HELPPPPP

[Teamomo]

I need help! DS is 4 weeks old. I want to start him on a bedtime routine but I'm not entirely sure how to go about this because of his sleep pattern. So he sleeps all day waking up every 2-2.5 hours to eat and falls right back asleep with the exception of 2 hrs in the morning and 2-3 hours in the afternoon . at 9pm I give him his bath(which I usually have to wake him for), bottle, cuddle, bed, HOWEVER he doesn't sleep. He's wide awake. He'll stay awake until about 12, 12:30 and then sleep again until 2. How do I fix this?

Drop the bath? They don't need washing that much and if it's not helpful in terms of routine then no point pushing it. Certainly wouldn't bother waking the baby up for it.

Sleep patterns will change around 3 months and then you can reintroduce the bath/bedtime routine. I don't think they learn anticipation until that age anyway.

At 4 weeks old baby should mostly just be sleeping all of the time.

Baby will wake when hungry. Have a short cuddle and coo but basically once fed go back to sleep.

Any awake time that hapiens around 7-9pm, by all means 'do bedtime'. As in change to night clothes, bath if you want to, maassage or whatever. But basically this 'bedtime' just involves a continuation of the wake>feed>cuddle>sleep cycle.

Honestly it will be hard at this stage because sleep patterns change so much in the first few months. You can certainly try if you are someone who thrives on routine :) but we still don't have one at 6 months! Last night my daughter had a nap at 6pm, tonight she fell asleep at 8pm. It's always different for us but I think I had a baby who doesn't like to follow the rule book! Do what feels right x

Thanks guys! Yeah I decided to wait a little while longer before introducing a set routine. I figure it'll be easier once he stays up longer during the day. Thanks for the input !

At 4 weeks, they don't know day from night.

And why are you waking him for a bath? Ds is 8 weeks and basically if there is a wakeup between 7 and 9 after DH and I have eaten, he gets a bath, feed to sleep and try to get him down as i'm usually tired enough to go to bed too. But if he doesn't really wake, he'll just get changed bum, feed and down.

Ooh yes I missed that but - never wake a sleeping baby, especially a newborn! That's the saying x