How to start a routine?!

[Gobletoffire]

Any advice is appreciated and please feel free to tell me I am being completely unrealistic! DS is 7 weeks old. He has frequent naps during the day, never really at set times each day, just as and when he gets sleepy which is usually after a feed (he is breast fed). He isn’t a bad sleeper at all and goes 3-4 hours in the night between feeds, so usually two per night around 1am and 4am. He has a ‘witching hour’ in the evening, he becomes very fussy, cries, agitated and nothing pacifies him which goes on for hours sometimes. He usually falls to sleep for the night around 21:30 but recently this has been getting later and later, around 22:30-23:00. Mother in law has made comments that he should be being put down for the night around 19:30-20:00. In theory this would be great but he is far too agitated to go to sleep around that time. Or he hasn’t long since woken from a nap! I’m just wary of it getting later and later when he does finally settle to sleep. How do I bring this earlier??? I have tried a bath, massage, feed routine around 7pm but this is his fussy period where he won’t settle. Do I just need to ride it out or is there anything I can do to bring the bedtime forward? Am I being unrealistic given that he’s only 7 weeks old?

I think it's a bit too early for a set bedtime. And you are getting good stretches of sleep for his age. I think the most you can do now is have a distinction between night and day (quiet/dark vs noisy/bright) and maybe a routine of things that you do when you think you are putting him down for the night (eg bath, story, feed or nappy change, pjs, feed). Then maybe about six months old start aiming for 7pm bedtime.

Definitely too early to start a sleeping routine, a baby of 7 weeks will sleep when they need to and it wouldn't be good (or nice!) to mess with that.

It's not too early to start good practices for bedtime - bath, bottle, bed etc. But as they'll still be sleeping wherever you are bed is more like 'calm down and sleep'.

You mention witching hour/hours. Are you sure he hasn't got colic? DD would scream from around 6pm every night for 2-3 hours. Changing her bottles and milk worked for us.

And in the nicest way, don't listen to your mother in law.. do what works for you and your baby. They are still in the fourth trimester so you've just got to provide them with any comfort that you can.

Routines gradually form themselves. My only advice would be to try to keep daytime naps and nighttime sleeps different. So at night keep feeds, comforting etc as quiet as possible and with as little light as possible and to try to ensure in day time you're out in day light and generally around more sounds and stimulation so your baby will start to know the difference between night and day. I would say at about 4 months we had a bedtime routine of going to bed at a certain time and generally by then he only woke once at night but daytime varied for quite a while, I fed on demand and he slept anywhere I was. If you're too strict with daytime routines you'll find yourself stifled by them - you might want to pull out of plans as you child needs a nap or leave early as your child needs a nap/ feed. Babies can sleep and fed anywhere. And in a way having an active varied daytime also will help your baby learn the difference between night and day

Routines and schedules are different things. We have a routine for our three month old DD, but her schedule changes day to day. We try to put her down for a certain time but some days it works, some days it doesn't. We have a routine in the sense of we do the same set of things before bed every day, but we are still guided by DD's cues as to when she's ready to go down for the night. It's usually between 8 and 9, but a few weeks ago it was sometimes 8, sometimes half 10!

Follow your baby not your MIL.
Babies need their mothers at all hours and not when other people prescribe. If it's the one thing I've learned since becoming a mother is that everyday is different.

Congratulations on your baby and enjoy all those newborn snuggles! Sounds as if you're doing a great job!

At 7 weeks I did this:
Wake 7am, feed
Nap 8.30-10am, feed
Nap 11.45-2pm, feed
Nap 4-5pm, feed
Bath 6pm
Another feed
Bed 6.45pm

Sometimes it went all over the place but that was what I aimed for!

We didn’t get into a regular 7pm bedtime until about 12 weeks. Before that we often wouldn’t get him down much before midnight! Ignore your mother-in-law and just keep doing what works. It takes time for their circadian rhythms to develop so that they have a sense of day and night. He’ll get himself into a more regular routine when he’s ready.

So I had a bit of a breakdown at this stage when I found out people were doing 7pm bedtimes.
Dont sweat it. He will work it out. A routine - bath and boob, for example, can only be a good thing but dont worry about the timings.

In a few months you will be a slave to the clock. Enjoy the time while you arent!

We did have a bedtime and routine from about 5 weeks BUT this was because she was seriously overstimulated by the evening (screamy overtiredness) and just needed to be in the quiet and dark to recover. No nap routine, so bedtime was usually sometime between 6 and 8.

Thank you everyone this is reassuring. @countrymousesussex my DS is the same, that’s why I was hoping to get him down for the night a bit earlier because we also get the screamy, fussy overtiredness but he won’t drift off until around 10pm, he fights the sleep :( he usually wakes from his last nap around 6ish and he’s then awake all evening.

Naps as and when wanted at that age is normal and my 19 week old still naps when ever he wants. Ignore your MIL, you cannot stop your lo from napping at x hours and get him to sleep at 7pm because that's "normal". It isn't.Sleeping helps them develop and grow too.

The fussy hour he has sounds like colic. I figured in the end that is a fancy word for wind. Is he windy bottom end? If he does not pass wind bottom end often and burp, then he is probably windy.

My lo's colic hours were 6pm till 11pm. This is no longer existent and will diminish with your lo too. So his bedtime went from 11pm down to what now is 7.30pm or 8pm.

If his fussy hour is 7pm it is unrealistic to expect him to fall asleep at that time as well. From the sounds of it, you are doing just fine and your 7 week old is doing good too. He is going through what most babies do. Fussing at the same time each day.

You can dim the lights downstairs at 7pm. Limited noise and disturbances as well as limited interaction (once he has settled). See how that goes. But to me at 7 weeks, sounds fine.

I always said i can't complain if my lo is sleeping great at night and fussy day time. Switch that over, now that would be tiring indeed.

f you are saying he falls asleep for naps straight after a feed, could you delay a day feed for an hour longer. For example. A 6pm feed swapped to 7.30. While he is fussing. For comfort.

@Gobletoffire The only way we managed this was to stay in the bedroom with her in the dark (white noise playing, no talking/extra stimulation) from when we put her to bed, resettling as needed until she got the idea. After a few days of that she almost exhaled in relief at ‘bedtime’ each day!

However, we were just lucky that we hit on an approach that works. All babies are different, and it seems to be trial and error most of the time!