When will my baby go to bed and stay in bed!

[Doyouavocado]

I have a 14 week old baby daughter. She sleeps well in the night, usually 10ish till 3am for a feed then back down until 7/8am however from the start of her bedtime routine at 7:30 (bath, feed) it can take about 3 hours for her to stay down. She will usually go to sleep and wake up 30 mins later then the whole process will start again. My huckleberry app suggests to put her to bed at 6:30pm but that just seems so early and she will still wake up after 30 mins. I would just like my evenings back and not be running up and down the stairs rocking her to sleep :(

Does anyone have any advice?

I would treat 10pm as bedtime, for now, and do the bath etc routine then, so she associates it with bed.

The rest of the evening she's just napping and you can keep her downstairs with you – in a Moses basket, asleep on a playmat, on your lap or shoulder, whatever. Eat dinner over her head (and delete the app)

Take her up and get her ready and in bed at 10, go to bed then too to take advantage of the stretch of sleep. Eventually you can either nudge bedtime earlier gradually, or she'll do it herself.

She’s still so tiny, and she’s biologically programmed to want to be near you all the time. She’ll know you’re not nearby and that’s why she keeps waking up. The first 9 months they’re basically finishing the gestation other primates do in the womb. Could you keep her sleeping on you or with you downstairs until you go to bed? Sleep is a developmental stage like crawling and speaking, she’ll get there when she’s ready.

My baby is 8 weeks. We just keep him downstairs with us and ignore whether he naps, plays or eats thoughout the evening. They he comes to bed around 9.30-10pm when we do and thats when we change him and feed for bed. So his 'bedtime' Routine starts then.
Usually come upstairs around 9.30pm, new nappy and wash down with flannel (we bath in the mornings on the days we has a bath), into sleeping bag. Then i get into bed and feed him, he is usually asleep 10/10.15pm

Yes I think you are all right tbh. I think just because I have been googling what to do at what age and they all say the bedtime routine should be around 6:30 we have been trying that.

@BuffaloCauliflower Yes we will have to go back bringing her downstairs with us when she wakes up (since 10/11 weeks we always put her to nap in our room so she associates nap time with her cot-that’s if I’m not out with her) at least we know how the night is going to go and we can all sit down as a family rather than taking turns putting her to bed.

@burritofan thank you for the reply, that’s a good point about associating bedtime at 10pm, as she gets older I can just bring it down slightly every couple of weeks.

@caspianberg Yes we did the same, for the first 11 weeks we kept her with us downstairs with us until we went to bed :)

Thank you for this, it has made me feel better. I think because right now I only hve google to turn too, non of my friends have babies and due to covid I haven’t received much help from midwives/HV understandably.

That’s totally understandable, and this is what Mumsnet is for you’re doing a great job! Try to worry a bit less about getting a routine at this stage, baby really just needs you as much as possible and she hasn’t read the books or the websites!

Your evenings back?? This does make me smile...your evenings will never ever be the same. Having children change your whole life forever.

Expecting your evenings back at 14 weeks is ambitious OP! I wouldn't expect that until a year or so, although apparently not all babies sleep as badly as mine.

I have been googling what to do at what age and they all say the bedtime routine should be around 6:30
If I can offer any parenting advice at all it is to step away from google, particularly with regards to sleep and what your baby "should" be doing. It's full of some absolute bollocks.

It takes them a while to sort out night and day. At a similar age I think DD had only just emerged from her nightly "scream for 3 hours, only subdued by running the shower" colic sessions. Then for a long time after, our evenings involved eating meals one-handed, playing pass-the-baby. Then we got her into a dark room for the evening and the six-month regression hit and she sensed me leaving, but needed the dark to sleep, so my evenings became "read Mumsnet on phone in dark" for a bit.

It does get better. Why, now I put her to bed at 7.30 and I stay up as late as 9.30pm!

@crimsonlake @Spam88 haha I know, I didn’t mean the whole evening- that would be very ambitious. I did just think that I would have an hour of baby free time Before I go to bed where I could stick Netflix on :) as I said I don’t really know anyone with young babies so had nothing to compare to but now I know! :)

@burritofan oh wow I feel your pain, my daughter had the ‘the witching hour’ too 7 weeks of pure screaming between 7pm-10pm every single night. It then suddenly stopped at 10 weeks. It was just so heartbreaking not being able to do anything! I completely agree, I’m stepping away from google now, it’s been making me feel completely abnormal. These replies have made me feel miles better. I was obviously expecting far to much from her :( at least I know now x

My DS is 6 months now and still sleeps on me all evening (and then continues to sleep on me all night in bed 🙄). Means I can just stick a boob in his mouth if he wakes and can get a couple of hours of Netflix in 👌

Just as an FYI, The NHS recommend that you stay in the same room as baby for all of their sleeps (day/night/evening) until 6 months old. This is by the recommendation of the Lullaby Trust for the reduction of SIDS deaths.

So it is usual that, while you might to "bedtime routine" any time between 6pm-8pm, that the sleep that follows continues downstairs with you, as should all daytime naps. So be best to consider baby's "night time" the same as your "night time" for now - so baby goes to bed when you do.