Where and when to start with a routine??

[RevoltingPeasant]

DD is 9 w and is capable of sleeping through - has done five hours several times and six hours twice. So I don't think she is inherently a nightmare sleeper!

But.... Her naps are a bit all over the place as she generally wants to nap on me and doesn't nap consistently during the day - on Sunday she had about 5.5 hours of naps and went down easily, whereas today she was fussy fussy fussy, and up and down like a blue arsed fly! Total naps probably 3.5 hours.

And her evenings are erratic to say the least. She will almost always. E in bed by midnight but prior to that, she resists sleep from about 7pm to midnight. She will feed to sleep, nod off, wake, want to play, on repeat.

So I feel like I need a routine, esp at night. But where to start? If I start getting her ready for bed at 8pm, which is probably a reasonable bedtime for a 2 mo, she just won't go. So do I spend the whole evening persuading her to go down till she finally accepts it?

Or, do I start doing a bedtime ritual for her self imposed bedtime of midnight and then try to bring it forward gradually?

Cannot see wood for trees ATM!!

I'd go for the ritual starting late for her usual bed time and then gradually move it earlier and earlier.

That's mt instinct. But she just seems so tired in the evenings. - overtired, fussy, on and off breast all the time.

When she was younger I let this go as I thought, she needs to clusterfeed to get up supply.

But surely by 9w bf is established, and she does clearly need sleep, poor little mite....

I started early with a routine, bath and story and feed from 6.30-7.30 then into bed but at the beginning she fussed and fussed and was very unsettled in bed (co sleeping until after 10pm but over time (a month or so) she now settles really well when we get into bed, still feeds to sleep but always asleep just after 8. I think it's normal for them to be really unsettled and fussy in the evening after 6pm but it does get better and they grow out of that

I bath my boy every day at 7pm followed by a bottle he then goes to bed in his sleepyhead and will stay to sleep (usually) till between 2 and 3am.

He wont go to sleep in it in the day though

See she will often sleep in her Snuzpod in the day but if you try to put her down at 7pm she pretty much just laughs at you!

So today we have done....

Up at 8.30am
Dressed, shower for me, tidy kitchen with her in bouncer and get breakfast
Play and tummy time

10 am, looks tired so feed to sleep, put in Snuzpod
Sleeps till 11.30, still looks tired so feed again and put down
Sleeps till 12.45 but still looks grumpy so feed and put down again, sleeps till 2pm

Feeds and falls asleep on my lap

About to wake her to feed then take her out for walk which she will sleep thru (3.15-4.30)

Then feed, playtime till 5.30/6

Bath and feed 6.30

Attempt to put her down around 7pm but in reality resign myself to cluster feeding and general liveliness

Put to bed properly around 11.30pm

....does that sound normal/reasonable??

My DD is 12 weeks, her routine is up by 7.30 awake up to 2 hours, nap for hour feed by 10 am awake up to 2 hours nap for up to 2 hours 2 pm feed awake up to 2 hours feed 5pm bath 6pm top up feed then bed 6.30pm, 10pm wake up for feed.

Sometimes she is sleepy after having had her lunchtime nap and feed and tries to go back to sleep but if I play with her after 10 minutes or so she wakes up properly. Similarly I wake her up for her morning and late night feeds. She sleeps generally 6.30pm to 6/7am. Routine doesn't work for all babies but does for mine.

We started with just trying to establish bath and bed time at roughly the same time each day and starting the day by 8am at the latest. It's hard to start with and only really started working once DD could suck her thumb and self settle settle.

That seems like a lot of feeds. We have 5oz every 3 hours pretty much like clockwork apart from the big gap in the evening. He is bottle fed i dont know if that makes a difference

I'm trying to do the same thing for my 8wo. She seems to fall asleep on us or even when put down downstairs but as soon as I bring her up she wakes up. Any tips for putting her down awake and her going to sleep? Tonight i ended up giving her her 11pm feed to get her to sleep. She goes 5-6hours after this though which is good for her age I think.

