ideas for bedtime routine for a young baby (12wks) and bringing bed time forward

[sedgiebaby]

I have losely followed the E.A.S.Y approach which has gont me in trouble when it comes to late at night as baby expects entertainment after a evening feeds. I've tried a bath but I need some more ideas to spin it out a bit and get her wound down for the night. Until now I've been doing a 10pm feed and wresting her to sleep about midnight, she then wakes at 3 and 6 ish for feeds and is clearly still not finished sleeping and is going down again until 08:30 or even later. I'd like to start everything earlier and have her up for the day after her 6am feed, but need some help please.

Would you please share ideas for a bedtime routine that is not overstimulating but tires a little one, and also how to bring her nights forward to earlier in the evening?

Last night as per NCSS I tried 'pretending' it was in the middle of the night after her last nap of the day, trying to get her to feed in the dim light of her bedroom, not engaging her too much but it took me about 1.5 hours of rocking and humming etc to get her to go down last night at 9:30. She was onto me I think!

Watching for advice

You might be overstimulating her with the bath - hence not wanting to sleep after the feed. My DS didn't really start going to bed at a reasonable hour until 3-4 months. In fact DS did exactly what you describe, taking 1-2 hours to get to sleep at 9/10pm.

We started to get DS up at 8ish every morning and put him to bed after a very short routine (change, book, bed - bath was not regular until 4/5 months) at around half 7. Then realised it was too late - we thought he was wanting to play but looking at his signs, we realised he was actually tired around 6pm but we were treating it as a nap. He would wake up after 45 mins, then take 2 hours or so to get back to sleep. So we pulled his bedtime forward, got him feeding by half 6 and he'd fall asleep.

I think it is normal for them to not start to settle early in the evening until 3-4 months. DD clicked about 16 weeks. Our evenings were frustrating up till then because she was too tired to do much, but unable to drop off, so I started doing what you are doing and moving her bedtime routine back, feeding her and putting her down and staying with her until she was off. Initially we just moved back to 9pm then 8:30 etc.

For about 3 weeks this meant I spend well over an hour each evening just lying next to her (bedside cot) holding her hands and kissing her head and shushing until I was confident she was soundly asleep and I could leave her. Of course I don't know if she would have started to settle earlier even if we hadn't done this.

It was stressful to begin with because I didn't know if/when it was going to work. But I realised after about a week that this was actually quite lovely and that I was not going to get to the end of my life and think 'Darn I wish I'd spent less time comforting my beautiful baby daughter and more time getting her into a routine so I could get on with the housework.'

The only thing about moving bedtimes is you never know when they are going to wake up again.

Dd2 very unusually went down at 8.30 last night. Didn't know what to do about going to bed, but I went to bed at 10.30 but just couldn't relax and was still awake at 12.30 when she woke up again.

I know it's just trial and error but I hate the unpredictability before they settle into a pattern.

I've read a couple of people saying their dc needs to go down earlier rather than later. It's difficult when you also have a toddler though.

both my dc have had the same bedtime routine since a couple of weeks old. Bath boob and bed starting around 5.30-6 ish. 5 month DD is usually down by 6.30 3 yr old DS now has bath, cup of milk and stories, down by 7-7.30. With DD we do a dream feed at 10 ish if she hasn't already woken by then. Feed in the dark and straight back down. Before the 4 month sleep regression / constant bouts of coughs and colds she would then sleep until anywhere between 4 am and 7am. If she woke a 4 she would feed and then go back down until 7-8ish. I've never had a problem of getting either of them down at bedtime as they have always known what to expect given the same routine from so early on. Getting them to sleep through the night however is a different story! We do the EASY routine during the day but the feed bath bed (BW routine) didn't make sense as at that time of the day the feed would make them sleepy then the bath would wake them up and so it would be hard to then go to bed. Feeding after the bath seems more sensible as that makes them sleepy and easy to put down.

We started bedtime routine for DS at about 10 weeks (he's now 13 weeks) and it's worked really well for us. We start around 5.30pm with a feed, then bath, massage, pjs, then feed again in darkened room. Swaddle, lights out then bed (rock/cuddle/shush to sleep). He is usually asleep by 7.30pmin and sleeps for 3 to 3.5 hrs before waking up for another feed. Back to bed around midnight then usually up between 3 and 4, and again between 6 and 7.

He has always been crap at falling asleep but he goes down pretty easily now, which is a real result for us. The routine creates strong sleep signals for him so it's easier to settle him. We NEVER thought it would work but it has - like a charm.

It's not the elements of the routine as such, IMO, and not about tiring him out (indeed, I spend my life trying not to let him get overtired). It's more the fact of doing the same thing in the same order every night. It's not that having a bath/massage makes him sleepy in itself - it doesn't, he's usually quite wriggly afterwards - it's more that he knows what's coming next and that it's time for him to go to sleep. It took a good 2 or 3 weeks for him to 'get it' but now he does, he consistently sleeps for that chunk of time pretty much every night.

It's a bit of a palaver but worth it to have our evenings back, and not to spend them wrestling with a screaming, exhausted babyb

Thank you for everybody's input. Last night I made her 19.30 feed her last one of the 'day' instead of the 23:30 one. I did a bath in her room, put some lavender in water in the room, put on her glitter ball and low light, put on some nature sounds. Gave her a bath with DH, then a massage after watching what to do on youtube. Then tried to read a book (didn't really work) then played a little with her white stuffed toys that I plan to have go to bed with her in due course. Then I sang lullaby's and gave her another short bf and she went off immediately this was 20:45. She stirred at 23:00 and 02:00 for feeds, she didn't even wake there was no awake time, she barely opened her eyes. Then she was up at 06:30 for the first feed of the day.

It felt like a result, this was only 1 hr 10 mins of up time from 20:45 to 06:30. Whilst I don't expect this to happen again tonight, it has been a very encouraging start. I'm going to persevere with it for the next 8 days (DH is on leave to back me up a bit more) and then review it.

Any other thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Today she cut a nap short (she has about 3 90 minute naps a day on the EASY thing) so this means I'm not sure what time her last feed will now be (brought the last one forward, I'm on 4 hourly feeds more or less with her)

Thanks for the help, any input is really appreciated.