Baby bedtime routines - what, how and when??

[Flo77]

What kind of routines have worked for you and how do you make baby stay asleep? My four month old thinks she should go to bed when I do and usually wakes up if I try to leave once she's sleeping.

I put my DD to down to sleep at 6pm after her bath and dinner. I never spoke to her when i put her down and i let her cry for about 15 mins before i went back in. i would put her down and still not speak to her. but you musk keep to the same rotine every day

Up until very recently I would put ds and dd in the bath together after dinner (dd is 4, ds is just 6 months) and then take ds in with us while we read dd a story. I would then go and feed ds and pretty much keep him up with me until I went to bed (we coslept). But this was getting exhausting and I expected it to be a hard habit to break. It hasn't been at all and now after dd has her dinner she has some quiet time to do sticking or whatever while I feed and put ds to bed, which is a very quick process now, come and sit with dd until I'm sure he's asleep (were in a flat so can hear him easily). It never takes more than 5 minutes. Then I give dd her bath, story and bed. It's much more manageable this way as I'm not trying to juggle them both at a time when I'm trying to get them to wind down. Ds does still get a bath btw, I just don't do it every day as he has excema!
Ds sleeps in a dark, quiet room and he is also taken in there for naps.
I say goodnight to him as I leave but otherwise don't speak, and I try not to feed him completely to sleep so he is still awake when he goes down. He doesn't really cry, might have a little grizzle but without fail he rolls over onto his front and goes to sleep. It is hard, but I felt that at 6 months we needed to establish a routine and it has benefitted everyone really- ds has a proper bedtime routine and I have some much needed time together with dd at the end of the day.

my 4 month old also thought he should wait for me to go to bed(or I thought he did). A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try to get him to go to bed earlier. It takes a while to get him to go down - I start trying around 7pm. We nurse, rock, go to crib, rock some more, shhhh & pat.....but now he's getting used to it and goes down more easily. (until I started this, he'd only go to sleep with me lying in my bed & I couldn't move him or get up again). I have chosen not to let him cry (although I totally don't judge people who do) but I do let him chat & shout to himself some. He sometimes sleep until somwhere between 11pm & 1am! I love my ds, but it's really been wonderful for dh & me to have a little time in the evening. Generally, he doesn't wake up any earlier than he used to when he went to bed at 9 or 10pm. AMAZING!!!

Thanks for the advice. I have started putting dd down earlier - about 7pm - and occasionally this works well. I still nurse her to sleep but once she is asleep I have sometimes been able to get up and go away, leaving her for a good few hours. HOwever, mostly it only works for a short time. She wakes after a few minutes and then I need to nurse her to sleep again. So I spend my evening going back and forth from the bedroom... Other nights after her first sleep she won't go back to sleep at all. I often then end up getting her up again where she'll sit up with us quite happily for another hour or so. I know this can't be good for getting her to understand about bedtime but I can't keep feeding her endlessly and if I just lie there not feeding her she gets all agitated and cries. I don't want to leave her to cry. ANy ideas??

sounds like your DD needs to start teaching her self to settle - start it off with a clear bedtime routine (bath, stories, feed - dont feed her to sleep, make sure she's awake but drowsy when you put her in the cot - you could read her a story as you put her down or just shush her). When she wakes again, dont pick her up unless she's crying - just gently shush her (get your partner to go in to do this too so she's not expecting to feed to sleep from your partner) and she should get drowsy again. My DS was the same - he needed to be fed to sleep until around 4 months but we broke it this way; it took about a week, and was hard, but then life was so much better. He rapidly became brilliant at self settling- and still is now.

I have a 4 mth old who has his 'dinner' at 4pm, bath around 6pm and then he falls asleep with us downstairs until he wakes for a feed around 10.30 pm. After this I take him to bed until morning. Should I be putting him to bed after his bath and still feeding at 10.30? Should I start bringing his 10.30 feed to an earlier time until it's around 7pm and then put him to bed for the night?? (I ask as my mum who says that I should make his 10.30 feed earlier until his last feed is around 7pm).

I'm a real novice at this but we have tried a routine at bed from early on an d my DD is 16 weeks and it's starting to work in the last few weeks - I have a bath with her at 6/6.30, she has a bottle and I sing to her; then I wind her while singing 'Blow the wind southerly' and then put her in her crib and rock her with my hand on her singing 10 in the bed, when she'll nearly asleep I switch to lucy in the sky with diamonds and other classics until she's out cold. My plan is to slowly rock her less and less over the next month so I can eventually just put a hand on her and sing. If she cries, which she usually does, I pick her up and pat her and sing 'Horsey horsey' until she's quite and put her down again - my rule is that as long as I have my hands on her if she cries I will wait until we've got to 5 in the bed before picking her up, and every night she does go to sleep; sometimes with one verse of 10, time times 3 - it depends. I think it will work, previously we had to drag her crib back and forth and march around with her and we gradually cut that down and then out all together, so we're making gradual progress. I've never tried leaving her, she's not that sort of baby, I'd rather see her asleep and leave when I'm sure I've got a few hours off!

Hi Flo77 - DD is 5 months and we have a pretty simple bedtime routine. Bath or dressed for bed, then a goodnight song from DH and PILs (its a bit silly but it is a nice thing to say goodnight to everyone in the house) then upstairs to be fed. I feed her to sleep. Once she has nodded off he takes her from me and puts her in her cot. He is much better at that bit than me.

Once she is upstairs feeding to cot can take anything from 15 mins to an hour. I try to have her upstairs by 6 so that if she takes a long time to settle then it doesn't eat into her night sleep too much.

She usually only wakes for two feeds - around midnight and 4am. If she wakes before 10ish then depending on if she is crying or just snuffling I either go in to feed her or leave her to see if she will settle.

It wasn't always so - I remember clearly the 2 hourly waking period. Can DP help with settling her after her feed?

muminsept - I wouldn't change what you are doing if it suits you. Sounds like your DS is doing fine.

tanicity - I like your playlist.

He being DH.

How do you all manage this? DS will happily have the bath and feed bit of his bedtime routine, but he's not remotely sleepy afterwards, and is often happily awake (with us, he is not happy if he's left by himself) for another 90 mins or so.

He has about 3.5 hours of naps during the day, his last nap ends at around 5 (any time from 4:30-5:30 though), and he is rarely in bed asleep before 8:30pm, usually gone 9.

It's driving me a teensy bit mad, as dp and i have almost no time together, as whoever is doing the 4am feed (DS usually only wakes once after 10:30pm feed) goes to bed about 10pm.

Help me get him in bed earlier!

Hopefully - don't despair. I think you are doing really well that you have DS only waking once after his 10.30 feed.

DD has been going through a bad napping phase recently, which also affected her nights. I have found that not letting her sleep after 4.30 helps to make sure she is sleepy for bedtime.

Recently she slept till 5 one afternoon so we didn't get her to bed till 7 - that night we were up and down with her till she finally settled at 9.

It seems a bit counter-intuitive and I have this discussion over and over with DH, (he always seems to forget ) but getting her to bed a bit earlier really makes a difference to how well she settles.

Mind you I am up at 7.30am with her, but that's a fair trade off for me.