rough bedtime routine - does that equal no social life?

[greeneone12]

Hi

So I know that having a child completely changes your life and social life takes a back seat but we would still like to visit friends/family etc.

Dd is 9 weeks and we are starting bath/music/feed/bed between 8-9pm. To give this a chance to work well do we need to do it for a few weeks every night to get it nailed? We don't go out that much but I have read that little ones thrive when they have a set pattern so are visits out at night on hold?

Any experience would be really welcome.

Sarah

Hi, didn't want to read and run! We have always followed a bedtime reoutine with our dd who is now 23months. As a result we are quite restricted as she is not used to being flexible at bedtime and for example has never been put in pjs to fall asleep in the car on the way home. However, she sleeps through and rarely gets over tired or grumpy. I know this lack of flexibility wouldn't suit everyone so I really do think you have to do what suits you and your family. However, enjoy a few more weeks of having a baby that sleeps anywhere. I seem to remember it got easier to have a routine at about 12 weeks. Good luck and congrats on your dd! X

No - it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's good to have a routine at home as most babies settle better - I guess they like to know what's coming next :) However, it only needs to be a basic 'dinner/play/bath/cuddle/sleep' it doesn't have to be timed to the nearest minute. It doesn't stop you going out, not at all, if you go out they soon learn 'this is different' to normal and it's fun! Babies/children that will sleep anywhere are so much easier. Go out, do what you want and if you are relaxed about it, your baby will be too.

TBH I found that around 9 weeks, DS stopped sleeping reliably in the car seat so it got harder to just take him with us anyway. When he was a NB he'd happily sleep solidly between his 6.30 and 10pm feeds in the seat so we could take him with us, but then that stopped- I think he became less able to block out background noise.

My only suggestion would be to bring the whole bedtime routine forward to, say, 7pm, so if you want to go out, you can get a babysitter without them having to actually put the baby to bed and you can go out for a few hours safe in the knowledge that the baby probably wont even know you've gone out.

With DS I found once established a good bed time routine enabled us to visit friends etc more easily as he would drop off anywhere. It also meant I never had a problem finding a babysitter as he was no trouble to look after . DD is only 8 weeks and her routine is pretty good at home but I didn't want to try at our friends last night so I kept her downstairs with us.

She was an overtired mess when we got home at 10pm and didn't settle ubtil 11pm. But that did mean she slept through until morning instead of needing a feed at 4.30 ish!

Agree that it would be worht bringing your routine forward to 6pm-7pm.

Like Giddyup says it actually frees you up, as we found our dd started settling off to sleep like a dream at 7pm once we established her bedtime routine, and we could then go out for the evening (except we don't go out, because we're too knackered! But we still have our evenings to ourselves).

Hello, I started giving a bedtime routine to my ds at around 12 weeks, as previously mentioned 8-9pm is quite late my ds goes at 7pm so from 6 onwards is bath pj's and cool down ready for the land of nod.

It isnt very flexible but u could always put your dd to bed and have people round to you instead of you visiting them, that way its best of both worlds, dd is in structured routine and u still get to have a social life, good luck :)

Well she isn't having any of it at the moment so I might leave it a few weeks and try again! Trust me to get a little one who doesn't want to sleep!