Baby Sleep Routine

[Rose1999]

How did you get your 3 month old into a bedtime routine? My daughter is having none of it and just cries and cries when I put her to bed without me next to her. I do everything calmly beforehand - change of nappy, clothes and then breastfeeding. But every night she’s going to sleep late 🙁

Don't worry - that is so little for a routine. Especially with breastfeeding. At that age my husband would take the baby in the sling so I could sleep for a bit then we'd try and get him into the cot later in the evening. More of a defined bedtime routine came maybe around 4 months but even then I was not able to put him straight down into his cot. I would feed him to sleep and then hold him or lay him down next to me in bed. It is really tough.

Too early for a routine. Just go with her needs.

I didn’t. That’s still so very young, they do their own thing. What time are you trying bedtime? Are you keeping her in the same room as you for her naps and nighttime sleep?

Both of mine found their own rhythm around 7 months and stayed downstairs with us till we turned in.

She's 12 weeks old. Only just born. She's not read any manual. Just go with what works

It isn't always too early. We were well into a routine by 3 months but it obviously depends on what you and baby prefer.

I followed wake windows and found that sleep begets sleep as well as making sure baby wasn't overtired because that makes them more difficult to settle. I always aimed for baby to be awake at 7am and asleep by 7pm.

Worked really well for us.

Mine were in routine early on & were sleeping through around 6 weeks onwards.

Gina Ford was what we used. I liked it as it gave me a structure for my day & they didn't cry much as you they get fed before they're crying for food & don't get overtired.

Lots of people will say it's too early, routines don't work. I'm sure some babies are harder & won't play ball. But I found this totally worked.

We loosely did the Gina Ford routine too. I didn’t do it strictly, they napped in the pram and DS2 had a dummy neither of which are Gina approved but we followed the feed and sleep times.

At that age well slightly younger we worked out what routine she was in and worked to that. It all went to hell at 10 weeks when reflux and allergies went into over drive. Things calmed downs at about 8 months and we started looking at routine again starting with the routine she was in and then tweaking it

We have a routine and LO is sleeping well (she’s 13 weeks).

The evening part of the routine is bath, feed, story, sleep. Still contact naps with us because she’s so little but she falls asleep with minimal rocking. We started this about 4 weeks ago and it’s taken about 3 weeks for her to ‘get it’ and nod off easily, so I’d say persevere.

Then at 11pm we bring her down with us to bed. She gets put in her sleeping bag, fed and in her cot with white noise. We’ve done this since about week 2 and it’s worked really really well.

She sleeps 8pm - 11pm, 11pm - 4am, 4am - 9am (roughly).

We did have a week where she didn’t wake at 4am and that was amazing, but she’s started waking again and as she’s so little I’m being led by her and she’s fed on demand.