Putting a baby to bed...

[maybug]

I have read various posts where people say they put their babies to bed at 7 or 8pm... my dd is 8 wks old and will fall asleep at the end of a feed at anytime from 9.30pm onwards (she feeds a lot throughout the evenings). I'd like try getting her to sleep earlier or at least start to get to a similar time each evening. Msybe it's too early for this. She tends not to fall asleep unless she is feeding or being rocked. Putting her down to sleep whilst she's still awake is not successful1! Just wondered what other people's thoughhts/experiences are. I'm keen to keep things baby-led but happy to nudge her in the right direction as it were.

maybug from about 10 weeks I put both of mine down to sleep awake to get them used to self settling they did cry a little bit but not much and I went to them if it went on longer than a couple of minutes
they start to stop the cluster feeding in the evening at about this age
both of mine were demand bf

She's still very young.

In my experience (I have 3) none of them have really moved towards a 'bedtime' until around 12 weeks or so. Until then they fed often in the evening and I just kept them down with me (I had a carrycot/Moses basket downstairs) until I went to bed.

I would wait a bit longer, especially if she cluster feeds in the evening still. No rush!

Around 10 weeks we started to put dd in the moses basket (in the cot) at around 7.30. She is usually awake at this point (although v. tired)and we put the mobile on and give her a dummy (which she only gets at night). It takes anywhere from 2 mins to an hour of going up and down the stairs to put the dummy back in/turn mobile back on/talk to her but she does eventually drop off. She doesn't really cry just chunters to herself and sometimes has a bit of a wimper.

She is almost 14 weeks now and I'm hoping she is gradually learning to go to sleep of her own accord.

We have been having a bedtime routine since DD was about a week. However, it only started working when she was about 5 and half weeks. I BF her around 5pm, then she has a bath, then feed her again after bath and then bed by 7pm. She sleeps until about 10.30pm then feed again then back in bed.

I could not ket her cry at all so the way we did it was by using a dummy. Initially, every time the dummy fell out, she cried and we went and put it back in. Eventually, after a few weeks of doing this, she now falls asleep and if the dummy falls out, she is not bothered.

DD is in the moses basketin her cot in her room for this sleep. We then transfer her to our room once she has had a feed around 10.30pm

Just to add that before we started doing a bedtime routine properly, DD was cluster feeding a lot at this time but I found that by giving her a big feed at 5pm and then another one around 6pm then again at 10.30pm, she was much happier with this. If she did wake between 7pm and 10.30pm and didnt want the dummy, then I would feed her again in case she was still hungry.

I used to wake mine up (yes wake them) at 10pm and give them a bath, massage and last feed/top up in a quiet dark room... they would then go down at say... 10.30pm.. wake for a feed at say... 2.30am, again I would feed them in a dark room with no chatting or changing unless the nappy was really wet... they would then wake at about 6.30am..

after a while the 2:30am feed gets later and later until they are going through from 10:30pm to 6:30am.. then I moved the bed time forward each week till they were going from 7.00pm to 7.00am at 11 weeks...
My friend gave me this advice, (I thought it was fluke) I had nothing to lose and it worked with both of mine...
I am a very routine person so it suited me fine

Ds used to be put to bed in our room at 11pm after his late feed when this age. Before that he would sleep in the moses basket in te lounge or on us if he needed to. Then at around 12 or possibly a bit later we started putting him to bed earlier in our room using the monitors.
He's now 9mo old and usually sleeps 8.30-8, has been doing so since around the 12 wk mark but he has always been a good sleeper. Would put him to bed earlier but he takes ages to feed in general so we have to make sure all his feeds and meals have been done before he goes to bed. He has slow weight gain so quite important he fits them all in.
HTH

Maybug, DD went to bed between 9-10 upto about 6 months, she then slept through relatively early. DH wanted to spend time with her in the evenings so bed at 7, he'd only see her for 30mins or so. She now at 7 months goes to bed between 8-9, and will probably stay like that until she's older. She does have a nap about 6pm though.