12 weeks old. Please share your 'routines'

[Intotheforest]

Hi everyone, my DC is 12 weeks and for the past three nights has really gone backwards in terms of sleep waking every few hours. I know 12 weeks is a time of growth spurts and leaps but it's just made me think about my 'routine' and what I'm doing in the build up to bedtime. I'm a FTM so not sure if I could be/should be doing anything that night make bedtimes and nights more successful. I use the word 'routine' loosely. I know that all babies are different as is every day. I just mean on a normal sort of day what do you do?
My LO is EBF. She wakes around 7 then it's up, nappy change, feed, play for around 45 mins then she usually goes back down for a nap. Her naps are usually around 40-45 mins. Then I try to repeat that cycle throughout the day. As we get into the afternoon, it's increasingly difficult to get her to nap. She ends up having very unsettled evenings. I've posted before about colic and how my husband and I never ever get to have an evening. So last night, we did bath at 6:45, massage then went up to bed at 8. She fed then went down in her own crib next to our bed for 9. Her last feeds aren't always that productive. I'm just curious to know what your 'typical day' is like, especially what your evenings look like. Thank you.

Waking every few hours is perfectly normal for a 12 week old. By all means get a nice cosy routine in place if it makes you feel better and more comfortable, but it's unlikely to affect night wakings as it's normal. At 12 weeks baby will need lots of night feeding for a tiny stomach. Also, sleep changes so much in the first year - you might find one night is good and then it goes back to a few wakings. My 7 month old is currently teething (I think) and was unsettled ALL night last night. Need a strong coffee

...everyone is different but at 12 weeks I cluster fed baby in the evening downstairs and once in a deep sleep put her in her sleepyhead and kept her downstairs with us, if she stirred, it was back on the boob. Much easier. My husband and I are just starting to get longer evening bursts now, months down the line. It will come honestly, but it might help to adjust your expectations a little.

PS. SIDS recommendations are that baby stays in the room with you for all sleeps, which is another reason I kept her downstairs but it's all about choices xx

baby stays in the room with you until 6 months that should say.

Thank you. She's always in the room with me for all sleeps. I suppose I'm just wondering what others do in terms of times for baths, last feeds and going down to sleep. I know it's early days but just to get an idea. Before the last few days, she would generally go for 4 hour stretches. I think growth spurts and leaps might be affecting that.

Tbh I think you need to adjust your expectations about getting an evening with your husband. At that age ours would cuddle/nap with us through the evening then have a last feed around 10 when we went to bed. Then wake around 1 and 5 for milk.

My ds is 11 weeks and our day pattern sounds the same to you. The eat, play sleep cycles are short as he also only naps 45 mins and tired at 90 min.

I bath him about 5.45 mainly because he loves it and cheers him up. Try and feed him between 6 and 6.30. And then sit with him feeding and cuddling until he is sleepy enough to put down. More often than not this is around 8pm but can go on until after 9.

This week I plan to start putting him down awake after his laat feed and see what happens. My older dds were both in bed at 7pm by 12 weeks (I didn't know about sids guidelines back then) so it can be done this early if you choose.

However the nights he cluster feeds I get a much better night, when he's down at 7 ish he is up earlier in the night. But I actually prefer an evening and don't mind that, unless it gets ridiculous again...

At 12 weeks, we used to have a lovely evening routine but it involved her sleeping at 10pm. She would feed every 1-1.5 hours all day and every hour in the evening. At 8.30-9ish we would do massage-bath-feed in bedroom-sleep for the night and she would go down nicely and sleep 8-10 hours before I gave her a dream feed and she went back to sleep for another 1-3 hours, waking around 9am. We would go to sleep with her so we all got a nice long stretch of sleep. We were very lucky in the early days that she slept so well at night and did this of her own accord.

Daytimes, however, were another story all together! She was a nightmare, would be on and off the breast all day, refused to nap at all and wanted to be held all the time. So she made me work for the lovely nights she gave me! In those early months, we didn't get to enjoy a single meal (or anything else!) together unless we had grandparents cuddling her while we ate. However, we had the good nights to make up for it.

