Bedtime/nap routines

[Sbena]

Hi mums!

I am one of the many with a baby who has sleep issues. After 3 months of sleep training we are FINALLY at a place where I don't have to BF him before a nap (still have to sit by his cot for indefinite time and pat him, but that's for another time).

So baby is 9 1/2 months old, and I'm still struggling to have an adequate routine before bed. Google pretty much says "GIvE hIM a bAtH BEfOre bED", and let me tell you... no. For one thing, he doesn't need a bath every day, and for another thing giving him a bath in the evening just doesn't work for me. There's no time between dinner and bedtime, and dinner can't be moved earlier because we eat as soon as my husband gets home from work. It's difficult enough sometimes to even finish dinner in time for bed.

And if the bedtime routine is "bath", how can the naptime routine be a mini-version of this? I need new ideas!

So anyway...

Current bed routine is:

• Nappy/jammies


• Brush teeth


• Read story


• Milk feed


• Get in sleeping bag with white noise (Ewan Shawn the Sheep)

He feeds for 20-30 minutes in the evening and then goes straight to bed (eyes are shut before his sleeping bag is zipped up). If I start too late, he will feed for about an hour before getting a second wind and then not going to sleep in his bed. So I'm trying REALLY hard to not let him fall asleep during supper. I do need to somehow swap the feed to the start or at least the middle of the routine, but until now he has absolutely not gone to sleep without a feed.

Current nap routine is:

• Sit in dark room for a few minutes on my knee with Shawn playing. I bounce my legs gently in time with the heartbeat


• Get in sleeping bag, give him a kiss and leave him

He starts crying before I've even turned away from the cot. Yes, it's a bit of separation anxiety, but he's done this since forever if I left him to take a nap. I've tried reading him a story before naps, but he just isn't big on reading. He usually wails at bedtime when he has his story; it's just not a relaxing thing to do for us. I've even given him a bath before his lunch nap on occasion, and these are the times that it's taken extra-long to get him to settle.

Hit me up with your routines!

Probably not the best for routine. But I generally change my lo downstairs into pjs and sleeps suit. Give a bottle. Cuddles. More bottle about 15 to 20 mins later. Brush teeth. Then she chooses who takes her to bed. Upstairs it's sing song with mummy always twinkle twinkle little star. Daddy does her snow globes. White noise put on. Then cuddle and she will lay down in arms another minute and in the cot, we pop hand on bum and back them after 20 seconds walk out. We also make sure she has a dummy to hold even though about 12 in her cot already.

For naps we generally do the same except no bottle. But generally she's just had lunch or a custard if we have messed up time for naps that day.

We don't do bath after dinner unless she's ill, as we tend to use her vapour stuff. We find she doesn't respond well after dinner tbh. Sometimes it's in the morning sometimes after afternoon nap.

We go through phases of lo crying when getting ready for bed. Then all of a sudden she stops, then comes back.

Have you thought about that lo simply just saying they are frustrated and annoyed they have to go bed and crying is the way their showing you. As long as lo isn't overtired? May be why their upset at naps and bedtime?

He's upset because I'm leaving him alone - not to go too much into the sleep training I'm doing, but I go back after a set amount of minutes to calm him down. When I go in and put my hand on his tummy, most of the time he calms down almost instantly.

As for awake times, I try and have him go about 3 hours between sleeps. It's my goal for him to be ASLEEP at the the 3 and a half hour mark, which is I think the maximum awake time for a 9MO. He's not over-tired; he just wants Mummy in the room. We're making progress with that, though.