Please tell me about bedtime routines

[thecatwiththesilveryfur]

Clueless first time parent wondering when to begin? What to include?

DS is five weeks old and at the moment sleeps a lot during the day. We then go to bed between ten and eleven, he feeds at about two and then at about five, and then up for the day between seven and eight. But I keep reading that people's DC go to bed at six - should we be introducing a routine like that? If so, what should it look like? He hates his bath, so am reluctant to make this part of the routine!

Any and all advice gratefully received!

My DD now 18 months old has never gone to bed. She goes to bed at 8pm now, she has a bath at 6:45, an episode of in the night garden at 7.00ish, then we read a book and she puts herself to sleep in her bed, she does still have some warm milk when she is having her book read. Sometimes earlier than 8pm sometimes a bit later if she has napped during the day. When my DD was 5 weeks I think we had basic routine of bath, cuddles, feed and her Moses basket. If you don't want a bath to become routine maybe a wash with a warm flannel to settle him and as he gets older introduce the bath more ? At five weeks I think a rigid routine will be difficult, and it's hard to keep things to same as they often regress and they obviously change a lot but there's nothing wrong with making a basic routine. I have always had a routine with DD and now she goes to bed in her own bed at bedtime and sleeps through, I might just be lucky though, I have twins on the way so trying to keep the routine up ! Good luck x

Haha DD has never gone to bed at 6pm 😂. Not never gone to bed 😂.

5 weeks old and just needs you to be there to meet all needs. Just follow your DS. If he wakens 4 times in the night, it is for a reason ; feeding,changing, comfort or otherwise. Don't put yourself under pressure or try and put a routine on a new baby.

What aspect of the bath does he not like? Temperature could be off, is it a warm room, is he wrapped in a towel until he goes into the water, are the lights dim/too bright. He will soon grow to love the bath (I hope😂). I used to feed mine before her bath or have a bottle ready for straight after pending on her feeding times. Is he hungry before going into the bath?

He's so new to the world. Google the fourth trimester. He doesn't even know he's a separate person to you yet!

Congrats OP on your lovely baby!

I wouldn't worry about a routine yet. We started around 2.5 months, starting at 7 (based on the natural rhythm of his naps): nappy off time, bath/top & tail, lotion, pjs, bf, bed.

He's only 4 months now, but I do think that it's helped him go down for the night, just knowing the order things happen.

Oh and my DS HATED baths at first...or rather hated getting out of the bath. He'd scream the house down. But after a week or so it suddenly stopped. Make sure the water in your bath is pretty warm (probably warmer than you think) and is filled enough to cover his willy. And get a flannel wet and put it on his chest while in the water so it's not a different temp than the rest of him. That all made a huge difference for my DS's baths. Should really only bath them every other/every 3 days anyways...don't want to dry out their skin and they aren't exactly getting dirty yet!!

At that age we were doing a bath every night but the time very much varied.
Dont worry. Timings will come. Enjoy the newborn snuggles. And congratulations!

At that age I found routine was more for my own sanity. We did the usual bath, bottle, bed starting around 6.30ish. I would settle baby in her bed after a feed then have a couple of hours to myself, not advised I know but I (now know) was suffering PND and needed them couple of hours alone without the baby to keep me from loosing the will to live. Just do the same thing (what ever you want that to be) around the same time (we naturally fell into 6.30, when we tried to set this ourselves for 7/7. 30 dd was overtired and a nightmare) everyday and it will become second nature.

At five weeks, we didn't really have any routine. At about eight weeks we introduced a loose routine, not based around any timings but just a sequence of things we did (like massage, story, etc.).

She's 16 weeks now and we have a more defined routine where she goes to bed with the aim of asleep by 7 o'clock, but for the first eight weeks or so she was just going up to bed with us at 10 or whenever. We were guided by her as she was getting very overtired and grizzly and trying to go to sleep earlier, so gradually we went to 9, to 8 and then have settled on 7 as it seems to suit her best.

Also we don't have a bath as part of a routine as we don't bathe her every night. Ours is basically feed downstairs, about 20 mins later go upstairs, nappy change, massage, into sleepsuit, book, into sleep sack, cuddles, and then into cot. It's entirely portable so when we are away we can keep the same thing going.

Thank you all so much! This is so useful.

What sort of age should they be in a routine by? It's such a relief to hear that we're not setting him up for a lifetime of bad sleeping by not being in a routine yet!