Eurochick part of my problem is that she won't cuddle and nap with us. From around 6/7 the crying starts and it doesn't ease until she goes down to sleep in her crib. We literally must have watched tv together three times in twelve weeks. I'm worried that she's overtired so just wanting to know how people's days/evenings go so we can maybe achieve something like you describe where she will cuddle in etc with us downstairs until around 9:30-10 then we all go up to bed. At the minute, I'm trying to wind her down with a bath etc but the crying usually starts regardless. This can go on for hours. Riddles when you dream feed, do you get your Lo up from their crib?

I've got a younger colicky baby and when he won't settle in the evening ( after feeding, changing, winding) I put in him in the pram and go for a walk. I don't get an evening but at least he stops crying. Your baby might fall asleep and stay asleep after a short walk.

Have you got a carrier/sling that you could try? Nice bath etc and put on white noise/nursery rhymes in bedroom, put baby in sling and have a dance around. Then once asleep head downstairs x

Thanks Bluebell I do sometimes go out for a walk in the pram if it's bad and it does stop the crying but she just lies there awake. Catlady I do have a sling but she hates it. Maybe I need to persevere and keep putting her in it for short bursts of time. She's only 12 weeks though so wouldn't leave her upstairs. Thanks so much for all of your advice.

Yes I used to get her out just as she stirred and before she woke up then feed her on a rocking chair for dreamfeed. I would then put her back in her crib and she would sleep happily for a couple more hours.

This all worked beautifully until the 4 month regression - she has slept through the night just an handful of times since then unfortunately

There's always something isn't there :-)

She wakes around 7 then it's up, nappy change, feed, play for around 45 mins then she usually goes back down for a nap. Her naps are usually around 40-45 mins.

That's a really good baby-led routine for the age. I followed very similar. We had 30-45m naps followed by 30-60m awake time at that age, with a full feed in every awake time cycle.

I suspect the is due might be around the way you get baby to sleep. I favour independant sleep methods, so that involved putting baby down to sleep awake and settling with a dummy to stop crying and in-cot cuddling. If extra help was needed I did naps in something that moves (bouncy chair).

All of these invced going from awake to asleep in the place baby would stay asleep, rather than being got to sleep on way, then put down already asleep or nearly asleep.

How are you getting baby to go from awake to asleep?

Sorry for typos, I am rubbish at using a touch screen keyboard

Thank you Fate. She takes a dummy well and we use it a lot for naps. The way we get her to sleep varies depending on the time of day and her mood. In the mornings it's easiest to get her to nap so it's usually dummy in then into crib with white noise. As the day goes on she then refuses to go down like this and ends up crying so naps tend to be on us cuddled in (which I know is not ideal). Not sure how to get her to nap independently though as it just ends in her being hysterical even with use of the dummy etc. Also, when is best to have the last 'nap' before bedtime without it resulting in baby getting overtired?

Have you tried a bouncy chair for naps that are harder work?

It requires you to be relentless about it. So when you know baby is tired set yourself up on the sofa with tv remote and a cuppa and bouncer at your feet. Baby in bouncer with dummy. Start a steady rhythmic bounce with your foot on the bouncer. Keep constantly reinserting dummy as needed, and be relentless about keeping the bouncing going until baby is asleep.

Depending on how over tired baby is, you might need to keep the rhthmic movement going right through going drowsey to asleep, through light sleeping into deep sleeping and only then gradually slowing down the movement. The less exhausted baby is, the easier it should be.

Also, when is best to have the last 'nap' before bedtime without it resulting in baby getting overtired?

While naps are short (ie until they are consistently 60-90m plus in length) keep them frequent and kept the cycles going all the way from when you get up until you go to bed - say 10-11pm.

So 45-60 minutes awake, nap, 45-60 mins awake, nap, repeated all day long. At any awake time that happens around 7-9pm (so awake time within these nap cycles that continue) do a bedtime routine. Bath if you need to, change to night clothes and so on. But continue having "naps" through the evening, rather than being "out to bed".

