Stuck in the wrong routine

[helgaw99]

Hi all,
I need a bit if advice about my 13 week old DS. Our bedtime routine at the moment is 7pm- feed, story, change clothes etc, into his bouncing chair where he will be quickly bounced to sleep usually by about 7.30. He will then sleep in living room in his chair until we go to bed. Then when we go bed, he wakes up, has a feed and change nappy and he goes in his Moses basket, swaddled. Sometimes he is awake when he goes in his basket, sometimes not. Normally he will then sleep through until about 5am.
This week though he has started waking at 3 and it's a shock to the system! So I have decided that now is as good a time as any to try and achieve an upstairs bedtime. Though I have no clue how to do this. How do we move from the bouncer to his basket without introducing a different sleep problem like feeding or rocking to sleep? Even when he is deeply asleep he seems to know when we leave the room and will wake immediately- any idea how to tackle that?
I am also worried about switching him from swaddling to a gro bag and from his basket into the bigger crib- seems to be a lot of things to change that could send him bonkers sleep wise.
Or maybe I should just chill out and let him carry on sleeping in the living room in his bouncer until he wants to stop it?
Any advice gratefully received!
Thanks
H

It might be a bit of a shock to him to suddenly change from bouncer downstairs to crib upstairs. Maybe try to settle him in moses basket downstairs at 730pm at first? Once he gets used to settling without the bouncing then try settling him in his basket in the crib. Then just in the crib.

(I might just be talking garbage, i don't have experience of this as have been evil mummy with crib sleeping since day 1, but seems to make sense to do it gradually)

Re swaddling- i moved to a half-swaddle (under arms) first before moving to grobag.

Btw SIDS advice is to nap in same room as you until 6 months old, I chose not to follow it but wanted to make sure you knew so you have the choice.

We were doing pretty much the same as you (car seat not bouncy chair) until DD was 6wo. However when we took her upstairs when we went to bed she wouldn't settle. It was at this time that I had an email from Johnsons about their baby bedtime challenge, so we tried it and it worked. Bath, change, milk, bed every night, first night it took 5 hours, second it took 4 hours and so on and by a week we could put her down and she would settle in about 10 minutes. There was a huge amount of rocking, cuddling, singing, stroking and patience to get to the sleep stage but it paid off in dividends. I also found two songs on youtube, rockabye baby sung by some kind of earthly woman with a great voice and relaxation music for babies which has a waterfall in the background and music playing over the top. These both really helped DD to settle and saved my voice - by the end of the week I'd lost my voice!!!

You say you don't want another sleep problem like feeding to sleep, I felt exactly the same as you until I spoke to my mum, she said "is it a problem, I thought all babies did that", reading through these forums I think a lot do. I taught myself not to think of things as problems but more the next step because as some point they stop it and something else comes along. I don't mean that in a patronising way, it's just what I've discovered along the way.

You could carry on as you are and there are many people who don't set a routine for their babies. I really feel that you have to do what works for you, whatever makes your life that bit easier. However I would imagine the longer you leave it (sleeping downstairs) the harder it will become to change the routine, because you do have a routine in place.

Can't help on the swaddling front we stopped at 1 month as HV told us to stop at 1mo as it stunts their growth, lots of info online supports this BUT plenty of people swaddle beyond this age and I've never seen them report anything to support this statement. Grobags are the bees knees!

Ceeveebee is right about sleeping in the same room, it helps regulate their breathing by listening to yours. I kept DD downstairs for naps during the day until she was 4mo (mainly because she wouldn't nap in her crib) and she moved into her own room at 5mo because she was so long she had outgrown her crib in our room. We did buy a sensorpad monitor though which meant it would tell us if she stopped breathing - I still don't know if they're good or bad because whilst they're very beneficial they turn you into a nervous wreck for the first few months if they go off!!