Should an 11 week old have a routine for bedtime?

[BettyFriedan]

My 11 week old DD is lovely and a great sleeper at night (don't hate me). However because I am a neurotic first time mum she has been sleeping in the moses basket in the sitting room and we take her up to our bedroom when we go to bed. I am worrying that soon she is going to outgrow it and it might then be difficult to get her to go to sleep in a cot.
Added to that all my NCT friends appear to have a good routine going at night now: bath, story etc and we have been a bit haphazard ( she tends to be really grumpy before going to sleep and tends to fall asleep in our arms). Am I storing up huge problems for the future? I never wanted to do Gina Ford but now worry I have gone too far the other way....What should I do?

dd got herself into a routine at 6weeks so we put her in her cot when she fell asleep at 6pm. Ds, is 6months and doesnt sleep at all, and we have tried every routine going. If your dd is in her own routine, then i think you should try putting her down in her cot.

You don't have to have a 'routine'- just do a gentle wind-down in the same manner each evening- it doesnt need to be at the same time either, just be prompted by her.
I'm assuming she's demand fed, so after feeding, maybe go to the bathroom together, wash her hands, or bathe her, or just have a little quiet massage time (not long, but long enough for the wee to work through her system, so 20 minutes) change her nappy, her sleepsuit if necessary, then bedroom, soft lighting, a 'story' or song, and snuggles, and then into bed for sleep, or sit with you snuggled until she drops off.
Its just the repetition that helps.
If she's a grumpy sleeper, she may find it helpful to have cues that signal to her 'Oh, its sleepy time now'- in fact you can say that to her.
eg- getting sleepsuit on... "here's your sleepsuit, lets make you confy for sleep time" ... having a song before bed- "here's your lullaby, ready for bedtime" etc etc

DS is 13 weeks, but I have done the repetition thing from him being 4 weeks or so... I found my older child really needed all the sleep cues as she found it so hard to transition from waking to sleeping... still finds it hard, but she knows when bedtime is, as routine starts, and it helps her.

And do not necessarily believe anything your nct group tell you about their dc's bedtime routines/ sleep patterns. For many reasons, fear, embarrassment, wishful thinking, lots of people stretch the truth about this.

Sounds like you are doing just fine. I seriously wouldn't worry too much. All those 'rod for your own back' scare stories don't hold much weight with me I also wouldn't necessarily believe everything other new parents tell you about their routine...

Doing what works and what you feel comfortable with is always the best option. It's great that you have a good sleeper - embrace it! And it's also perfectly natural to feel a bit funny about leaving your baby to sleep alone in a room. It's pretty normal to feel like this, especially with your first. Don't worry about worrying, iyswim!

Basically, there are always going to be those tricky little transitional phases like moving your baby from moses to cot, from your room to own room etc, but approach them when you feel ready for them / think they're needed, not because others pressurise you or tell you it's what you 'should' be doing.

Good luck

We did the same thing as you with keeping DD in the moses basket in the living room, etc. Our DD is now 16 weeks and we realised she was too big for the moses basket a couple of weeks ago when she started sleeping holding onto the handles! So we transferred her into a cot in her own room (it won't fit in our room) and she was fine. I think 11 weeks is too young to worry about a strict routine, but it sounds as though you have a sort of routine/pattern anyway if your DD is sleeping well at night.

We still don't do bath, book, bed, etc as she has eczema and too many baths makes it worse, but just feed at roughly the same time in the evening and then have a bit of quiet cuddle time - sometimes she falls asleep on us and we transfer her to her cot and sometimes she'll go in her cot awake and get herself to sleep.

We did a similar thing with DS (now 2.8 years) and as he got older gradually started to introduce a bit more of a routine with bath, stories, etc and he is a really good sleeper.

hi - dd is now 20 (oh my gosh) weeks. she wasn't a good sleeper at all, but we realised she fell asleep easily after a bath (in spite of the fact the first one she screamed through), so we tried to instsitute a bedtime routine - the only routine she had at about 5 weeks. so she has gentle playtime wiht daddy, a bath at roughly the same time each night, then into quiet dark room, feed, and then swaddle and hold her until she falls asleep, then pop in the cot.

she moved out of the basket 2 weeks ago (was pretty big for it, but still swaddled) and doesn't really need holding to fall asleep now - she can do it on her own in the cot.

our biggest achievement was putting her to bed upstairs while we were still downstairs for the evening. we had her in the moses basket downstairs to begin with, but ended up tiptoeing around her. putting her upstairs was terifying at first (spent all night watching hte baby monitor instead of enjoying ourselves), but it now means we have an evening to ourselves and for me this is really important.

whatever works for you, really. i have found my own anxiety the biggest barrier to all the changes we've made to any routine she has. she might grumble more the first few nights after a change, but that has been it.

hope that helps

This is a really interesting thread for me as I have ds 2.11 years old and ds who is 7 weeks old. Have just been talking to HV today about how to get ds2 into some kind of bedtime routine similar to ds1 so that dh and me can have a bit of time to ourselves..

Do your dbs fall asleep at the same time? Mine (11 weeks) doesn't! Sometimes he's out for the count at 6pm, sometimes not till 9 or 10. I'm struggling with trying to develop a wind-down routine because I have a 4yo too, who needs feeding and putting to bed, and dh works very late most evenings.

It depends what you mean by routine. DS has always had the same routine but I'm not sure it is a routine really.

As a baby I always gave him a feed, put him in his PJs and then in his moses basket with a sleep CD on (rainforest sounds, wave sounds, womb sounds etc)

When he started getting teeth this changed to

have a feed, put him in his PJs, read a story, brush his teeth and then to bed. Sometimes he has his sleep CD on and sometimes he has a story CD.

It sounds like she does have a routine, no?

If she falls asleep in your arms and can be easily transferred to the moses basket, the first thing to try would be trying to put her into a cot when she falls asleep, no?

I wouldn't worry about things possibly being difficult in the future. Things will come up and you'll deal with them, that's how it goes. Just enjoy it if things are easy at the moment

Do people really read stories to 11 week old babies? How weird. I mean, I guess if they enjoy it, fair enough. But what is the point of it?

DD is 13 weeks and we started a routine about 3 weeks ago (I think) because I wanted my evenings back to be honest. Is just bath, bottle/boob and bed. I did it because it gave some structure to my evenings rather than to hers, meant we can have dinner together with her in bed and I think it helped my dad when he looked after her 'cos he had a structure too. It took a while to settle in but works fine now. I actually think at this age it's more about getting yourself into a routine than the baby! If you're happy with your routine thingy I wouldn't bother changing it.

Sounds like we have dinner in bed with DD! We don't.

My dc's dont' fall alseep at the same but that's what I would like. Ds2 is all over the place at the moment but would like to try some sort of bed time so that we can have an evening again. Viennesewhirl, I'm in the same boat as you at the moment

Am not a strict routine sort, but dd got herself in some sort of routine at 5 weeks old. Id always bf in the bath after tea, and that would calm her so id put her in her night clothes, and then down in her cot, she grew big for the moses basket early on, and didnt seem comfy in there. Shes not a cuddler and used to struggle to get back down, so i didnt have to cuddle her to sleep. We just kind of fell in to a bedtime bath routine, as she was always out for the count after 7ish anyway so there was not much point keeping her downstairs with us. Just follow your babies lead.

thank you everyone that all has been very helpful (and has stopped me feeling so inadequate next to NCT chums!)