How do your evenings look with a 0-6 month old?

[JDLXNDR]

So, my daughter is 4 months old and our evenings currently look like this:

Around 6.30-7pm I give her a bath (not every night) put on her pijamas and read a few books downstairs. Then, my husband and I usually eat dinner around 8pm. She “sits” with us in her bouncy chair, usually chewing on something and watching until we finish and clear up.

By this time it’s between 8.30 and 9. And then I’m like: “What now?” I take her to bed with me usually around 10pm, as she’s still in her next 2 me in our room. I put on her sleep sack and breast feed with the white noise machine on until she falls asleep, which is our routine but until then I never know what to do. What time is this for her? I don’t want her to sit in front of the TV with us, because she ends up looking at it which isn’t what we want. Oftentimes I just end up going upstairs at 9.30 because I can see she’s a bit tired.

I don’t mind really, I cherish this time with her and I have years to watch TV with my husband, but I wondered what everyone else does in terms of nighttime and routines with a small baby?

Bottle fed and upstairs from 7pm with the monitor here too. Youngest one had an Owlet breathing one but they didn’t exist with the eldest. Then they had a dreamfeed when we went up to bed and would just about sleep through, DD did, DS occasionally needed a 3am dummy replace.

Same. DS had horrendous witching hours or over tiredness in his first few months. Would scream the house down. Wouldn't sleep over night, wouldn't settle himself for naps - anytime day or night.

At 3.5 months we called in a sleep specialist to help us and we had his routine all wrong! Despite having a bedtime routine from 8 weeks, we had his day naps and feeding in a muddle.

Either way we found we were on tenterhooks scared he would get over tired, so stuck to the routine like life depended on it. In his own cot, bedtime at 7pm from 3.5 months. Bedtime at 7pm in our room from 2 months. No routine before that.

DS1 was put to bed at about 10 weeks with a monitor. DS2 was regularly left alone and actually put himself to sleep when I was doing DS1 bath. So I left him there. We didn’t even really use a monitor second time around. FWIW my youngest is now 11 months.

All of mine were in their own rooms from 3/4 months.