at what age did you start to establish a 'bedtime routine'?

[babber]

at the moment my 11 week old ds goes to bed when i do at around 10.30 - 11pm (we're co-sleeping). he goes off to sleep easily (although i often bf/cuddle him till he drops off - but don't always need to) and wakes once during night for a feed. just wondering really what age other people have started the bath etc bedtime routine for their little ones? he does seem a bit sleepy arounfd 9pm but when i tried puttting him down then he wouldn't settle... its not really a problem at the moment as we're all happy with current arrangements (although woyld be nice for me and dp to have our evenings back) - just thinking Ahead i suppose!

my little one was a real night owl, and just gradually got earlier. now, at 7 months, i tend to get her ready for bed around half 8 or so, and feed her to sleep in our bed around 9ish (although all gone to pot atm as she has a cold .

this is a recent development though - at the beginning she stayed up later than i wanted to , then it gradually got to earlier and earlier and now we are starting to get a bit of our evenings back.

i don't do baths at night though, i prefer it in the morning to set her up for a nap. too knackered by the evening, and trying to get dinner on etc

Our bed time routine for both DDs started at 11pm. As they've grown older we've kept the same routine, but it's naturally shifted earlier and earlier, so that DD2 (6 months) now goes to bed at 7.30pm and DD1 (2) at 7pm.

Sleeping through the night is another issue though.

from birth. Bath at 10, massage, then feed in a quite dim room, no talking, lots of cuddling, then when they were sleepy into their bed.
They would then wake between 2 and 3 for a feed, again it was in a quite dark room no talking, and I'd only change them if they'ed pooed which was very rare..
The 2am bottle got later and later till at 7 weeks they were going through the night.
I then moved the bedtime farward half and hour each week till at about 3 months they were going 7pm till 7am

Thought it was a bit fluke when DD started to sleep through but did the same with my son and he was the same.

I will say though this was over 10 years ago now, and weaning was done at about 3 / 4 months, rather than 6 months nowadays.
mine would easily down a full bottle, and I'm not sure they would have slept through with out solids.

Started it at about 7 weeks with ds1 - earlier with ds2 (he just had to fit into ds1's routine really). I'm a real routine person though.