Re the bath, he's getting better with it (the first few times he was hysterical) - today he didn't even cry! I think it's the being naked and wet thing he doesn't like, but not sure we can do anything about that!

Thank you all for the advice, much appreciated

There isnt a should. I nearly drove myself mad with shoulds! Be guided by him. He will tell you when he wants to be alone. Ours was little - certainly no more than 4 months - unfortunately he was still a terrible sleeper so I really dont believe the whole idea of 'rods for your own back'.

Also - if baby isnt enjoying a bath, dont sweat it. Try one regularly, maybe try being in with him? That's how we did it for ages.

Honestly op, just don’t even worry about a routine yet. Your baby is still so young. He doesn’t even know night from day yet.

I wouldn’t stress about the bath either. There’s no law saying you have to have one as part of your routine. My twins are nine months and I never bath them on a night. It just wakes them up more!

Don't even consider a routine at this stage!

At about 12 weeks, I started a bedtime routine with dc. I would feed him, and put him in the bassinet in the living room with curtains closed until we brought him to bed with us. We did that until 6.5 months when we put him to bed in the cot in our room in the evening.

Just a caveat - at 7 months I thought I had sleep sorted and would secretly judge other parents whose child didn't sleep because they didn't have a routine.

He's 2.5 now and in the last 18 months we have moved through phases of blissfull 13 hours a night to bursts of 2 hours sleep at a time to having to sit with him for an hour and a half until he went to sleep.

Currently he goes down no problem, has uninterrupted sleep but is up before 6am.

It's all a phase. Some phases are better than others.

I’m another one who did a routine for my own sanity! Both morning & bedtime!

No strict time in the morning but I always changed my daughter into ‘day clothes’ (a different baby grow ha) along with me. Probably silly but it was just my trigger for its daytime for both of us. Much better for my mental health at the time!

Nighttime, we did a feed at 4.30/5pm (ish) bath at 6pm (ish), another feed, swaddle & and into her snuzpod in our darkened room. It worked well for her, she’d then sleep for 3-4 hours before her next feed. We got our evenings back to have a breather & we’d go to bed around the next feed. My little one did.not.sleep. in the daytime as a newborn. Maybe two 30 minute naps if I was lucky! So I think she needed that longer sleep in the evening! She’s two now & still needs a dark, quiet room to sleep well.

Don’t stress too much at this age I’d say but never a bad thing to start a consistent routine. We’ve been extremely consistent with it as I love putting my feet up in peace 7-10pm! & I have to say we’ve never struggled with bedtime. She knows the routine & has never fought us on it. She tries to delay us these days by asking for extra books but once we put her into bed, that’s it. She’s settled.

At 5 weeks old you let them do whatever they want and enjoy all the quiet it brings

@thecatwiththesilveryfur 5 weeks is quite young to start a routine, but we started one at 8 weeks when her alertness really stepped up and we wanted our evenings back! We did a story around 5.30pm, followed by a bath at 5.45/6pm. She then went into a sleep suit after her bath and had a feed (breast milk at the time) and in bed by 6.30/7pm. We would then wake her up at 10pm for a dream feed (always an expressed bottle of BM given by DH the majority of the time). She'd then usually wake for one or two night feeds (this stopped at 4 months). We dropped the 10pm dream feed at 7 months once solids were properly established. She has slept through since 4 months (well til 5.45/6am. She's an early riser!) but I think sleeping through is often luck rather than routine. She does seem to like her night time routine though, as do we!

Agree with not worrying about a routine just yet! And also if baby doesn't like the bath, don't bother. It's fine for him not to have a bath each day - I might even say better for his skin to not have one every day. My daughter is 10 weeks and we do one bath a week, and then wipe her face and hands and any creases with plain water every day or every other day. Her whole nappy area is cleaned each change as we use cloth nappies. She always baths with me too, when she was younger she would go on my chest with a wet towel over her, now I hold her on my legs in the bath.

Regarding the bath situation, our DS used to be like that so we chose to mainly wipe him down with cotton wool and water but got him used to the bath by either me or DH holding him in the bath (always bathed with the other parents around to hand over DS easily if need be).

Sleep routine - we introduced one when DS was about 2 months old but he didn't get into the routine himself until closer to 5 months. And it wasnt until over a year that he was happy to go to sleep by himself without one of us in the room with him. Our sleep routine just included making the wherever we were darker at a certain time, changing into PJs and reading a book and lots of snuggles.