at 7pm so I’m ready for when he finally passes out. He’s never been near his Moses basket because he’s always feeding, and never had a story because he’s always feeding or asleep. Barely bathed him for the same reasons. I tried and tried for a routine with my first baby, the sleep demon, and got nowhere reading her stories and doing baby massage at three weeks. This one sleeps well and I can’t implement a routine either because of it!

I find the insinuation that having an evening to ourselves before 6 months immediately equals bad parent very hurtful and ignorant. I haven't touched a single drop of alcohol since 3 months before trying to conceive my first baby - that's how much I care about getting stuff right! I've breastfed, done 99% of stuff by the book, agonised over everything, spent the early weeks of my babies lives too scared to fall asleep in case they died which nearly sent me insane. I could go on.

So what if slightly before 6 months my baby spent an incredibly small amount of time asleep upstairs in her cot. A pinch of common sense is needed with these guidelines. If you want to talk about me in the same tone you'd talk about someone who smokes in pregnancy then that's just ridiculous.

@bakewellbride the research would say she is at risk. It is a very small risk with some babies at higher risk than others but it is a risk nonetheless. For the sake of waiting a couple of weeks I am not sure why you would take the risk. However, most people have never seen the devastating impact of sids on the occasions it does happen and think it won’t happen to them

Obviously it's a small risk but yes the experts and data show that yes some babies in that situation have died, hence the guidelines.

My DS is 16 weeks. We also have a toddler, but this is the routine:
7pm: Story
7:15pm: Lullaby
7:20pm: Toddler sleeps, Baby nappy change and sleep bag on
7:30pm: Bottle
7:45pm: Baby to bed

I check on the baby frequently, but he does go up to bed without me for a couple hours. I am a much better parent for it. Props to those who manage to follow all guidelines and not break; I can't function that way.

i think baby needs to stay with you for first six months before trying to get any sort of bed time routine. Around 6/7 months you will notice that your baby starts to fall into more of a stay awake for a couple of hours, nap for an hour or two routine. At that point look up a sleep schedule and try to follow it. You do get regressions due to teething etc but yeah; I wouldn’t do anything other than let your baby lead you for the first six months then after that, bedtime routine and sleep training all the way.

@MooseBreath - identical to my 16 wk old DS and I’ve done the same with all 4 of mine

My babies all had bedtime routine from about 8 weeks…all in a cot in their own room . I had a monitor and checked regularly,never slept in our bed and are very healthy adults! OP just do what is best for you.Xx

This baby led 'routine' would drive me honestly insane. It is completely counterintuitive to allow a tiny baby to effectively dictate what happens when. What happens if you have other children? Not a fashionable opinion, but I gave up on having those years ago

Of all the current guidelines, this sleeping in the same room seems to be the one that MNetters are most evangelical about.
Yet the risk is much much less than being involved in a car accident, yet no-one advocates the dangers of travelling by car.
As I said upthread, co-sleeping us very much liked on MN, yet goes against the guidelines, which is bizarre. Can someone explain to me why something that carries a very low risk of increased chance of SIDS (leaving baby to sleep alone) = very bad but something that carries a much higher risk (Co - sleeping) = very good?

Confirmation bias. If that's the way they do it, then is must be right/the best, look at me, aren't I a wonderful, concerned, loving parent. Everyone else tends to just keep quiet and carry on.