Can a 7-week old even have a 'bedtime'?

[erikab922]

This whole concept of a 'bedtime' is totally confusing me. My 7-week old will sometimes fall asleep around 7pm and wakes around 10pm, but then she's up until 3am at the least. So this whole idea of a bedtime really confuses me. To me a bedtime is, I'm putting you to bed and you're going to sleep til the morning. Not possible with a baby, so how on earth do they have bedtimes? Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, I don't know.

My daughter is in the throes of trapped wind syndrome and no amount of winding, tummy rubbing, bicycling etc is helping. What's weird is she only seems to experience this in the evenings, why trapped wind should only be a problem at certain times of the day is also totally beyond me. Awaiting some Colic Calm and Baby's Bliss which are meant to be arriving tomorrow so god help us - I start working again tomorrow as well, wish me luck! (I work from home so can at least be here to soothe her)

Lots of people do, but I never understood it either! I always kept DS downstairs in the evenings on my lap, in his bouncy chair or lying next to me on the sofa. Once he started crawling then we had a half-hearted sort of bedtime, but TBH it only really came into it's own once he was older and we started going to groups in the mornings so he was tired at around the same time each night.

We used to take him up to bed when we went to bed and he slept right in next to me, it seemed to help him get the idea of "sleep time" because he'd watch me and close his eyes when mine were closed (I used to pretend to be asleep and then sneak a quick look!)

7 week olds in general have no concept of time or routine, though.

So the wind in the evening is pretty common. Don't fret about that. Infacol is great. About the 'bedtime', we started a bedtime routine at about 4 weeks. A basic quick massage, bath, fresh nappies, feed and a reading of Goodnight Moon. He was awake an hour later for another feed so it wasn't quite 'bedtime' but in four weeks time this had set his circadian rhythm and he kinda knew night from day so at night he would wake up to feed (and still does at 5 months) but doesn't wake up, iykwim. Just feeds and goes back to sleep. So I found the routine helped him to know it was night time. Also gave me some sanity. One of the most useful pieces of advice I had was from an older mother with two kids who said that 2nd children always fall into routines because you have a pre existing one with the first one. So I now try and do 3-4 things at roughly the same time everyday: wake up and fresh clothes for the day, a walk at roughly the same time, and then bed time. And yes, classes etc also helps but your baby is too young. Also I found it useful to have MY routine for myself: i.e. post bedtime I wolf down my dinner, after the morning wiped own and fresh clothes I have breakfast. Keeps me sane. HTH.

Thank you Bertie and Potol. LO has Colief with all her feeds (I am exclusively expressing, she gets breastmilk in a bottle, what a faff that is!) and a drop of Infacol with every feed as well and I dread to think what she'd be like without those. I didn't know that wind in the evening was common - it seems like whatever seems like common sense (like if you have wind you'd just have it any time of the day) just gets thrown out of the window with regards to a baby and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that.

I think that starting work again tomorrow will actually help things because when you're not working there's no great impetus to get things done at a certain time, but if I know I have to call someone at 3pm then I will want to make darn sure that LO is properly sorted before then.

I read somewhere that daytime stimulus can wreck a baby's nighttime sleep. I have a baby hammock downstairs where I work (and another upstairs in our bedroom but that doesn't get used very often yet!) and there will be times in the day when I need to be on the phone (and I usually have 6 Music on softly in the background). Will this be too much stimulus for her in the daytime?

Oh no, don't worry about things like that! Better IMO to get them used to a little bit of noise as it helps them sleep through normal everyday stuff. Remember she's been hearing your voice, your music etc all the time she's been imside you so continuing this will be comforting and familiar to her.

Exclusively expressing sounds like really hard work - I take my hat off to you! There is a great breast and bottle feeding board on mumsnet if you haven't already found it, the posters there are very knowledgable, if you ever wanted some support or e.g. to see of it's possible to get her back onto the breast directly.

DD has gone upstairs for a bedtime at 6pm ish since she was 2 weeks old

by 7 weeks she was almost always asleep by 7pm (though she woke for lots of night feeds until 6month old) She has remained upstairs in a dark ish room since having her pjs on every single night.

she is now 9m and sleeps 7 - 7

so IMO yes a 7week old can have a bedtime... my DD certainly did

no - too young

yes, mine did. again would wake for feeds. I know I was lucky that she slept well from birth. it is possible for some but not for others.

Yes, my 5 month old DD has had a bedtime routine. It's her routine i.e at about 1700 she wants to feed and go to sleep so why not put her to sleep upstairs. She dream feeds at 2200 and sleeps through till 0530 when she usually gets stuck in some weird position then sleeps again till 0730.

Some babies do have a natural routine which you can use to create a structure to the day. I've always said that it's DD's routine and if she decides that today is a day that she'll stay awake passed 1700 then that's okay provided she's not screaming because she's over tired She's only very little after all, I wouldn't force a baby into a routine that suits you and not her iyswim.

Yep, from when we brought him back from hospital. Daytime sleep was in the living room, noise, light etc, then bath, massage and evening feed at 7 and in our room, dark and cosy. Yes, he woke at 10 for a feed and lots after, but I believe getting him used to thd different environments helped him to sleep longer at nights and eventually through. Plus, it gave DH and me some evening time alone.

Of course, now he's teething it's all a bit tricky, but I swear thd bedtime routine helped. Some of my friends who didn't do that and kept the babies in the living room with them had a terrible time establishing a bedtime routine once they were older.

I'd say 7 weeks is a bit young for a set bedtime but for my own sanity I started doing bath, baby grow, feed in bedroom, then into cot from about 8 weeks or so. It was really to give me an end of the day routine otherwise the days just seemed endless! But do whatever suits you and your family best - there's no set way, and you will find your own rhythms at some point!

My DD2 (8 weeks adjusted) has a bedtime but it's 10pm when I go up to bed.

With DD1 I tried to get her into a 7pm bedtime earlier and just ended up spending half my evenings going up and down to her.

I also found with both my girls that they had a longer stretch of sleep at the start of the night so I would prefer eg that to be 10pm- 3am rather than 7pm - midnight. After that first long stretch both of my girls seem to need fed more frequently (3 hourly for DD2 but it was at least every two hours for DD1). I didn't feel a dream feed helped us as it tended to 'reset' DD1 to her frequent feed mode.

I used to really fret about this with my first, especially as some of my friends were Gina Ford-ing and therefore they were putting their babies to bed in the early evening, despite the fact that they may need to feed them several times during the night. I thought a bit more about it, and figured that the advice about preventing SIDS and sharing a room doesn't just apply from the time I go to bed, but applies in the early evening also. So I then stopped worrying and kept my baby with me til I went to bed. Also, my first cluster fed all evening so I didn't have much choice! DD2 is bottle feeding but still generally stays downstairs until I go to bed.

I do however agree with doing things that let baby learn about night and day and IME they can learn that at around the ages of your baby. There are some good tips above on ths.

I don't really have any advice I just wanted to say that I'm experiencing pretty much exactly the same problems with my almost 3 week old DS, including the wind etc. At the moment I take him up to bed whenever I go as I would rather he was in the same room as me most of the time. He is usually awake from 9.30/10pm til about 4 or 5 am so I feel the later he goes to 'bed' the shorter the night feels! I don't want to wish his life away but can't wait for him to be just that little bit older and more settled....