Please help me with bedtime routine for ds

[Moulesfrites]

my ds is almost 12 weeks old. He is ebf and has always cluster fed, so we have generally kept him downstairs with us in the evening, as otherwise the cluster feeding would have meant me running up and downstairs all night. However, for a good few weeks now is has been going to sleep at about 8 and he goes for anything from 5 to 7 hours after that, which is great, I usually only feed him once or twice during the night.

However, seeing as he has fallen asleep at this time (usually fed to sleep, which is another thing!) we decided to put him down in his cot and establish more of a routine. He does seem to get v fractious at about 6, but loves his bath, so we generally calm him down and bath him. But the bath does not generally seem to signal that it is time to go to sleep as he is cooing and laughing away afterwards, so any attempt to put him down after that seems futile, as he is not tired until later in the evening. We have had a few nights where we have tried to het him to self settle in his cot, but he has just got himself into a state, although he does seem to settle better if I just go to bed at the same time, which is no real hardship for me but I feel like I am missing out on time with dh. Dh reckons that he can sense I am in the room and he does seem to be comforted by the background noise of me potterIng, getting ready for bed etc.

So, sorry for the garbled post but could anyone help me with the following?

How important is it that he self settle in his cot? Are we making " a rod for our own backs by allowing him to fall asleep down stairs with us at this stage?

Should I move bath time later so it coincides with his sleepy time, or stick to doing it at 6?

I am not prepared to leave him to cry btw.

Sorry for huge post and thank you for getting this far!

I live in a flat so it is a bit different, but used to keep my son in his moses basket in our lounge until we went to bed at night. We did this until he was to big for it and we moved him into his cot. We would then carefully carry the basket through to our bedroom, so as not to wake him.
I think it was when he was 6 months that I really started a bedtime routine with him and it seems to work. At 6.30pm I bath him using the Johnson bedtime bath wash and the once he is dry I rub some of the bedtime lotion on him. I then do him a bottle and take him into the bedroom (our room currently, until I move him into his own room hopefully in the next couple of weeks) and sit near his cot and give him his bottle, whilst playing a soothing lullaby cd. He then more or less goes straight to sleep after I have winded him. I should probably say that he is now 9 1/2 months.
I hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks csimms. Do you think that he is too young for a proper routine yet. I think the problem is that he doesn't necessarily seem to be tired at the sometime every night.... So one night he will settle at 7 fine and the next he is still wide awake at 8 and there seems to be no point in trying to force him to sleep. His daytime naps are not routine either, he just falls asleep in the car seat or push chair whenever.

It seems like you are already setting out a routine with him, as you say, most nights he is ready for bed at 8pm. My suggestion would be that you give him a bath at 7.30pm everynight, followed by his feed and then settle him into bed. This worked with my son, did not take long for him to get into this routine. I hope this advice helps. Good luck. And don't worry if some nights he won't go to sleep at 8pm. My son is sometimes wide awake after his bath and feed, I usually give it half and hour and then try to get him to sleep.

Hi Moulesfrites, Hows the bedtime routine going?