So after bath and whatnot, I'd come back down stairs and bounce back to slerp sleep in the bouncer. From then on, no more awake time but expect some wake ups. So any time baby wakes, feed and straight back in bouncer to sleep. At any wake up that hapoens around 10-11pm, take baby to bed with you and feed upstairs and into crib with you in bed.

As baby gets older, various sleep developments hapoen. One of these is naps extending. Around the time that naps extend (around 6 months usually), so the evening "nap" also extends. You start finding baby goes to sleep after the bath then doesn't wake at all until you want to go to bed. Or maybe doesn't even wake for that and you have to wake baby up to take upstairs to bed. That is the point baby is ready for a proper bedtime - so bath, nightmare, settle in crib for the night. Until then, just continue the nap-wake-feed cycles all the way through the evenings.

Nightwear, not nightmare!

Mine is 12 weeks on Thursday and I second what others have said on here about how variable their sleep can be at that age - some nights he wakes up every 2 hours and needs feeding back to sleep, last night he slept through from 9.30 till about 2 before he woke up for the first time.

We have generally had quite a late routine but are trying to gradually bring it earlier. He generally has a bath (also bonding time with his dad, they get in together) then a massage and gets changed into pjs, then will drop off quite happily on the boob. When we were starting this about 8-9pm, he would grizzle and cry a lot and fight sleep until about 10-11. Now we start it at about 6.30-7, he'll generally drop off quickly and it turns into a fairly long nap (an hour or so), then he'll wake up briefly and want cuddles/more boob but is generally a lot more settled and happy with it.

In terms of napping during the day, maybe it's differences between babies or something to do with the fact that our feeding sessions tend to be no more than 10-15 mins, but our wake-feed-play-nap cycle is more like about 2-2.5 hours. So maybe extending the time between naps might help? Obviously not if your baby is showing tired signs though. We generally let him drop off on us, with a dummy if he wants it, then pop him down wherever we are. He sleeps on our bed a lot while I am working on the laptop next to him - he is just outgrowing his crib and I am on at my DP to put the cot bed together!

My son is 13 weeks and we are still tweaking his routine but following the EASY method. I'm still trying to
work out a "wake-up" time for the morning as DS tends to wake up hourly either for a feed (EBF) or comfort from about 3:30am. DP will often take him from about 5 so I can sleep more but isn't as good at getting him back off to sleep... Anyway, after he wakes up for the day we usually have 30-45 mins wake time before the first nap. Naps throughout the day are 45-120 mins. Sometimes we get a couple short 45 min naps and a couple 90-120 min naps and sometimes we have them all around an hour. Anyway, it's led by DS throughout the day and the last one usually ends around 5pm.

DP does bedtime starting between 18:00-18:30 - bath, massage, pjs, book. Then he either gives a bottle of expressed milk or I feed him and he goes off to sleep around 19:00-19:30. Night wakings are pretty unpredictable and we are still working on the what happens after bedtime routine . Sometimes he's with us on the sofa and sometimes he's upstairs in our room. I'm trying to do most of his naps in his room this week and depending on how things go we are aiming to have him in his room for nighttime by next week (this against SIDS guidelines though so obviously not for every family).

I've been trying really hard to get him to nap better over the last couple weeks and settling to sleep independently has been a real struggle! However, I think I've finally found a technique that works!

Theres a video of the side settling technique I'm now using here - www.littleones.co/pages/settling. The only difference is I use a dummy and don't swaddle as he doesn't really like it and I think he's nearly too old for it anyway. I put him in one of his sleeping bags as soon as he seems a little tired. Stick him in the crib with his dummy, turn on white noise and start Sshing and patting his bum. Feels like forever but he is out in 5-10 minutes.

Sorry for the essay!

