Routine...?

[HollyC255552]

At what age should you start a strict bedtime routine? My DD is 4 months and she doesnt really have a routine yet. We or i (depending if DP home from work) bath & feed her early evening and then she comes back downstairs with us until we go to bed. At what point should you introduce a 'bedtime'? I was told by my HV this doesnt really need to happen until 6 months ish. Is this true? Ta x

We had a basic outline from the day we brought dd home from hospital that started at 6.30pm - bath (short one!), nappy and fresh sleepsuit, warm milk, into a swaddle and down into the moses baslrt by seven. In the lounge, so lamps on, tv low volume and shed sleep there til we took her up to bed at 10.30. Then we would do a bum change, a few raspberries, cuddles, etc, then into her swaddle, milk and down into the basket in the bedroom.

By about 8 weeks we started putting her in the basket in the bedroom from seven, andstill did the 10.30 feed but in near darkness and no bum change unless heavy nappy.

We only did this because dd was amenable to it, and had she have needed differently we would have readjusted. However knowing we had our evenings was great!

Id say try and instill one when you are ready to. Does she sleep when you go back downstairs?

Thanks Penny. She sometimes does, yet sometimes she's wide awake of an evening until her last feed. I might start thinking of introducing a stricter routine.

Wow penny. Well done. Doubt there are many (any?!) of us out here who've managed to do that successfully from day 1! Still figuring out my 18 day old darling!

Penny that sounds almost exactly the same as we did with DD. I agree though that it only works if they are amenable to it!
I don't think there's a right time to introduce a routine, I do think that once you have introduced it that it's important to stick with it though.