When do babies start having a bedtime?

[splendide]

I have a 4 week old DS and at the moment he just feeds on demand and sleeps when he wants to (falls asleep at the breast). I'm confused about how/ when to implement a bedtime routine. Presumably there's no point until he stops cluster feeding all evening? Also it's obviously more bearable to be feeding for ages if I'm on the sofa with DH rather than upstairs which just prolongs the horrible night time.

Finally, is the advice on them always sleeping in the same room for 6 months routinely followed? I seem to see a lot of posts where younger babies go to bed at 6.30 or whatever - so presumably they're on their own for a while till you go to bed?

Would be really grateful for the benefit of your experience on this!

DD's sleep time came forward fairly naturally from about 2 months - before that, we went through a terrible time, she wasn't sleeping until about 2am at one point! but it did sort itself out fairly organically. I remember starting a 'bedtime' routine well before she had a bedtime - probably more for my sanity, to demarcate the 'end' of the day - and doing my best to differentiate day and night for her. Ie lots of daylight and fresh air, and lights and voices low in the evening / night, even if she was awake and clearly going to stay that way

Can't help on the own room business, she was in with us, yes, but it was such a tiny one bedroom flat we were never more than about five feet away. No joke.

I was like rootypig, we had a bedtime routine from day 1 out of hospital, regardless of whether DD actually slept. It slowly became an actual bedimte routine at around 8-9 weeks and now at nearly 21months we still do it (with a few variations).
FWIW ww didn't follow the sleeping guidelines, for many and various reasons which I won't bore you with. DD was in her own room at 4 weeks and it worked for us and her.

I think bedtime just comes naturally once they have more of a feeding schedule. I can't remember exactly when dd established her pattern but I think it was 8-10 weeks (although she is ff which I think helps with a routine). We used to put her in her Moses basket downstairs with us until 12 weeks ish but then we were disturbing her so much we decided it was better for her to go straight to bed upstairs.

Tbh I don't think it matters - whatever fits in with you and your baby.

We started a bed time as colic eased up- when he was colicky would normally exhaust himself by 9 so fed to sleep with us downstairs- in moses basket/on me as he was for day time naps. Then transfer upstairs when we went to bed (if we weren't going to bed at 9! ) after colic wore off about 10 weeks he would be tired around 6.30/7 so we introduced more of a routine then and he is normally asleep by 7. When he was waking for 10pm feed we kept him downstairs but when he stopped we put him to sleep upstairs with monitor still in our room. At about 3 months he went through awful sleep phase and we moved him into cot to see if this would help but doesn't fit in our room so he's been in nursery since then. I know advice is for 6 months and many people follow that and beyond but for us (especially dh and my relationship) this works better...!

With our first she stayed up until we went to bed, on the rare occasions that she slept she was in a moses basket downstairs then in a cot upstairs. We introduced bedtime at 4 months to reclaim our evenings!

The other two fitted into her bedtime routine and settled more quickly into a fixed bedtime because you can't explain to a 2/4yr old why the baby can stay up but they can't! This did however include time with me in the dark feeding while dh battled with the others. We had baby monitors (sound only) but might have given up by the time our third arrived . They all slept with us for over 6 months. Leaving them in a room for 2 hrs while you are downstairs is quite different to leaving them in a different room all night.

I think that you have to find what works for you and your baby.

12w for us but crucially I started the process in the morning.

I got him "up" & started our day at 7am that day so that when I then tried to put him down at 7pm that night to made sense to me.

We never looked back.

I started at about 7 wks I think, so bath, sleep suit, feed and cot c. 7pm, albeit I'd wake her and do a feed before I went to bed c. 10pm. I didn't follow the 6 mo advice personally- put in own rooms at 3 mo and they always slept in cot in own room for naps.

Agree with rootypig, IME the cluster feeding starts to calm down after 6-8 weeks and you can start to introduce a bedtime routine of sorts. For us this was bath and a last feed.

Re keeping them with you, I think with DC1 we kept him with us downstairs for quite a while, not 6 months but possibly 3? DC2 though was upstairs on her own at about 5 weeks I think, we found that the noise of us moving around and the lights from the TV etc was disturbing her. She slept better by herself for a couple of hours, and so we were happy to take the (small) risk.

My twins settled into a pattern of sleeping 7.30pm to 12.30pm ish from about 4 months old.

They would go to sleep downstairs and then we'd carry them up to bed when we went, feeding again if they woke.

I kept them in our bedroom for a lot longer than 6 months, but started to put them to bed upstairs with the monitor instead of downstairs from about 6/7 months.

Instated from birth taking him to bed with us and staying in the bedroom until morning even if we were awake half the night. Making the bedroom time dark and quiet and the living room time light and noisy. Then when he naturally started to fall asleep for a long period around the 8pm time until 11ish we started bathing him and changing into sleepsuit (another one considering he lived in them at first!) and putting him in a sleep bag. He'd go down in his Moses basket downstairs and we'd carry him up to bed with us. About 7 or 8 weeks I think this started in earnest. Then when we kept waking him by being around him at night we started putting him in the cot after bath in a proper bath, feed and bed routine, then we go up 10-11. With this he sleeps from bedtime to early hours, best until 3.40! Main thing is total darkness apart from nightlight in bedroom so it's sleepy time.

And DS is 13 weeks!

Following this thread - could have written myself!

I have a 4wo DD who doesn't know night from day and I'd love to know when she will actually have a 'bedtime'.

From day one almost, bath , story (songs when very new) bed.