Hi Op, my DD is 12 weeks on Thurs and she sounds similar to your baby down to the unsettled naps in the afternoon and the evening crying! Her daytime naps are unreliable, however she does sleep long stretches at night (5/6 hours)

I also feel we've gone backwards the last few days. She did 4/5 nights last week where she slept 8-6 only waking once! Thought all my dreams had come true but now she's back to two or more wakes and v broken sleep from 3-6 am. Sigh.

Anyway: evenings I think we had a similar dilemma to you. Kept reading about bedtime routine but she was too hysterical to implement it, would cry for several hours every evening so it was just survival and soothing til she conked out around 9/10. She wouldn't even feed, she was so upset.

Anyway we first found her bedtime was shifting forward earlier naturally so she was conking out at 9.30 rather than 10. Then about 10 days ago we or I decided to forge ahead with the routine (bath, rocking, Euan) at 7. Just grabbing an interval between tears to get her into the bath. There are still meltdowns but we try and keep her surroundings consistent.

So last night we began routine at 6.20 - there were lots of tears at interval but we got her down at 8. I think previously we were keeping her up too late. But it's hard because she wouldn't have accepted an early bedtime any sooner. The routine has led to better sleep for her and it makes us reassured to know what's going on.

Hope that was helpful. On a side note this does mean leaving her sleeping alone for up to an hour in our bedroom while we watch TV next door (it's a flat). I'd rather have her in same room as us as Fate suggests (and according to safety guide) but she needs the dark to sleep. In any case I'm so tired I tend to follow her to bed quite quickly ...

Really feel for you with the colic, it's awful. Hope you find a solution that works for you!

Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to reply. Tonight tried offering boob more bath and in her awake time at 7 did bath and change etc. She had been screaming since. Only way we've managed to get her to stop is white noise but as soon as it's switched off she starts to scream again within minutes. Another night of literally pacing the floor and taking turns to try to stop the crying. Just really hoping this is something that will pass soon. Thanks again for the advice. Its so good to hear others experiences and advice x

Oh noooo sorry OP that is not fun. We have had a few nights like that, white noise for us has never been that effective but one thing I have noticed is that he often gets himself so worked up he can't latch on. Not so much now but up until about a month ago it was very regular. He refused my boob but would calm down if offered a bottle and then fall asleep when he was full, maybe worth a go x

Our DS is just 12 weeks and sleeps ok at night. He tends to be asleep for the night at sometime between 8 and 9pm. He will often then sleep til 3or 4am, feed and back to sleep for 2-3 hours. However some nights his first waking is earlier and those nights he wakes more frequently after as well. Sometimes every two hours from 2.30/3am.

I am really struggling to find time to do a proper bedtime routine with him as I have two DDs to get to bed as well. DD is 3 and can be very difficult to get to bed, especially since baby arrived. Other DD is six and wil go to bed herself but still needs attention in the evenings. DH often has to work til 7/8 so not always around to help.
Some evenings it all works well, but others it's a mess with tears all round.
Generally though, Baby tends to fall asleep on my shoulder (after a feed) as I am singing lullabys to DD. Then I put him in crib and he rarely stirs before 3am.

I am a little concerned lack of bedtime routine is going to come back to haunt me in another couple of months when baby is older. He doesn't self settle really as he is aslepe when I put him down at night . And then bfeeds back to sleep when he wakes.

He is not a great napper - lots of 30 min naps all day. He does tend to be dragged around after his two older sisters all day - In and out of pram and car seat - so this probably doesn't help his naps. Look forward to naps getting longer as it's hard to get anything done!
Luckily he is not a cranky baby!

Why don't you leave the white noise on? We play ours all night.

Also (although 'colic' is such a broad thing) I bought Colic Calm which is amazing, it is like gripe water but soothes wind, tummy pain, hiccups, reflux, all sorts of things. It has camomile in so really relaxes baby. It is homeopathic so no bad bits in it. ITs from America but if you go on the UK version of their website and click store search it'll tell you locally where you can buy it. Honestly, I cannot recommend it enough. It was an absolute game changer when our little one was 'colicky'.

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