how did you establish a sleep time routine?

[Chacha23]

Really curious as to how people do this with their little ones.

I hear a lot of people with small babies saying they have established a routine and put them in bed at 7pm like clockwork (or 8pm or 9pm, specific time is irrelevant), but I don't honestly see how it can be achieved?

DD (3 months) can stay awake for 2 hours max, so the time she goes to bed depends on when/how long her last nap was. And it's not like I can control that?.. Say she goes for her last nap at 5pm, she can sleep for 20min, or for 2 hours, depending on the day! Do people just wake their babies up to make sure they are "on schedule"? Seems strange to me

I followed awake time length and bedtime.was between 6.30 and 7.30.

It helps if you wake them up at the same time every day. I could never wake ds up though as that would have been cruel to me and forced me to get up at the same time every day.

I posted a v similar question earlier today as I have the same issue!!

On the rare occasion DS is still asleep by 5:30pm I start to turn lights on and be a bit more noisy. If still asleep by 5:45pm I wake him, but only because he doesn't generally cry when I do this, otherwise I'd probably leave him and do bedtime later. I tend not to attempt to get him to sleep (it's a hard slog for naps) past 5pm.

I should add that I do bring bedtime forward a little if he hasn't had a nap by 5pm.

With dd1 I started taking her upstairs at 6.30 and putting her in bed at 7pm from about 5/6 months once her reflux had calmed down. I did the same with ds1 and dd2. They're all good sleepers but didn't sleep through until between 12/18 months.

Ds2 (1 yo) falls asleep wherever he is between 7/9 pm and we take him up with us if he doesn't fall asleep in bed. We tried following the same routine as with the others but they kept going in to our room to see him so its easier that way.

IME 3 months is a bit young for a certain bedtime but you can start following the same routine eg bath, feed, bed and try to start it at the same time every day.

It's also good to keep them downstairs during daytime naps and not be too quiet while they're asleep though not loud on purpose. Then at bedtime go upstairs and have the room dim and quiet. It helps them to learn the difference between night and day.

If you follow a similar routine every day at bed time, i.e. bath, feed, bed, you will eventually have your sleep routine. I used to start that routine around 5.30 -6.30pm. Some days it was too early, some too late and DD was over tired, but you learn in the end.

I was obsesssive religious about routine from 6-8 weeks old (we never stayed anywhere else and never were out past her bed time), and by around 7-8 months I'd say we had it cracked. So 3 months is still very young dont worry. Its almost impossible to follow an exact time as it depends what has happened in the day with naps initially, so have a rough time you start the bed time routine based on awake time from last nap. I would wake my DD or make significant enough noise near her to rouse her if she napped really late - is that mean? ;) We seemed to have cracked the night waking by 4-5 months but were stuck with a couple of months of starting the day at 5am, that gradually got later and later, and its around 7.30-8am today with a 7pm ish bedtime. I'm much more relaxed now (she's 19 months) if we skip a bath, its fine, if we get in late and she's in bed an hour later its fine, she knows its bed time.

I have friends who were very lax with routine, and saw the baby must fit into their social lives, for some its worked just fine and for others they still have self soothing issues, persistent night time waking etc.

As they get older you can try little things to instill night is different from day. Keep lights off at night for wakings, dont talk too much, feed only if required, sooth over cot (shhh/pat). all that helped us set our DD up for Night/Day. Good luck :)

I used to start really early, like as soon as the last nap finished (4.30, 5 whatever) I would feed her, then bath her, put her sleepsuit on then carry her around in a sling as she was grizzly in the evenings and the sling calmed her. When she was really tired (usually about 6 at the latest) I would feed again and put her in bed about 6.15/6.30. As she got a bit older, I would start this routine at 5.30 but she was still asleep by 6.30. She is 14 month now and it is only recently that we start bedtime routine at 6, and she is in bed just before 7.

We didn't start at 3 months We gradually introduced elements of the routine at 4 months but it took until 6 months to put all pieces together.

It didn't improve her sleep but there were health issues. Once we got meds sorted it meant we were the habit of the routine and she now (16 months) sleeps well unless teething or ill.

I wish I could remember how we started it with dd but I think we somehow achieved a 8pm bedtime from about 8 weeks. We did put her to bed upstairs at that point though which I know isn't recommended from a SIDS pov.
DS is only 2 weeks so obviously still has no routine at all.

I was wondering how to get my 17wk old DS into some sort of bedtime routine too. He naps a lot in the day and so far I've just been going with the flow. He'll nap from 8am-9am, 9.30-10.30, 12ish - 2.30, then 4.30-6. He is pretty easy to read regards tired signs, but bedtime is all over the place sometimes he'll sleep from 8.30ish and wake for a bottle at 10.30, sometimes he'll sleep from 7.30 and want fed at 9.30. I was just going with the flow until he drops the late feed. It would be impossible for us to put a bedtime routine in place at the moment, although it is driving me nuts as I am completely a routine type of person, unpredictability makes me nervous

DD at around the same age (now 21months) dropped her late feed without us doing too much and we then put a bedtime routine in place. So I'm hoping DS will follow suit! Sorry I can't be more helpful OP, just letting you know you're not the only one, if you come up with a solution be sure to share it!

OP, I know what you mean about them napping etc, but we just introduced 'bedtime' and stuck with it until we got there.

We started at about 8/9 weeks I think although it was probably another month or so til it really worked. I just started sticking to a set time for a bath, massage, into pyjamas and taking DS upstairs to bed where I fed him. He naturally fell into a bed time of 8 pm but over he months as he napped less during the day, this came forward to around 6.30.

I truly think that this set routine has made DS an easy baby to put to bed. He is now really consistent and always goes down at bed time (tho he didn't sleep through til 9 mo).

I think just doing the same things in the same order is enough at 3 months. Change the time you start depending on last nap. I've only just started a proper consistent 7pm bedtime with dd at 5 months. It's fine to go with the flow a bit when they're so young.