12 week old routine

[poppyflower1803]

Help please!

I'm struggling to get my baby into a good sleep schedule. She is three months so I know she is still young and it's changeable however she is currently finally going to sleep at 11:30pm (which is too late for me nowadays!). She has a last nap at about 8, it's usually a very short power nap maybe 20/30 mins, then shows tired cues at around 10. So I go upstairs, do lullabies, change her nappy, put her snuzcloud on and usually give her a feed. She then falls asleep! I think great, pop her in the crib and within 15-30 minutes she is wide awake again. So I repeat the routine, she will sleep for a bit longer and then wakes up- and rinse and repeat until around 11:30/12am when she finally drifts off for the night.

She doesn't have scheduled naps yet as such, however her awake time is bang on 1 hour and 30 minutes. She will always need a nap after that time so she is getting enough sleep during the day. Her longest nap of the day js usually around 2/3 pm for up to four hours! If I try wake her up before she is ready, she just screams. She also fights her naps and screams before she goes to sleep, she always has done ever since being a newborn. She then sleeps through until 9am, unless my partner wakes her up at 6 getting ready for work. Unfortunately we also are having building work done, they start at 8am so from around 6 am we both are having disturbed sleep.

I really want to start trying to get her in a better routine, bed at 8pm, regular nap times and waking up at around 7am as she will be going to nursery in a few months so I can go back to study and work. I feel I just need to bring her bed time forward as she will sleep through the night but then not be disturbed in the morning! Plus some alone time in the evening would be nice!

Any advice from you wise ladies out there?
Thank you :)

Sending solidarity as my DS is exactly the same at nap times - he screams bloody murder and it can be really stressful.

Do you think your little one is possibly napping for too long during the afternoon? I always cap naps at 2 hours. Could you try to distract your little one when they wake up with some stimulating activities? Sorry if you’ve already tried this.

Is she sleeping 4 hours in a cot in the day or pushchair / sling?

She is currently contact napping her last few naps. If I put her in her cot she will wake herself up screaming. She still wakes herself up screaming while I'm holding her, but is easier to settle. At a loss on what to do :(

She also won't settle in her cot by herself at night or for naps. I always have to feed or rock her to sleep (to which we also have the screams). I have tried to pop her in drowsy and have only managed to get her to drop off a couple times. If she wakes up once in the cot, she has been able to self soothe back to sleep however. Though recently that has gone out the window since she's started screaming upon wake up.

Very stressful! I do think she is napping too long in the afternoon as she wake up so late! After waking up at 7 this morning, she fed and has gone back to sleep until just now!

Hope our little ones settle soon ♥️

I must add, she is a very content and happy babies in other ways, sleep is really our only issue at the moment. And I am very grateful for the long stretch of sleep we get! But the fight before sleep each time is very draining and getting me down as it's getting worse and worse and I feel I have tried everything! Before she would cry a bit but would settle, as she has gotten older she has more stamina to fight and fight!

My 18 week old is still contact napping . I just put her in cot awake, she settled in 10 minutes but then woke up 20 minutes later screaming. It's a nightmare isn't it? My bedtime still quite late with her

It's pretty normal for babies to have a late bedtime for the first few months, my baby was going to bed around 11pm at that age too but around 18 weeks he suddenly started settling down for the night around 8-9pm.

Also, I had no real routine until 4 months with my baby but if I have another I'll definitely try and start one earlier, probably around 12 weeks! A lot of people here will say to go with the flow and they're only little for a short while etc but for me everything became easier with a set nap schedule. We all slept a bit better at night, I could plan things around his naps and he was a happier baby when I was putting him to sleep at the right times. I'd play around with wake windows, google recommended 12 week old wake windows for a guide and then adjust them to see what works for your baby. A lot of people recommend huckleberry but I personally found their wake windows too short for my guy, he's fairly low sleep needs though.

It is very difficult! I know it is just a phase and she will eventually find her routine, but the screaming and crying is hard. Hope your little one settles for you soon :)

That's reassuring to know! I think I will have a look, maybe just gradually start to introduce a routine but not hope for any miracles. I'm not trying to 'sleep train' her as such, would never use cry it out or anything like that but it would be nice to have a bit more structure, especially as she sleeps so well once she is asleep, but getting to that point is a challenge :)

Just managed to get her to settle in the crib without any screams or rocking! I'm sure she will wake up in half an hour but that's an achievement in itself! Funny how babies change 🤣

Are you tracking routine and naps? If not huckleberry is really good for doing that. Wake windows should be around 1-2hrs for that age. If you pay for the monthly version which you can help cancel at any time it helps you understand when next nap should be. My baby normally goes down (after a fight) between 7-8pm and that’s after a last nap around 5-5.30pm, he’ll sleep till about a midnight from 7-8pm and the wake up about 3-4am, he’s currently up most hours after 4am till he gets up about 6-6.30am but he’s slowly doing longer stretches from midnight. Big one for me was tracking wake windows and making him nap during the day