Breastfeeding and bedtime

[aliphil]

I'd like to get 3mo DD into some kind of bedtime routine, but don't see how to combine it with bf-ing. I don't want to enforce a rigid routine as I don't think either of us would cope, but I would like her to have a bedtime. However, the times and lengths of her feeds seem to vary entirely randomly (though almost never less than 40 minutes); I've been writing down all the feed and sleep times for 10 days now and I can't see any pattern at all. So how can I plan anything for a particular time?

You can start your bedtime routine and then, bf on demand when your dd wakes up.

So, say you decide you want bedtime to be 7.30pm, work your routine backwards from that. Ours is:

6pm start wind down by watching cbeebies bedtime hour and playing with a couple of toys on mummy and daddy's bed
6.30pm bath
7.00 pm breastfeeding in nursery ( ours is now 7.5mths old)
7.15pm story with daddy
7.30 sleep

Of course, at 3 months old with on demand bf, they'll need another feed a couple of hours later and on through the night but a nice bedtime routine sets them up well.

We used to sleep with our ds in a sidecar crib until he was 6.5mths old but around 3 month we started putting him to sleep in his nursery and I would then carry him into our room when we went to bed - he never woke on the transfer, but it did make the transition to his own room easier.

Sometimes if he's hungry, ill give a quick feed during the wind down - if you like the 7pm bedtime feed is an extra feed that you offer, so you don't have to worry about trying to see routine in all that demand bf - you start to create the routine.

I agree with mumofthemoos start backwards from when your dd goes to bed.

We started to see a slight pattern around 11 weeks whereby she'd go to sleep at 7.30 and sleep for a good 4-5 hours. So we started a bath at 6.30, dressed, stories and then bf to sleep on our bed, transferred into side cot.

Around 7-8 months I slowly changed the bf to straight after bath (whilst she was naked, lovely skin to skin time) and so she could get dressed and have stories with DP without being breastfed to sleep. Just got her used to someone else putting her to bed. Sometimes she did want an extra bf and I'd go back in- just was flexible to what she wanted but at the same time, roughly stuck to the pattern of bath, milk, dressed, stories and bed.

You sound flexible so start a sequence of "bedtime" things that suit your family and go from there.

I recommend Max and Milly time for Bed book, and Peepo. It's so bizzare when they are young but start to understand what your reading and remember words etc because you've read the same book for several nights!

I go to netball twice a week and went back when dd was around 14 weeks. She knew I wasn't always around and began to trust DP more (obv as a bf mum you're there all the time) Sometimes she'd take a bottle of expressed milk or just going to sleep and wake up later for milk( or being a stubborn mule and not go to sleep, instead waiting up with DP until I returned!)

Good luck

I like the idea of bf before getting dressed; lovely! We've just changed the story and feed round to ensure that DS does not feed to sleep as I too am out two nights a week at college, so DH has to do the bedtime routine alone.

I went back to college in the evenings around 6 months; despite having tongue tie and being bottle fed for his first 4 weeks, he now won't drink milk from a bottle or sippy cup. I leave him at the CM at 1pm and he just waits until I'm back at 9 or 10pm when I dream feed him. However, he is eating food at the CM so his tummy is getting full that way!

Thanks MumOfTheMoos and FadBook. How does it work if one day she happens to be asleep when the bedtime routine is meant to start?

I don't think I'm flexible so much as clueless and so just letting things happen. I keep hearing how routine is good for babies (and feeling a bit jealous of friends who've got their evenings back already), so now I'm torn between wanting some idea what's going to happen when and not wanting to be tied to doing things at set times.

As I've posted elsewhere, I started working two evenings a week from when DS was 8 weeks old and he was ebf.... Therefore I had to try and get him into a routine early on for bedtime. I knew that I had to go out at 7, therefore I aimed for that and started a bath/feed/bed routine from around 5 weeks. It took weeks to establish, some nights I'd spend the whole evening feeding and shhing, trying to settle him, some nights he'd drop off at 6pm and sleep till 11! I really thought that before I had DS I would be really laid back, and actually I like knowing that he has a nap after breakfast, and lunch at midday, and a bath at 5.30, it makes it easier to plan my day. However I know lots of people prefer to be more flexible.

Just tried it. Bath-story-feed was fine; the trouble is that even if she feeds to sleep, she won't stay that way once put down, except at night. I thought if I tried to make it like a night feed - on our bed, dim light, little to no interaction - it might help, but she wasn't going to be kidded. We've just brought her down again, after an hour of trying to get her down in which she slept for five minutes twice, as otherwise we were never going to get to eat. The really irritating thing is that I know she can do it, as a couple of times before we've tried putting her down in the early evening and she's slept for a few hours. Awkward little so-and-so - she's now happily sleeping on me, with the lights on and music playing!

mumofmoos we have similar children! DD at 15 months still won't take milk out of a cup, bottle or other (my milk, cows, or soya). She likes 'bubba' (booby) too much!!

aliphil really try not to worry too much about what other people are doing in their routines. Babies don't always like routines. You just have clever people (Super nanny, Gina F) who have made a lot of money out of tired mothers and fathers selling the idea that 'get them in a routine and all will be better'... It's crap! Some babies relish a routine and some babies don't- it isnt a 'one size fits all'. So only put your dd in a routine if you want to, not for any other reason. Or find something that works for you and go with that instead.

At 3 months, she may fit in to a rough pattern or routine soon enough but don't worry if she doesn't immediately.

I think you did the right thing by bringing her back downstairs tonight

Also dont worry about feeding to sleep either at this age- I did this and people said dd would never "learn". She did eventually, she just wanted her mum to be with her when she fell asleep. Absolutely nothing wrong with that! Sometimes even now, she'll go to sleep whilst feeding, other times she pushes me away and clearly wants her own space and bed. I'm ok with that as it works for our family; this might not work for you and that's ok too.

This is a good attachment parenting website with loads of info on sleep during the first few months/years .

As you can tell, I'm not a 'gina ford' type person, I'm more about attachment parenting (something I hadn't come across until dd was about 6 months old but was doing most of the things that go hand in hand with AP like breastfeeding, using a sling, not leaving to cry it out, co sleeping). Read up on it, it might help

Thanks FadBook! She has slept 3.5 hours so far and me and then on DH, so that's something.

I'm not a Gina Ford type but I'm not sure I'm entirely attachment parenting either (put off by the co-sleeping thing which is not for me), and so much that you read seems to say you have to be entirely in one camp. I will read your link when I'm a bit less brain dead - thanks.

I was slightly reassured today by talking to a couple of other friends from the ante-natal class, not the two who've managed routines; several of the others haven't either and have also been feeling inadequate, so we'll have to support each other! On reflection the two "routiners" may be helped in that by ff-ing.

I don't think it really matters at 3m if you put them to bed and then they're up an hour later (apart from te effect it has on your evening); but you can still do te bedtime routi e and slowly over time they'll fall in to it. In any care it's around 3m that tey start giving you your evenings back!

We've only just started a routi e for the rest of the day at around 6.5m, before that I just fell in with his time table.

Thanks. I've decided to keep doing the bath-story-feed at 6, then if she'll go down, great, and if she won't, so be it! At least it's getting her used to the concept of an evening routine. Today she wouldn't, but then she slept 45 minutes at most during the day - none of my usual techniques worked - and spent most of the evening screaming. Now she's finally asleep I'm not sure I dare to move ...