Bedtime

[marathongirl]

What is a typical bedtime for a 7 week old baby?

I wouldn't say there is a bedtime at this stage. By this stage I had ds in a carrycot until I went upstairs to bed - at which point one of us would carry it up. He would wake up every 3 hours all day long, but by 7 weeks would often go 5 hours overnight. When he was a few months old, I would settle him upstairs in the carrycot from about 10pm with the monitor and the movement (breathing) sensor on. After a while it just sort of evolved to us going upstairs at about 8-9ish and having last feed and falling asleep to it. Which then evolved to be us having a proper bedtime routine with books, toothbrushing etc and going up to bed to be asleep by 8 ish. However, at 7 weeks we were nowhere near this - more sort of going through a daytime routine of him waking, feeding him, putting him down again, him waking again etc.

Thanks!!

my DS has had a bedtime of 7pm since 1 week old, of course he didn't always agree with it but starting a good bedtime routine has meant he is in bed between 6.30-7pm and has been every night since he was 6 weeks old. Its never too early to start a bedtime but at such a young age it might not always work. HTH

WHen you put your child down at 7pm at the age of mine (7 weeks) did you give him a feed before you went to bed or did he just sleep until he woke up for his first feed of the night?

We follow GF (as I didn't have a clue!) and she suggests a dreamfeed at 10pm so we do this. Some people let them sleep till they wake but it depends if you want them to sleep their longest stretch from 7pm or through the night (i.e 10pm is more friendly than 2/3/4am!)

Who is GF?

Gina Ford..... aagh!

Hiya Marathongirl, I have a 7wk old DD, we roughly follow the routine from the 'Baby Whisperer' book. I wanted to follow Gina Ford routines but the evenings don't fit in with family life and the Baby Whisperer isn't quite as rigid so fits us better. This is roughly how our day goes, each day is a little different but this is the basic routine:

8am- Feed
10am-11am Sleep
11am - Feed
12.30pm-2pm Sleep
2pm - Feed
3.30pm - 5pm Sleep
5.30pm Bath
6.30pm - 7.30pm Sleep
8pm Cuddle & storybook (to calm down)
8.30pm Sleep (bedtime - everything after this treated as night time)
11pm Wake and give dreamfeed

She then usually wakes to feed somewhere between 4am and 6am.

The only 'feed to sleep' we do is the dreamfeed and the middle of the night feed (unless we're having a really bad day !!)

Hi, I have always tried to establish a bedtime from pretty much day one, although with both my DDs it only really started working properly from about 5 weeks. By 7 weeks though I had an established 7pm / 7.30pm bedtime. I bf so would give one side at around 5.45 before bath, then bath at 6 ish then finish the feed after bath (say 6.30ish) then into bed 7 / 7.30 ish.

DS is now 1 week old..... he joined his sisters in the bath for the first time last night at 6pm, then I fed him and put him to bed at 7pm ish and he obligingly slept until waking for a feed at 10.30pm, which was nice, although I don't expect such order from him on a regular basis at this stage!!! I do think starting a structured bedtime routine that suits you from an early age is a good thing (as long as you don't expect it to work all the time initially) as you will probably find that after a little while it DOES work as they get used to it and expect it.

DS is 8wks old, so following this thread closely! iwalktheline, am impressed with your routine. I had a similar one with DD, but she was ff which made things a little more predictable. DS is bf so far, and i'm putting him down for naps but he keeps waking after 45 minutes. How do you get your DD to sleep for longer? I don't go into him as soon as he wakes to see if he'll re-settle, but he ends up in a full blown crying attack, so i go to get him. And does your DD stay happily awake for 2 hours at this age?
I have a toddler as well, so DS routine will have to fit around her, but would like to have some kind of structure.
Sorry for hijack..........

GF here too . But both my dc's seemed to suit it, it wasn't a battle of constant crying so we went with it. I have to say that it has made bedtimes easier and kept me sane.

I did try the last two nights for a more structured bedtime routine. Last night went great. He was in bed by 7:30 we had a dreamfeed at 9:30 (I like going to bed early myself) he slept until 3am. I was sooo grateful for a 5 hour stretch of sleep for myself Maybe this is the beginning of something great!!!!

I have a question for IWALKTHELINE...I see you keep DS up for two hours after her morning feed and roughly that after every feed. Does she go down for a nap easily? I'm trying to play around with the right amount of time between wake and back down for another nap. I just don't want him to get overtired. I would appreciate your comments.
Thanks

Caspercat - DD is breastfed and does naturally tend to wake after 45mins, but often she just needs shushing to help her back to sleep, though often she can settle herself, though she does have a dummy for naps (whicj I'm sure I'll regret later!). Sometimes she does have a complete meltdown and I have to start all over again, calming her etc but thats becoming less frequent now. We're using the shush/pat method from the Baby Whisperer and it seems to work but really took a while at the start.

After the 8am feed she is happy for about 2hrs awake, though it varies a bit day to day. That wasn't by design, it just seems that she is happy to be awake longer in the mornings, after the big nighttime sleep I guess. The other 3hr cycles in a day only have her up for 1.5hrs.

Marathongirl - She does goes down quite easily using the shush pat method when needed, though sometimes she decides that she simply will not sleep (like yesterday ). As soon as I see the first sleepy sign, normally the first big yawn or her getting crabby, I take her upstairs and we do the exact same nap/bed time routine. I aim to get her into her cot drowsy but awake so she settles herself to sleep. I often have to shush her to keep her calm whilst she drifts off. Also, we always swaddle as her arms are all over the place and she wakes herself up with them.

DS SCREAMED for 2 hours at 'bedtime' for the first 7 weeks of his life. I just held him,rocked him, cuddled him and fed him until he would calm down. No way could I have put him in to a bedtime routine because he just didn't want to play ball.

Then all of a sudden at 8 weeks, he decided that he did want to go to bed at a decent time and bedtime moved from 10.30pm to 6.30pm in a few days - just like that. No intervention from me. I think some babies settle in well to sleep and others don't, so I'd just go with what your baby is able to do at this age.

I think those first few months are so strange and unpredictable, just go with what your baby does and then settle in to a routine when DC is ready.