Need a routine for 5mo DD

[poppygolucky]

DD will be 5mo this week which coincides with us moving house. Keeping her in our room for forseeable.

I really want to take this chance to introduce a routine. We had tried this previously but she was waking up at least 2/3 times so I ended up spending my evenings upstairs feeding her. She does feed to sleep: if I try putting her down awake, she screams bloody murder.

So, my question is how would I go about introducing a routine? Should I go for a day routine or just evening? At the moment she naps in sling/buggy through the day.

TIA

bump

I would start with an evening routine. Something like quiet time, bath, feed and bed. You Might have to persevere to start with but DD will get used to it. You could try various techniques to her to sleep by herself which you can read up about and choose which suits you

Thanks never. As I type, she is downstairs asleep with us and i've resisted taking her upstairs for fear of her waking. She refuses to settle for anyone but me (i.e. boob!) so can't leave her in the evenings. Really need ways of settling her back to sleep if she wakes up without feeding. She also is waking up 2/3 times in the night after sleeping straight through at 9 weeks.

With my DD1 I had to go through a short period of sleep training to get her to self settle. She needed to learn to fall asleep without the good old boob. You could try laying her down whilst drowsy but not asleep and then leave her for one minute, go back and shush her or rub her tummy. Then leave 2 minutes andrepeat, then three minutes etc. She will cry initially but will get used to this new method of going to sleep. I found it hard as it is against your instinct to let them cry but it worked for me. I know it doesn't work for everyone

I hate to say it, but 2-3 night wakings isn't actually that bad for a 5 month old...

My DD2 is five months and wakes at least 3 times, sometimes more. She's not that unusual.

I'd agree with starting on a bed time routine as the first step. Personally I would be very against CC at such a young age. I'd try something like No Cry Sleep Solution.

Thanks never and second

I couldn't leave her to cry as in get upset, but do need to perhaps leave her to whinge or shout a bit before automatically picking her up and feeding her, which is what I do now tbh.

The waking through the night started almost exactly at 4 months, and it hasn't really improved since, so putting it down to sleep regression, teething etc. It's not a huge problem just a shock after getting 10 hours straight at 3 months and being fooled in to thinking I had a dream baby! Going to start BLW around Xmas, although my female relatives seem convinced if I gave her baby rice now she'd sleep through, but that's a whole other thread...

Thanks for advice.

DD1 was like this- her four month sleep regression lasted and got steadily worse until around 11 months. I've read it's something to do with them developing more adult sleep cycles.

If it's not a problem, I'd go with what works. If you want to change things, I'd start with trying a bedtime routine and getting her to sleep in the evenings. It's much easier to resettle a baby a million times at 9pm when you'd expect to be up anyway than at 2am.

Good luck.

ps. You're right, baby rice will make sod all difference. If it does, it's a coincidence.

I just would like my evenings back and if she wakes through the night, then I can deal with that separately. I also think it would be good for us all long term if she starts to learn when it's time for bed!

Plan to get cracking next week and sky+ all the tv i'll miss whilst getting this established! :)