When should bedtime be for a 9 week old? Frazzled evenings...

[arthymum]

My ds is 9 weeks old. Prior to last week he was permanently grizzly and so I started making sure he napped regularly during the day and saw a big improvement. I also started a bedtime routine and he was going to sleep at between 7.30 and 8 (then waking for feed at my bedtime). All was going well.

But this week it has gone out of the window! He is tired at bedtime, sometimes drops off but now keeps himself awake until he gets hyper through overtiredness. I admit I give in and bring him downstairs so I can eat supper etc. He then goes to bed when we do and is out like a light, through complete overtiredness, would be my guess.

Is 9 weeks too young for a routine to work effectively? Am I expecting too much - are most babies still up in the evening at this point? Should i persist with a bedtime routine that is turning into a nightmare?

Help!

My DD didn't fall into a regular bedtime routine until she was probably about 6 months. Up until about 3 months she was rarely asleep before midnight and I spent too much time stressing about it. So imho I think you should relax, go with the flow and keep trying the bedtime routine for consistency but don't be hard on yourself for bringing him downstairs. Can he sleep in a moses basket or similar downstairs whilst you eat, or in a sling, until you go to bed? 9 weeks is very very young still!

He does have a moses basket which we bring down although mainly he likes to sit on our laps craning his head to try and look at the TV! He'll be too big for his basket in a couple of weeks though and will have to go into his cot in another room (too big for ours) which I guess will throw our routine out the window anyway!

He just seems so exhausted by 10pm, I worry he's not getting enough sleep. I try not to stress about it but I dread putting him down now because I just know he'll start screaming. I think you worry that it'll never happen, that they'll always be sitting on your knee until 10!

Don't know it this will help, but we tried to say that 7pm was bedtime from day 1. This meant that after this time we had dim lights, no visitors or loud noise. I would bring her downstairs if she was awake but not really interact with her much. It seemed to work itself out in the end.

I know some people would recommend not taking the baby out of the bedroom once settled but I thought life was too short!

HTH

hi arthymum, i too have a 9 week old and know that worry very well the routine we have for DS has evolved into bath at around 7.30, then feed and soft singing/cuddles in low lit bedroom usually 8-9pm. he's generally down by 9ish and although he might need settling once or twice initially, his sleep from then on is quite good. we started doing this once he was alert enough to notice and respond to stimuli like telly, music etc. as it was stressing him out being downstairs with us.

he often naps for a bit between 6pm and 7pm, so isn't desperately tired by bedtime - we try and eat tea at this point so there's a possibility of having some free time once DS is asleep. it's just the way things have evolved with DP's hometime, our dinner etc. and i expect it will change as DS changes...

sorry, that's probably no help at all

We had a similar experience with DS (now 7 weeks), and found that the solution for us was putting him down sooner, rather than later. If we put him to sleep as soon as he's bathed and fed, not waiting for any real sleep cues, he'll sleep through till 10:30, and from 10:30 through will 4am. he takes a while to settle after his 4am feed, and then sleeps until 7:30am. He's much happier since we made this connection, and we only have the odd bad evening when his gut is troubling him.

Also agree with treating anything after your chosen bedtime for him as 'night'.

We had a routine with DS1 from about 3 months. Bath, feed, bed and then feeds in the bedroom as and when required. With DS2 we tried to do this from Day 1, obviously didn't really work to begin with but he fell into a routine fairly quickly, by about 2 months from what I recall. The reason we did it from Day 1 is that we needed to show DS2 that bedtime was the same for both of them IYSWIM and overall it did work out well.

We always made sure that after bedtime, they stayed in their bedroom (or ours) for feeds and the like which did help I think.

Bedtime was about 7pm.

are you BF or FF?
if BF, most babies cluster feed in the evenings so it might be better to keep him with you.

Yes, sorry, forgot to say that any post-bedtime settling is done in the bedroom with low lighting and it does seem to help...DS gets a bit confused when he's tired and starts thinking he's hungry, so if we keep him in his half-asleep state it makes lulling him back into full sleep much easier.

Thanks for your messages. I will try a bit earlier.

Do you find it makes a difference when he wakes from his last nap? I try to make sure he isn't awake for more than 2 hours during the day - but this then means that he sometimes wakes from his last nap only an hour before 'bedtime'.

We try to treat it as 'night' but if he stays in the low lit bedroom he just screams until we go downstairs. We worry that we're setting up bad associations.

i think at this stage whatever works for you all is what's best. ppl on here have reassured me in the past that bad associations are unlikely to be made when babies are this young as they change so much.

I find that DS needs to be awake for a good 60-90 mins before bed, or he's not tired enough, but he's quite a wakeful baby. I try to compromise between letting him nap enough in the day and giving him awake time before 'bed'.

