Bedtime Routine - When to introduce story, etc?

[rosiefean]

My 4.5 month old DS was a good sleeper early on, sleeping through from about 8 weeks IIRC. He's had a few illnesses (diarrhoea, a bad cold, nothing major) which has disrupted his sleep routine and although he's now mostly better he's waking more in the night. I think he'll get over it at some point, he's just still a bit windy and it's waking him.

Anyway, I'm thinking that his bedtime routine might need a bit of a tweak. We do bath, moisturise (sort of a massage, but not too long), bottle, winding/cuddle then bed. He's usually sleepy when we put him down and snoozes off by himself. However, on occasion (like tonight) he's knackered and falls asleep on me/DP and is put down asleep. Is this ok at nearly 5 months or should we start with a bedtime story after the bottle? And if he's knackered and falling asleep on us at 6 do we start bath/bed even earlier? Any tips would be gratefully received!

OUr dd is about the same age. We intoduced a routine of bath, breast and bed from 2 weeks - initially starting at 7 with the aimo f having her down at 8 but brought it forward with the clock change in October.

She gets her story whilst being fed - always the same one (The big night night book) and sometimes she gets Dinosaur Roar too. They're the only books I know by heart. We also talk through everything we've done during the day before we put her down awake.

I was thinking about adding another book in after the feed has finished (to eventually wean us off the big night night book and to a wider range of reading material) but that will require a little more light in the room and may need an earlier bath time to fit it all in!
We started with the big nigt nightstoy when she was about a week old. At 2 weeks she went to a wedding and was so overtired by 6ish but the words of the book got through the hysterics and I think confirmed to her that it was bed time - even if it was a pub hundreds of miles from home - and she calmed down and went to sleep in her car seat.

This doesn't answer your questions at all...

Thanks, that really does help! I was worried about him freaking out if we changed his routine* so introducing a bedtime book while he's being fed is a great idea. It might help to switch his association from bottle to book. Once he's used to that we can try the book-after-bottle thing.

We had a similar experience to your wedding thing last week... we went to the great-grantparents for boxing day and he started freaking out at 5.30 'cos there was no sign of a bath. We took him to their bathroom and changed him into his bedtime nappy/clothes and he instantly settled down again. It's interesting that they get used to a routine so quickly, and that they don't mind if it's tweaked a little but will not be happy if it's missed entirely.

• he's already a bit grumpy after his bath when he's getting changed for bed - it's clearly a "get on with it, I'm tired" cry as he can't possibly be hungry so soon after his previous feed, and the amount of grump is proportional to the amount/quality of naps during the day.

I have done bath, story, bfeed and bed with all of mine since they were about a month old, and when stopped bfeeding them switched the story to before milk with 1st 2, but dd2 has story at same time as cup of milk. All quite flexible, think it is us adults that get hung up on a highly set routine! As long as their is some pattern to bath/milk/story/bed they seem happy!