Bedtime routine - when did you start?

[austengirl]

DS is 9 weeks and I was wondering when people introduced bedtime and what they did. I don't expect this will help much with sleeping as he only stays asleep on me between midnight and 5-6 after breastfeeding. He can do up to 3 hours say between 6 and 9pm but 2 hours is more normal. But if it's a good habit to get into now vs say at 4 or 6 months, I want to get started.

DD started having "bedtimes" at 6 weeks (we were in a bungalow and living room was next to bedroom so we were very close by) but consisted of just a bottle and putting her down with the lights out, and doing feeds in the dark until we got up in the morning. Can't actually remember what time we did that, I think about 7/8pm.

She's now 6mo and routine is- tea at 3pm, 1/2 nap at 4, bath at 5-5:15, then bottle, three stories, lights off and her moniter on with lullabies. We have a cuddle next to her cot and I put her down when she starts to signal she's getting tired.
We started to extend the bedtime routine at about 4mo, anytime before that she just didn't seem to have the attention span or understanding to sit and look at a book, and baths were easier to do in the morning. But routine works now and she's asleep soon as I put her down :) we just did it around her.

1/2 hour nap that should say :)

About 4 months with both of mine. Wouldn't have worked any earlier as they both cluster fed in the evenings until then.

Meant to say mine are now 2 and 6 months and they are both asleep at 7pm.

We were told that the sleep pattern changes slightly at 6 weeks so it's a good time to start the routine then.

5 days. DM came to stay and did it the whole breast-bath-breast thing with me. He always settled between 6/and 7 until 6 m then bedtime pushed up to 7:30-7:45 where it stayed till 2.

We've just started a little routine at 2 wks. Bath at 8pm. Feed. Dark room quiet voices no tv etc and s little song I stay with my baby. X

This was 12_years ago and she who must not be named was highly influential at the job ime.I do wonder if things have swung too far the other way. Dn is 11m and still waking for bm every 2-3 hours through the night, dsis accepts this as normal and also outside of her control we were much more proactive about such good hints (early noughties)

Such things no idea where good hints came from

Our routine doesn't really have a time we just starts when she looks tired so it's very flexible but we do bath or face wash (only bath every other day), massage (she has eczema so this is useful to stop her scratching but also calms her for bed), pjs on, story, feed, song. Whole thing takes about 20 mins unless Dh decides to whip her up into a giggling frenzy in the bath which is rather cute annoying.

At about 12-14 weeks ish. Basically when she got into her own sleeping routine and was happy to be put down and settle in her cot, I then put the evening routine in to fit with her chosen bedtime.

At about ten weeks. Before then he was cluster feeding and napping till 11 then would sleep 11-3 ish. I noticed he was getting tired at the same time in the evenings about 7-8pm.
I started bath, pajamas, upstairs for feed and cuddle and when he fell asleep I put him in our bed (minus covers ofc.) he then slept for about 4-5 hours. I gradually brought the bedtime forward over a week or so and now we start bath etc at 6:30pm with the goalo F him being asleep by 7/7:30.
I started by feeding him to sleep in bed and moving him to his cot then gradually moved to putting him In sleepy but awake. That is the one bit of sleep advice I really would suggest you try - getting them to put themselves to sleep is a key thing,
Stories make him too excited so for now we save books for daytime (he will happily sit through a book or two.)

At 14 weeks we have our evenings back. Well, for now :) they change all the time and I hear things can go a bit pear shaped at four months.

Daytime naps, well we aren't doing quite as well with those! Ds will happily sleep in the pram (great fun when it's -25 outside..) or on me. Hey ho. We will get there in the end.

About 4 months with both. Bath, books, milk, bed. Now both (aged 15month and 3.5yrs) in bed asleep by 7 - 7.30. It took a long time before they both slept through only in the last month or two sorry!

About 2 weeks we started having a 6.45/7pm bedtime - even if he was up a couple of hours later for a feed it was nice for DH and I to have a little time to ourselves in the evening to make and eat supper. All feeds after this point were treated as night feeds, so dark room, quiet, feed and back to bed (getting him fed at the first grumble so he didn't wake up too much).

With DD3, we went on holiday when she was 10 weeks old and accidentally put her into a great routine. We got ready for dinner every night at the same time, whilst waiting to eat, I bf her and then put her into her buggy. She slept for about three hours, we had a nice drink etc then all went to bed in the hotel. We changed her, I fed her again then she slept in her cot (she did wake up for more milk during the night).

When we came home this routing stuck, quite nicely. I had not really thought about putting her in a routine at this point but actually it was really brilliant, very relaxed and it worked. Just same things at the same time each day.

We started with little things that eventually became her consistent bed routine at about three months. It started with a bottle at about three weeks and was intended so that I could get some sleep while dh fed baby at about 10pm (I Bf all other times). Then as we realised that the bottle signalled bedtime, we stuck with it, despite bedtime now being 6.30ish. Then we added grobag, books etc. Now, we've added a teeth clean since dd has got some teeth.
Personally, I think starting a general routine with some definite bedtime signals is important. But every baby is different so do whatever works for your family.

We started a routine of bath, stories, and feed in the dark at 6 weeks. I think bathtime started at around half 8 then. Dd is just one and we still do bath, stories and milk before bed, but it's a lot earlier in the evening and she goes down awake now. I think it helped us to have a signal that bedtime was starting, even when we knew she'd be up a lot in the night! And she knew what to expect surprisingly quickly.

We started bedtimes from the word go. Day was very different to night so bedtime was the cut off point even if it wasn't the same time every night. We had bath milk(bf) and bed. Then gradually as dd got older we added in books (around 3 months ish) and took away the milk when she got older than that but still at 5 bedtime is still pretty much the same. I believe it's part of the reason I've never had a problem getting her to bed

To go slightly against the grain here but we didn't do till 5 months. We tried at 3 months and spent all evening going backwards and forwards dealing with an increasingly frustratated baby. We gave up and stopped trying. By 5 months he would do either 2 things. Sleep all evenjng or be really grumpy and sleep all morning. Took this as a sign he was ready and he now goes to bed at 8pm much more successively. No back and forth. Don't panic or stress of you can't get your baby to do it straight away. Doesn't mean your never going to have bedtime. Just means baby maybe needs little big longer.

Thanks all. SkiptonLass that's a really good point about using the cue of the cranky time as bedtime (currently 7 to 8 ish). Tonight I changed nappy, did massage and put pj's on around 7, fed in the dark then DH gave him a bottle while I had my tea. Bounced him to sleep in his bouncer while swaddled and he slept 9-1! Of course he was up like clockwork by 3 and would only settle by feeding. One step at a time I guess. I'll alternate bath and massage and try to make sure we get stories in there too (we had a couple in the afternoon).