What are your bedtime routines?

[TLH0307]

Hello! I’m due in the next few weeks and I’m just wondering what your bedtime routines are and what age you managed to find a good routine to stick to? I imagine it changes a lot in the first few months :)
Also what have you learnt is not a good idea and would avoid doing next time (if anything!)? Thank you!

Bedtime stories are great, especially things that rhyme. My DD responded to the repetitoin of these from an incredible early age. By 3 months she recognised her favourites and they always got her attention and a smile. I'd strongly recommend Giles Andrea and Guy Parker Rees for nice bouncy rhymes and colourful pictures.

I second bedtime stories. I started with DS at 6 weeks and now at 20 months he does a little excited dance at every story time.

I do teeth, upstairs, nappy, pyjamas, story time and then turn the lights off for bedtime.

During the summer i —stupidly— listened to DP who said bring the baby back downstairs if he wasn’t settling because he clearly wasn’t tired. It went against my better judgement but every now and then DP likes to stick his oar in when actually everything is fine. Once I’d let DS (13 months at the time) come down once or twice he definitely cottoned on to the fact that t was more fun to come downstairs than stay in bed/asleep. It took me a good fortnight of being really firm and never bringing him down after we’d gone up for bed before we were back in a lovely routine. To this day I don’t know why I listened to DP!!

Don't worry about any kind of bedtime routine until at least 12 weeks - the baby may well want to feed all evening at times (sorry, not what you want to hear!). As things settle down, you'll probably see that they're regularly sleepy around somewhere between 6 to 8 pm....once you can see that pattern, go with it as bedtime; feed in bedroom in reduced light, then bed. Then you can gradually start adding bathtime/story to that (but IIRC, story was a bit overstimulating for mine at that stage - they were just shattered!). Then treat any evening feeds as night feeds - so quiet, darkened room, straight back to sleep if poss.

You'll have to let the routine emerge, though - early days, just wear them in a sling and watch a box set, feeding whenever you need to. I promise it settles down 😊 Good luck!

From the first week DD was home I did the last feed at about 10.30 in the dark with no noise in her sleeping bag which I think did start helping set her to day and night. Then when she got a little older I have the half hour before bed as calm time and after I’ve got her ready for bed I put a little sound and light projector on while I’m putting the nappy away etc as a calm association with bed time

Thank you ladies! I feel a little clueless and don’t think I even thought about bedtime routines seriously until the other night 😳 This is going to be some learning curve for me and my fiancé haha.

I second pp about early weeks. My DD wanted to feed and cuddle 7-10 each night for the first four weeks. Very restrictive! But actually, some lovely cuddly time with DH baby was great. Hot chocolate, lots of pillows and a box set! It passes quickly and their natural rhythms set in before 3 months, sometimes by 6 weeks.
Bath time can be a great signal to baby, but mine hated it until she could sit well enough to play with toys on her own, until then it was a battle so we kept it away from bedtime.

Oh, and btw OP - everything will be a steep learning curve! But your baby doesn't hAve preset ideas and won't remember the early days. Lots of love and cuddles is all they care about, and the rest just kind of works out!

Congratulations!

For me this are the important points (obviously everyone's different, though).

1. When the baby is tiny, always put it down (in cot or pram) when s/he's sleeping, if you can (try not to make a habit of letting her/him sleep in your arms).

1. Stop all night feeds by 10 months at the latest. It's relatively easy at this stage. Let it linger past a year and it can turn into an ego-driven battle of wills.

1. Routine is close to impossible for the first couple of months. Then it gradually starts to emerge, but if you don't like it, it's easy to change it. Around a year to 18 months, baby becomes significantly less malleable and a previously established routine becomes really helpful.

Good luck! xx

Google fourth trimester and remember babies are nocturnal when they are born.

Babies need to sleep in the same room as their adult carer until they are 6 months old.

Personally I wouldn't even think about a routine for the first few months. Baby will just want cuddles / milk at all hours of the day and night so just go with it and survive....
Please don't worry about putting the baby down every time they are asleep either. You can't cuddle a baby too much and one day you will miss the sleepy cuddles. If you really need to get on with jobs etc you can use a sling to be hands free but seriously, just enjoy hours of Netflix and cuddle time.
Don't worry about routines either. You will drive yourself mad trying to get your baby to fit into an unnatural schedule.
It's really hard and you will get lots of conflicting advice (I'm contributing to this I know!) so at some point you just need to figure out what works for you (maybe you NEED to find a routine, maybe you prefer to follow baby's lead) and go with it
Just remember that baby should always sleep in a room with you, including naps, for at least 6 months. Plenty of people will tell you they put baby in their own room earlier than that but the stats show that this increases the risk of SIDS so please don't do this

Thank you all for your replies!! Fingers crossed i’ll Have something figured for her by the time she’s a few months old haha. X