We have started to do the EWS routine in the day as my little boy was becoming very fussy with naps in the day and I wanted some sort of routine. It's worked really well as it's not rigid but is a good start to getting a routine going.
We also do bedtime routine, start at 6 and he is in bed by 7.30. He seems much happier now we have a routine and settles easier. He is 7 weeks old.

Good luck! X

My ds naturally fell into a routine at about 7 months. This was good for us as I was breast feeding anyhow and it meant we could take him to social and family events without worrying about mucking up the "routine " . It depends what kind of life you lead but remember once the routine is there you'll be slave to it for years! at this early age I'd say just enjoy the flexibility!

What's EWS?

So when you put your babies down for 7pm.... Do they just accept that? Because DD really doesn't. She has a "lively period" from about then to late evening.

That said, she put herself down to sleep just before 10.30 last night, so I wonder if she is naturally getting earlier.

She had another meganap from 11.30am-2.30pm today. So would you wake her halfway thru, even if she looked tired?

Woodwaj, yes she is bf and feeds on demand. She's also very small (2nd centile) so don't want to restrict feeds at all.

Eat Wake Sleep. Its from the babywhisperer books. So you feed when they wake, play for a bit then when they are tired they sleep. Idea being to avoid feeding to sleep which can become a difficult association to break as they get older. Only trouble is its not what ebf babies like to do!

WRT the long lunchtime nap, at that age I would let her have it. My dd was also very wakeful in the evenings (& liked to sleep most of the day) but by about 12/13 weeks that changed & she started needing to go much earlier. Now at 18 weeks her daytime naps are crap usually 30 mins max) & she is desperate for bed by 6.30pm.

You will prob find your dd will naturally fall into a routine of her own by about 4 months so if you are relaxed about these things just wait it out - if you would like more structure to your day then its fine to implement a routine now but dont be a slave to it. I've done it both ways & while my ds (routined) slept through sooner, self settled quicker than dd -who still hasnt done either, I was much more stressed/anxious about upsetting his routine & am far more relaxed this time.

kiwi are you doing GF? Out of interest when you say awake up to 2hrs sleep up to 2hrs what do you do when she doesnt conform? I did try similar with dd but she still cant do 2hrs awake & mostly naps for 30mins!

Thanks omama!

I guess I want a loose structure to the day as I need to do a bit of work every day. But I guess if her midday nap remains consistent for now then I have that.

I want to make sure she gets enough sleep.

And she'll be off to nursery at 6 mos so I definitely want her in a routine by then as I think it'll make life easier for her.

Happilymarried155 what does your bedtime routine consist of? It's great that you already have that sorted and from 7:30 your lo is asleep. Do they wake for a feed at any point in the evening? I tried a routine tonight but didn't start until 9 in the hope it wld work, she stayed happy in her cot with music and lightshow (and a couple times I had to put the dummy back) for 1.5hrs but she didn't go off to sleep properly ever and then made a fuss after that time. It was then time to feed her! She barely sleeps in the day, maybe just little cat naps. Thanks

Reading this with interest. Can I ask a question? You all talk about putting them to bed in the early evening - is that upstairs / in their room to bed or in a basket/pod but downstairs with you?

I am trying to put her upstairs in her cot in her room, we moved her at 7wo to her room as she likes more room than the Moses basket gives. I'm still struggling to get her to go in awake tho. She was falling asleep just now so I took her up to go to bed but as soon as I started going upstairs, wide awake, I stil tried to put her to bed for a nap but it wasn't successful! She is a really light sleeper and it's impossible at the moment!

Hiya, I am no expert but just for comparison, my DS was very similar at that age and I had the same worries as you about bedtime etc. I decided in the end that there was no point battling to get him to sleep earlier as he obviously needed to just keep feeding so I just went with the flow. I tried to do some sort of bedtime routine, bath, pyjamas etc during the evening, but it was hard as he would just cry if off the boob for more than 20 mins! I did find it felt easier to just go with it, let him just feed as much as he wanted, and watch telly!! We found that one night when he was around 15 weeks I just randomly did his bath much earlier, at about 5.30, he had a mega feed, fell asleep at 7.30 and to my astonishment then just stayed asleep all evening. From then on we built his bedtime around aiming for an actual sleep time of 7.30, and by and large it has worked, he does usually still wake a couple of times in the evening but I now treat these as night feeds and it all feels a bit saner. Night wakings unfortunately are much more frequent!! I suppose the point I am making is that if you are happy with continuing as you are, I think that is fine, and I would expect your DD will find her own pattern as she gets older, and I don't think you need to worry about starting a routine unless you feel it would benefit her or you. HTH x

