How to establish bedtime routine & stop sleeping on the sofa?

[Meandacat]

Struggling to know how to proceed with trying to establish a bedtime routing for 9wo DD and I have a couple of questions...

1. I'd love to know if/when your DC started sleeping in some recognisable pattern.

Reason: There is no pattern to our DDs sleep routine which is making setting any routine for bedtime difficult. She is happy being fed every 4 hrs, but when and how long she sleeps between feeds is totally erratic. So though we are trying to establish that bath and bedtime is sometime around 10 or 11pm*, it doesn't mean she'll actually go to sleep. She might, but that all depends on when she last slept through the day and there's no predicting how that will have gone. I particularly don't know what to do when she's fought her naps all day and then finally conked out around teatime.

*we've experimented with various times, depending on her feed schedule through the day which is, in turn, dictated by when she has finally fallen asleep the previous night (once asleep she might go for anywhere between 4-6 hours).

2. How do you cope with sleeping in the same room and making sure at least one parent gets some sleep?

we can't seem to make the transition away from sleeping on the sofa. I know she'll outgrow her moses basket soon (if the handles don't go on it first) and I really want her to join us in the bedroom all night, but her erratic sleeping means that either DH or I usually end up taking her back to the lounge so the other person can sleep. If she's just fussing, DH can at least work online at the same time. Or I'll cuddle her while watching TV. Can't do either in the bedroom, so staying with her there just seems to become a stressful exercise in trying to make her sleep (which inevitably doesn't work).

I know that neither of these are huge issues compared to many. But I would just really love to know how other people manage things.

If I was you I would start a routine asap. Think of what you will want in the future. Mine has his bedtime routine around 7pm. Bath, cuddle, story, warm bottle and then cot. I even use lavender oil so that he associates all this with bed time.And we used to use one of those music and light boxes. And i made him fall asleep in the cot too, I used to pat his shoulder until he fell asleep and this became a sleep association.
Has she got her own room to go into eventually? Could you put her cot in there and also a bed for you ? Then you could sleep with her until she was older and your partner could get a good night`s sleep, when he has a day off you could swap.

My DD was in a bath bed routine at about 13 weeks - we decided that bedtime was always goign to be between 19.00 - 19.30 and worked towards that. We'd been waking her to feed her before this so we weren't in any routine.

From about 8 weeks she always had a bath, lullabys from the monitor and and a feed (wasn't able to before this as I'd had a c-section). Eventually she seemed to realise that this meant it was time for deep sleep but it took several weeks of disrupted evenings first - with 1 of us constantly shush/patting her to make her go to sleep. She also sleeps better now she's in her cot/bed in her room.

Good luck - keep trying it does seen eventually to work.

Forgot to say I also use Johnson's bedtime ltion and massage her at this time - so its another special bedtime routine.

Patronising alert, apologise if you already know all this, if so just ignore sorry

Even if her routine is all over the place, still do the same old thing at the same time and hopefull eventually it will fall into place when she has a longer gap in between feeds. You can manipulate the feeds slightly on order to try and get a longer/ shorter sleep following it. I am not good at this, but you could at 3pm give a slightly smaller feed and then she sleeps a little less and the next feed at around 7 (bedtime) she wakes up hungrier, and then has a larger feed and hopefully a longer sleep. So your bedtime sleep becomes longer. Then there is dream feeding. So at around 11pm, before they wake for next feed, you gently pick them up whilst still asleep and give them a feed and then cuddle them upright for a burp then put them back down to sleep. This might put her on for another 4 hours promoting a big night sleep.

Agree with Liskey that might be all over the place to start with but should settle down and get the idea. I was lucky with 1st she just slept through at 7 weeks onwards. Second totally different and I had to do all this, was a real shock.

First of all, congratulations on your new DD!

The main thing that shows babies that the day is day and night is night is the change in light and noise and the fact that Mummy and Daddy don't want to play!

I would make sure that in the day there is lots of noise and light and activity and talking, even when she is napping so that she knows it is awake time.

Perhaps you could try keeping DD in the dark bedroom and ignoring her if she wakes (obviously not if she's upset or needs a feed or anything) - try it for a week knowing you will get less sleep, and see if it helps? Or again doing the same thing but take it in turns to sleep in another room. Get a nightlight so you can read/use your phone etc without lighting up the room too.

Hope it gets better for you!

Liskey, thanks for the encouragement that it might work eventually if we stick with it. I might try massaging her too as the last couple of nights her bath has just ended up waking her up even more.

Thanks, Thinker, too. Your suggested schedule makes sense but we've never had any success with a dream feed. She's a 'mare to burp so we always end up either waking her in the attempt or putting her down with a windy tummy...which then also wakes her up! Aargh!

We do have a separate room for her, though it's full of baby junk at the mo'! I have thought that maybe we should just get a monitor and put her straight in there. I'm also considering a lullaby night light thing. Shush/patting to get her to sleep has never seemed to work either!

And thanks, GetThePartyStarted, for the congrats too.

We tried infacol for the wind which seemed to help - that and Dr Brown's bottles. We had lots of evening's where we never saw each other but eventually she realised we didn't play at that time. It is hard work but its worth it - espeically as they appreciate the pattern and know they can sleep then i think.

I bought the book Teach Yourself Baby Sleep and it really helped us to establish a pattern. DD is only 8 weeks but is now sleeping around 8 hours straight following her 'bedtime routine'.

The darkened room is definitley what helped us - we had been keeping dd downstairs with us and that was making her irritable. ALthough the bath does wake her up a bit, she seems to really enjoy it and it relaxes her.

I also invested in a musical seahorse (from Argos) it has a softly lit belly and plays lullabies for 5 mins and gradually gets quieter and the light fades gradually. THis really helps and I think dd now associates this with sleepy time.

HTH