Bedtime routines for babies - what works for you?

[Cydonia]

Hi, DS is 12 weeks, for the last couple of weeks I've been trying to introduce a bedtime routine without much success! Prior to this I'd been keeping him downstairs with me until he seemed sleepy enough to go to bed, usually around 11pm, and then we'd both go up. He'd normally end up being put in his cot sleeping, I realise this isn't a good idea so wanted to try a routine and get him to settle himself to sleep more often. Also I would like him to get used to going to bed a bit earlier so I have some time to myself/ with DP before we go to bed.

I'm struggling with this as he's so inconsistent. He has suffered with colic and still gets quite fussy in the afternoons/evenings. My main problem is that he's just not sleepy at bedtime! And even if he seems drowsy he wakes up when put in his cot and starts wriggling about until he's wide awake again. It usually takes about an hour for him to actually go to sleep. Currently I start the 'routine' about 9pm, he has a bath, then a massage if
not too cranky. Then I take him to our room. Depending on when his last feed was and on how awake he is I might feed him, then read him a story or just have a little quiet chat before putting him in cot. Obviously it's not a very strict routine! But he's still only young and can be a different baby from one day to the next so I have to adapt it to him a little.

Basically I just need some tips for success! Getting fed up of people telling me their babies sleep through already etc etc! I'm not aiming for that yet as he's EBF, but would be nice to be able to get him back to sleep after a night feed in under an hour! Would also be noce if he slept longer than 3 hours at a time too, but thats another story. And I don't want to cause future problems by him relying on me feeding or rocking him in my arms to get him to sleep. I also don't want to leave him to cry, he does enough of that as it is!

Sorry for the long post, as you can see I'm totally clueless and beginning to feel a bit of a rubbish mother. Would just like to know what works for others who don't have a textbook baby like all the women I know in RL have ( or they are lying!! )

Sorry, should just add I do the darkened, quiet rooms before bed, he has a Ewan dream sheep in his cot and I also play white noise while he's drifting off and after he's asleep. I also interact with him less during and after his night feeds and don't change him in the night unless he's had an explosion. If left in his cot awake sometimes he will wriggle and squirm then fall asleep ( rare ) and sometimes wriggle, squirm and start crying. A dummy sometimes helps but he usually spits it out and sucks his fists instead.

Ah no advice as having my own sleep hell with ds 10wks. I also have purchased ewan the bloody sheep.
Ds has been awake most of day and I can hear him stirring now. Roll on the teenage years...

Don't know if this will be much help but here goes...

Started bedtime routine with DS who is now 15 weeks when he was about 8 or 9 weeks. First we started putting him down awake for naps and just gently rocking the Moses basket, then just putting him down awake with dummy. When we'd mastered this I started putting his Moses basket in his cot and when he was 11 weeks old I started putting him down for all of his sleeps in his cot which helped massively as he used to thrash about a lot in the Moses basket.

At 8 or 9 weeks he was feeding every 3 hours day & night so typically: 7, 10, 1, 4, 7. I would use his early evening nap and feed around 6-8 ish as the basis of his bedtime routine. So gave him half his bottle, then bath, changed, rest of bottle, then in cot with 'scout' bedtime music dog.

I noticed that after a week or so he would start to sleep longer after this feed, 4 hours instead of 3. Since then he has gradually stretched it out to 5 or 6 hours so a typical night now is down at 7, 1.30 feed then 6am feed, then back to sleep till 8ish.
I think part of the key is to pick 3 or 4 things to include in the routine then be consistent & give it time.

Good luck

I've got an 11 week old and we started the bedtime routine from 2 weeks old. We bath him at 7 (or as close as we can as don't have a regular routine in the day) and then he has 5 mins or so of quiet playtime and then I feed him in our darkened bedroom. He used to always fall asleep at the breast and would sometimes wake when I would wind him, but now he's awake 90% of the time when I put him down.

We give him a dummy and say goodnight and then leave him. The dummy sometimes falls out before he's asleep so we have to keep checking and put it back in. (he also sucks his fist if it falls out but he can't seem to sleep when doing this so we put the dummy back in). He usually is asleep by 8pm and goes through now until 3-4am and then until 7ish. The length he sleeps has been gradually increasing from waking for a feed at 11.30, 2, 5 and then 7 until he dropped the 11.30 feed and the 2am one went to 1am and then has got later and later.

I think because we started the routine early it's got quicker and quicker for him to fall asleep on his own. At the start I might have to sit with him and shhhhh him or stroke down his nose and a few times he just couldn't settle so I picked him up to comfort him and he fell asleep in my arms, and I definitely rely on the breast feeding to get him sleepy (which I was worried about at first but now I don't worry about that as it seems to be working).

So, I'm no expert but my advise is:

1. Could you try starting your routine earlier?
2. Keep doing the routine as it does get easier.
3. If our baby is too tired he can't fall asleep on his own so sometimes hell have a nap at 6ish and wake and we start the routine straight away. Perhaps your baby is too tired?
4. I EBF but I do try to increase the feeds from late afternoon to try to fill him up! (he has gone from 8 to 6am just the once!) ( I've ignored people telling me to top up with formula!)

Good luck with it!
All babies are different so don't beat yourself up and I would say trust your instincts. You know your baby best and I hope you find something that works for you. X

Thanks for the tips. I think maybe being a bit more structured with his daytime naps might help, as I just tend to put him down when he's already asleep. He's just so unpredictable and tends to have a good day then a bad day. Last night he actually went down easily at 10pm and slept til ten to 4, then 4.15 til 7.15. But he'd been feeding every hour since lunchtime and been upset and screaming from 7pm! Whereas today he's been much quieter and slept a lot. It's hard to start the routine earlier as he's either very upset like last night, happily wide awake, or like now he's asleep too early!
Oh well, will try being a bit more consistent and structured and keep at it. I'm not great at routine myself, about time I changed maybe?!

Oh, and Pidgy I think he is overtired sometimes. He tends to nap more in the mornings so sometimes by bedtime he's been awake for over 4 hours and very cranky. I've started writing down when he has a nap ( added to the feeding records I'm doing!!) so I'll look through them and see if there's any patterns.

I'd definitely recommend trying to sort out the daytime naps, it made a big difference for DD. She was a terrible napper during the day but we work hard to make sure she has enough naps so that she isn't overtired. At 12w she was probably having two hour long naps (which always had to be 'forced', either in the pram or lying on one of us), one half hour nap, and then at least fifteen minutes before bedtime. So, if we wanted her to sleep by 8 then she would need to have a power nap around 6ish to get through bedtime. Every baby is different but 4 hours awake sounds far too long for a 3mo, even 6mo DD barely goes 4 hours awake!

For bedtime we would do bath, sometimes with half a feed beforehand if it has been a while since her last feed, ten minutes cuddle and quiet time, then her last feed in her room with dim lights, no talking etc. We were lucky that she would then generally self settle, otherwise we would hold her until she was almost asleep and then put her down.

If you feel like her DS needs a little more structure to the day, I found the EASY routine really good. Its not time specific so you can make it up for each day depending on what time you wake up. You also might find that your baby wants to eat before sleeping rather than straight after so you're doing ESYA, say, but for us just having an idea of what 'should' happen several times a day helped teach DD some structure, and for a few months now she has happily gone to bed at 7.30-8. I think at 3mo I was getting her to nap every 2 hours.