For example, I try to give him a nap from 4:15-5 (bed time is theoretically at 7pm), but if he goes down at 4:30, I'll wake him at 5 or 10 past 5 anyway, so he has a slightly shorter nap, but not ridiculously short.

my DS never went to bed before 9:30pm and still doesn't really - if I try and get him in there before then he wakes up again. His natural rhythm is sleep 9:30pm to 8am with one break usually - he is now 11mo.

I think at 9wo you are over-stressing a bit about it - hope it settles down for you soon.

I think hopefully is giving really good advice here. What she said worked for our 3.

Oh I know we are over-stressing about it! That's what babies are for, right?!

I just don't know what I should expect - as I suspected we probably just need to chill out, keep things quiet and hope that sooner or later he decides on a bedtime. I was just worried that I was setting up some kind of bedroom bad/downstairs good association by bringing him down when we give up on settling him.

Both my DSs were put to bed at 7pm. Didn't have much of a routine for teh rest of teh day, but it was bath at 6 and bed at 7. Reason for this was with DS1 I was on my own all day with him, (DH was away for basically the whole of his first year - in the Navy), and I was going mad. Just needed to sit down, alone, and watch telly / phone a friend / eat dinner in the evening. I started this at 3 weeks, and it took 3 evenings of yelling...thereafter, life was a lot better. DS2 wasn't quite so easy, but not far off.

They are now 4 and nearly 2 and bedtime is still 7pm. They get up about 6.45 ish.

I know that other people feel differently and might accuse me of all sorts, but it worked and we are all happy!

the advice about shared sleep to reduce the risk of SIDS refers to all sleep, daytime naps and evening sleep, not just the night time once you have gone to bed.

Neither of mine went to "bed" until they were at least 6 months old, until then they slept either on our laps or in a bouncy chair.

I'd leave the whole concept of a rigid bedtime for a good while yet. By all means start the "tea, bath, pj's" routine about 7pm, but don't expect your baby to sleep alone for a good while yet!

I started off with my DD going to bed together at 7pm from the start as I was exhausted and knew I'd be up in the night... I nuerotically kept going to bed with her at that time until she was about 8 weeks because I worried she'd wake up if I wasn't there... The first night I left her she didn't even stir!

Around about that time hough she started to completely burnout by 7pm so kept going to bed completely overtired and without her last feed... So bit by bit she dragged her bedtime forward to where it is now, which is a shocking early 5.30pm... I would love to get it back to 7pm but if I try to wake her up after what would be a nap at 5pm she'd scream the house down... She knows what she likes and likes what she knows! Wonder where she got that from!

I also did bedtime at 7ish...any extra feeding/settling after that done in bedroom mostly, try earlier.

I just thought that i wouldnt sleep well downstairs with lights, tv on and voices so why would my baby??

We're also in a 7-to-7 routine, theoretically . Bath between 5:45 and 6 depending on the last nap of the afternoon, which should end by 5 but sometimes runs over by 10-15 min. Then feed in darkened room in her sleepingbag. This has been the target routine since birth, but it only started working around 9 weeks. There is also a growth spurt around 9 weeks, so don't worry too much. Sounds like you're doing well, arthymum!

A growth spurt, you say? Interesting - DS has been waking a lot more in the night than he usually does...he's one hungry little sucker.

Yep you've got a growth spurt roughly at the start of every month for the foreseeable future!! I found sleep clicked into place very well from 10-17 weeks, then it went a bit shakey and now its evening out a bit (DD is 21 weeks now)

a friend once asked me when the growth spurts would stop.
i said 'oh, about 18 years or so...'

We have always gone with a 6pm wind down.

6pm upstairs while you run the bath. Take off nappy and let him kick his legs on the floor while you get things ready. This can tire them out!! Get bedroom ready with curtains drawn and nightlight etc

6.20pm - bathtime - dim lights and quietish

6.35 - into darkened bedroom and clean nappy and PJs

6.45 - story or gentle talking and a feed,

7pm - bedtime

Mine are 6 and 4 now but we stuck with it (tho changes as they get older) and they have both slept thru the night since tiny tots.

Thanks Majeika, that's really useful. Maybe I am trying to rush the routine and need to slow and calm down a bit and see if that helps him.

He's fast asleep now so I know he can do it!

I think if you rush it they sort of know you are rushing it!!

Slow and steady and soothing was our way. Get DH involved too. If you know that is the routine and stick to it then he can take over as and when and just let you do the feed at bedtime.

Also, I never brought ours downstairs once the 'routine' was in place. They knew it was bedtime and that is where they stayed.