When do I need to start a bedtime routine?

[beansprout]

Ds is 10 weeks old so I suspect it is a bit soon, but when is a good time? He currently goes down for the night at c.10pm and sleeps through to 8am with one feed, so I'm ok for the moment, but am keen to develop good habits from early on.

Any advice appreciated. TIA.

That seems a really good pattern already. I would do all that you can to keep going on as you have been. Maybe start by gradually bringing his bedtime forward by 10 to 15 mins each night till (hopefully) you get to a time which is good for you. Till he starts having regular daytime naps it is hard to be too regular about night sleeps. Once you can see a pattern with naps (ie a good am and pm nap) then maybe you can start to be more particular about bedtime.

Or I suppose another route might be to work on easing out his nightime feed and to focus on that rather than the time he goes down. Although that can be tricky. Personally if you are both happy I would just keep things as they are for now - I think you could do more damage in the long run if you rush him into a routine he isn't ready for yet. So long as you are happy with the sleep you are both getting maybe follow his lead for the time being, seeing as he is so young.

I started a bedtime routine with DS when he was 8 weeks old - I decided I wanted my evenings back and luckily he seemed to agree. I do have a DS who loves his sleep though - I think he used to get cross in the evenings when he was very little because we didn't put him to bed.

With my DS I started a routine at about 3 months which was to bath him and feed him with low lights at about 10 pm. Over time we gradually moved this forward until at 6 months it was 7.45 pm. But DS was quite hard to put down etc and I did things differently with DD.

DD from being born went to bed at 7.30 pm. Although sometimes it might take a couple of hours and some breast feeds before she settled in the early weeks. From when the cord dropped off she was bathed with DS, then breast fed. When she got teeth at 5 months we moved onto bath, feed, teeth, story, song, bed.

Sorry, I'm not giving very coherant advice here. My experience is a bit mixed so I'm not sure which way I'm advising! My ds always slept really badly with a lot of feeds and cuddling and we ended up doing cc several times only succeeding after he was 1.
Dd however slept wonderfully from birth and was going through the night from 8 weeks. I suppose I gave her much more of a structure from birth but at the same time she was a really easy baby so it seemed like I was following her lead although she was fitting in with our structures and routines. Looking back at it that way you probably are right to introduce a routine now! I probably sounded doubtful in my prior posts as I was recalling all the problems I had with ds but in retrospect I don't think I was ever consistent enough with him. I do think it is very important to be as firm and organised with the daytime naps as you are with bedtime - and for me with dd that meant staying at home for naps, not having them ad hoc in the pushchair or carseat.

Sounds like I had similar experience with my two to cupcakes. Would definitely start bedtime routine now. Then if/when you are ready you can adjust the time as already suggested.

read up on what a good routine should be before you go ahead with one! Start as you mean to go on. Elizabeth Pantley's book is excellent for this stuff and really helped us with our crankey baby.

For example, even though your DS is down at 10pm, do a routine from 6pm - it doesn't matter that he's up again at 10pm to feed cos he's so young. But, as he gets older and his feeds will stretch from 7pm-ish until midnight, he'll already be in the routine of bed at 7pm, IYKWIM!

Since 6 weeks, my DS has been bath at 5pm then snuggly bosom with dimmed lights and quiet until 6:30pm. Bed awake or dozy - v.impt so they learn to get themselves off to sleep. The routine needs to start 1 hour before bed so you avoid over-tiredness.

god, I sound like a smug cow don't I!
I'm pleased our routine works but I'm sick with dread most nights that DS is suddenly going to decide to wake up every hour.

WE've never really followed a bed time routine, obviously bath him, change him, then give ds a beftime bottle about 7pm ish!!
Dp takes him to bed, and ds is happy to play for about an hour in his cot. He always falls asleep, and wakes up 12 hours later, sometims as late as 10am!!
He always has a nap in the morning and afternoon, and we havent had a problem. Oh yea, ds is 10 months old now, and by doin this, hes been sleeping through thw night from about 2 months old

6 weeks imo

I was told that the routine isn't necessarily about exactly the same time each night, but the same process (eg bath, bottle, low lights, cuddle). I used to gradually bring bedtime forwards, getting my cues from dd - if she was over-tired she wouldn't go down. Everytime we had a phase of not going down we would bring it forward half an hour. It worked for me, but I have a very good sleeper. [don't hate me] icon.

The sooner the better to establish the 'routine' - bath, bottle, story (I have read stories to ds since birth - at first I just read out loud from whatever I was reading.) However it sounds like you have a happy son who is behaving impeccably for his age - follow your insticts.