At what age did your baby start having a 'bedtime'?

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DD2 is now 4 weeks. She's an absolute treasure and her sleeping pattern isn't bad at all - we're basically on three-hourly feeds. But, she goes through a period between about 5 and 9-10 when she seems to need to be constantly held/fed before she will settle. I'm fine with that because she's obviously still so tiny but I think long-term it's going to be tricky. Basically I'm getting to bed at 10.30/11, then up again at 2 and then at 5, then DD1 wakes up soon after 6 and the lack of sleep will start to take its toll before long. Plus we're mix-feeding because DD2 was losing weight and I was eventually told to give her formula top-ups so feeds take a good hour each once you factor in the half-hour breast-feed, the bottle and the winding/settling etc.

Had a look at the baby and toddler book by she who must not be named and frankly and then put it down again pretty quickly - just not realistic for me. Would really appreciate any advice on how to gradually start getting her to sleep a bit earlier. After her morning feed she'll then go on to sleep for another 2-3 hours so I just need to find a way of shuffling the whole thing back a bit so that the toddler and baby sleep times roughly coincide!

So please tell me what has/hasn't worked for you. Thanks v much

Just to clarify - what I'm trying to find out is how to gently get one's newborn into a habit of going to bed around toddler time i.e. anywhere between 6.30 and 8 really

I think it depends on the child. DS has done this since 5 weeks -although there was a week where it took a good couple of hours to settle him now he goes without a peep, despite being wide awake. (he makes up for this good behaviour by waking lots beteen 11 and 6).

DD2 also went to bed at 7 from about 4 weeks (she was settling earlier and earlier and just progressed naturally). but spent 6 weeks waking again at 7.30 needing another feed. i'd put her down and have 30 mins to get DD1 to bed before having to go back in to DD2.

Anyway, so I would say watch out for when she is falling alseep and try to bring it forward gradually, and persevere.

good luck

I was thinking about asking this too, at the moment DS of 10 weeks feeds at 5am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm and 9pm, and goes to bed at 9,30ish..

So I also am wondering when we should start working round to a more normal kids 'bedtime'

About 9 weeks I think.

DS used to cluster feed and we co-slept so I think we were quite "late" in doing this compared to some but it worked for us!

It was somewhere around 18-20wks that I started a bedtime routine with a bath around 6/6.30pm and then a final feed with him being asleep in his cot about an hour later.

Before this, I used to cuddle him on the sofa until I went to bed about 10pm and he'd only have a bath once a week. There was no gradual change, we just started the routine and used lots of "signs" so that he got used to the idea that bed time was coming - bath, singing "twinkle, twinkle", grobag, dimming the light in his room. He soon got used to it and although we did have a long wait for him to start sleeping through, he would fall asleep after his bedtime routine >95% of the time.

Hope that helps and good luck!

thanks

Fussy evenings are very normal, and are supposed to improve between 8 and 12 weeks. DS is 12 weeks on Saturday so I've told him he has 3 days to sort it out.

I think some babies have more of a natural sense of time / routine than others. DS came up with his own bedtime - by about 4 weeks he woke up between 8 and 9pm 10 days in a row, at which point I did the bedtime routine. Before that, I just did it at whatever time he woke up felt nearest to 'bedtime' IYSWIM.

Since then he's settled on 8pm as bedtime, and 5 days out of 7 he will wake himself up for a feed then. (And he feeds in a completely different way from how he feeds the rest of the day, so I know that he thinks it's bedtime, not just any other waking.)

I've not done anything to get him into that system, it just happened. And because he is usually exhausted by evening, we don't really have a bedtime routine any more - I just take him into the darkened bedroom, feed him, change his nappy, feed him again and he goes to sleep.

I think what I'm trying to say is that babies are all different, so don't worry too much if yours doesn't do what you think they should when you think they should do it. And my view is that bedtime should be whenever suits you, not when a 'normal' kid's bedtime is. DS goes to sleep at 9-9.30 after a very long feed, which suits me fine as I go to bed at the same time. Go with whatever works for you.

From birth we treated 7pm as bedtime even if she was awake one or two hours later. When she woke at any point from 7pm to 7am(-ish) we treated it as night time and fed her in dim light, closed curtains, minimal fuss and noise, always upstairs in the bedroom, and little communication. If she woke between 7am and 7pm then it was bright lights, normal noise levels and business as usual. Around 3 months the nightly feeds became 6.45pm, 10.30pm and 4 or 5am and all those feeds were minimum fuss and straight back to bed feeds until we got to 6.45pm and 6.30/7am which is as it is today (21 months old).

Just checking back in to say thanks for all your comments. She's now 5 weeks old and though the fussy evenings are still ongoing I've done a bit more reading about it and now get that it's completely standard at this point. And she's now going 4 and occasionally 5 hours between night feeds so I consider myself pretty lucky actually and am feeling a bit more human.