Bed at bedtime for 11wk old - should I give up?

[mistressploppy]

For 2 weeks or so we've been doing bath and bed at 7pm, and with a few re-settles he's gone to sleep, but the last week has been awful! It's taking 1.5 - 2hrs to settle him, lots of crying etc.

Should I persevere with bedtime and keep trying to resettle him in the bedroom? Or give up and have him gnawing my boob all evening on the sofa so at least I can watch tv and eat dinner?

How long does it take them to 'learn' what bedtime is?! We have a decent routine, quiet time, dark room etc etc (prob not QUITE as peaceful as it could be due to 2.6yo brother though...)

We have tried - feeding to sleep, not feeding to sleep, cuddling til v drowsy, rocking, shhing, sh/pat, swaddle. He fights it until he's exhausted and then conks out eventually

Help gratefully received!

My DD started going to bed around 7.30pm at about 13 - 14 weeks. It gradually moved earlier without us having to do anything, from a previous bedtime of about 10 to 11pm. I stressed out about it and spent every evening upstairs with her in a dark bedroom - it was a complete waste of time. I wish I had just kept her downstairs with us.

But did she sleep at all, downstairs in the evening? I have the incredible non-napping baby.

Argh, don't know what to do!

What time does your DS get up?

I too had battles at bedtime but it was only when I re-set my DD's body clock by getting her up at 8am at the very latest that a 7.30/8pm bedtime started to work.

Humph. He's usually up at 6am

I would just do whatever works to be honest - 11 weeks is still very early days. Maybe give up for 2 weeks and then try again? Or maybe try putting him to bed an hour earlier as sounds like he is overtired?

at that age my DD was still cluster feeding in the evenings which was so tough but I was rewarded with a 4hr stretch of sleep and then at about 4.5wks she started sleeping for 8hr stretches but these wouldn't start till 1 or 2am after she'd clusterfed for 5-6hrs. Once she was doing that for a couple of weeks I started taking her up earlier at about 10pm but it took a few weeks till she went down before midnight even. Cluster feeding is tough and I did hate it until she stopped doing it for 2 nights and got me up 3 hourly instead. Then I wanted to cluster feed again and thankfully it returned.

This happened to us. DD was up until 6w/o a baby who wanted to be up at night and we couldn't get her to sleep before middnight. We introduced a bedtime routine at 6w/o, first night it took about 5 hours (she was not impressed), second night it took about 4 hours and it gradually took less each night and after about a week she was much better and it would take her about 30 mins to settle. However around 12 weeks old she just suddenly wasn't having any of it. I realised that it was the 3 month growth spurt, perhaps this is the case with your LO, growth spurts can happen sooner/later. After the growth spurt had passed it took a week or two for her to settle back into her good routine. She knows what bedtime bath time means now and loves bedtime...I've actually just posted about how I am struggling to put her down...I suspect it's the 6 month growth spurt.

Sitting upstairs on your own trying to get a baby to sleep who won't sleep is soul destroying, you don't get anywhere and you just want to scream. Munromagic says she wished that she hadn't done it because for her it was a waste of time. I'm glad I stuck with it because I've had months of sleep because of it. However like babies, all mummies are different and you have to do what is best for you. You have to do what keeps you sane. For me it was persevering because I knew in the end that for us it would pay off and it did....now onto the next challenge lol.