Oh also just regarding starting nursery - she will be so different by then I don't think that needs to be a concern for you until.much nearer the time. I understand the anxiety though mine starts nursery in Aug I was panicking about not being able to give them has nap routine as he doesn't have one ha!! But now I just think it's not worth stressing about until they are nearer to that reality x

Just another voice to say, if you can, don't worry about it too much now. With DS2 we have been quite relaxed about bedtime when he was little, he was in the moses basket with us downstairs until I went to bed.

Then about 13w, I noticed he didn't seem as happy downstairs in the evening and so we did a feed/bath/bedtime about 7.30, which he took to really well. Shortly after this his awake time/naps started to become a bit clearer (4-5 naps a day, now down to 3 at 18w).

A good way to think of the first 3 months is as a 4th trimester - they just need cuddles, feeds and lots of sleeps anywhere / anyhow. When this ends, they usually fall into a routine naturally themselves.

Omama yes roughly based on GF. BUT and it's a big BUT I adapt it for my DD as I go, if she's tired after 1.5 hours I don't force her to stay awake. If she's obviously hungry early I feed her. She's a person not a robot It just gives me some structure so after a 2 hour nap and feed I know she doesn't really need to sleep straight away she's just milk drunk. Similarly after 1.5 hours from a feed if she crys it's probably tiredness not hunger. It might not work for everyone and I don't preach GF I just found myself almost in that routine anyway. I do wake her up for feeds mainly her late feed, otherwise she would sleep to 4/5am, giving the late feed she sleeps to 7am. It certainly didn't work at all until DD could self settle. She also used to wake up every 45 minutes during the day and take hours to settle at night but now she just sucks her thumb and goes back to sleep. It's been part luck DD likes her food and sleep and part design. I'm a very routine person who likes their food and sleep possible she's the same, which is lucky as DH is an unorganised insomniac who would live off sausage rolls

Maybe I'm just panicking too much about a routine at this early age and I shld give her another few weeks before really trying to get it to work for her bedtime routine!

This has been helpful.

For me, I need her to nap for a decent time not on me every day as I have something yo do for work due in May.

So, so far we are going with waking every morning at a consistent time, trying for a mid-morning nap in her cot, walk in the early evening for another nap, then evening play and bath followed by watching for tired signals and shooting for around 11pm bedtime.

Will do that until she is around 12w and then after 12w growth spurt, reassess.....

Sounds like a good plan Revolting.

Thanks kiwi thats useful to hear. We are still stuck with short naps & I guess the self settling thing could be part of our problem. Despite furiously sucking fingers dd still needs the dummy to help her drift off & settle, so when she wakes after 30 mins she doesnt put herself back to sleep. If I'm quick enough I can replug & she goes back to sleep but not always. Though funnily enough she can go to sleep without it after her night feeds....

We also still have 1-2 night feeds, dd naturally dropped the 10/11pm feed & wakes at 12/1 then again at 5ish, or just once at around 3am. I considered waking her at 10pm to see if we could get her doing her long stretch overnight instead of in the evening, but somehow cant bring myself to do it when she is sleeping so peacefully. Though I could really do with a solid night's sleep!

Sorry for slight thread hijack, OP!

Hi! We have the same situation with the dummy but not always needed after night feed! We were having same situation as you with the long stretch and so I started doing a dream feed although she wakes as I have to do nappy too sometime between 10:45-11:15 depending on last feed and now dd goes until 4 or 5 in the morning then! Iv found she needs noise to stay asleep so she had the hair dryer sound on her monitor last night and it worked well - I put it on while feeding too so sound in the room is the same when I put her down! Only problem is we hear it too through the monitor! Hopefully in time it won't have to always be on, just a short time!!