7pm bedtime - suggestions?

[Meandacat]

This isn't really a huge problem compared to some, I know, but as it involves crying it out which I am finding hard, I would appreciate input...

In an effort to reclaim our evenings, DH and I are trying to introduce our 12wo to bedtime around 7pm-ish, with the usual bath and feed beforehand. But she's not buying it.

Tbh, I feel a bit of an idiot as it's only slowly dawned on me from reading things here and elsewhere that early evening is when babies are supposed to go to bed! Unfortunately we had started by just keeping her in her moses basket in the lounge and someone would stay up/sleep on the sofa, ready to leap in to action when she needed fed while the other got a good night's kip in bed. I knew we needed to move on from this, however, so about two weeks ago we started taking her into our bedroom with us around midnight and putting her in the crib - all went well. So this week I felt that we should try to introduce her to a more sensible 6.30-7pm bedtime, and we're therefore trying to start putting her in her crib at that time but she HATES it! I am listening to her cry now on the monitor. And the more we try to comfort her (shushing, patting, rocking, whatever), the more the cries. I should add that she falls asleep as she feeds in the lead up to this, so it's not that she's not sleepy, I don't think. Also, she's been up all afternoon (well... since 3).

We've only been at it 2 days but I can't bear hearing her cry alone in her crib. That said, she is crying less hard than she did last night. She also only cried for about 10-15 minutes at a time, though on and off for about 3/4 hour. And she is finding her knuckles to suck on in between. But I feel so cruel! Am I tackling this completely wrongly? Or are we doing the right thing and we just need to stick with it?

Agree with lots of the previous posters - don't worry about it, she will find her own routine. According to some sleep books, early bedtimes are biologically determined, but in many babies they don't really start to develop until 3-4 months, maybe even later. IIRC it was about 3.5 months before DH and I managed to eat dinner together - either I was feeding, or one of us was pacing the streets with a shrieking baby in a sling. (This was till about 9pm so being out with the pram at 6 is totally normal!)

Many babies won't develop a more predictable nap pattern until 4 or 5 months or so. It does make your day feel completely chaotic, but it does improve.

Most babies this age can only stay happily awake for 1.5 - 2 hours at a time before they become overtired (even if they've had lots of naps earlier in the day). If she's awake for longer than this in the afternoons, she is probably too tired to sleep easily in the evening. Try soothing her to sleep within an hour and a half of waking up again. (Colicky babies are often more wakeful than this, but you said you didn't think she had colic.)

If she's fussing and crying but not able to sleep in the evening, I'd offer her more milk - IIRC both bf and ff babies tend to want to cluster feed in the evenings. I personally wouldn't wake her at midnight to feed - she will wake and tell you when she's hungry.

We had a very short bedtime routine so that we could do it quickly at whatever point in the evening DS started to seem tired. As he got more predictable we were able to lengthen the routine. Even now, though, at 5 months, bedtime is anywhere between 6 and 7.30, rather than a set time, because we have to adjust it according to when his last naps finished & how tired he is. You will soon get the hang of what works for your baby, even if it doesn't feel like it now.

Don't worry about her being able to get herself off to sleep on her own for now - she is so little.

You are doing a great job - congratulations on having made it this far. Your first baby is absolutely madness and it feels at first as if you will never get to any sort of normality, but it does improve as they gradually settle down.

And ignore anyone else's negative comments - they haven't got your baby so they are only saying what worked for them, not what would (necessarily) work for you.

What AngelDog said - she's quickly becoming the sleep guru!

I managed to more-or-less get DD into a bedtime routine by 12 weeks, but it's flexible (between 18.45 and 20.00, depending on her last nap and how tired she seems) and definitely doesn't involve any crying.

FWIW, we had a similar routine to you - she was in with us until our bedtime, then we brought her through. Then I started doing a bedtime routine (bath, massage, night nappy, feed, lullaby.... it gets curtailed by skipping bath and massage if she's too tired), but didn't leave her on her own in our room to sleep - I would stay with her doing stuff on the laptop or reading under a dim-ish light and picking her up etc. if she cried. However, this was quite easy as DH works until 21.30 during the week.

Eventually, DD often seemed contented enough to lie there and drift off with her dummy in, so I would mooch about doing stuff like putting away laundry and continually checking on her. Now, she'll usually go to sleep around 19.30 and I can leave her to it. She is currently 17 weeks, but 13 weeks corrected for prematurity.

She wakes up a lot for feeds - sometimes every 2 hours or more - but usually goes straight back to sleep and in this fashion, mostly sleeps until 0800.

Fussy time in the evening was the same for DD until I cottoned onto the fact that she'd simply been awake too long. Now I try and make sure she's had a nap ending around 1730 or so and start the bedtime routine somewhere between 18.00 and 18.45. I worked out that my DD couldn't go much more than an hour without needing a snooze and she's been generally less fussy since I made the connection!

You're doing fine. Enjoy your baby and don't stress about what they "should" be doing at this stage - plenty of time for that!

PS Check out good old Dr Karp's 5S technique for soothing a fussy baby, if you haven't already. Good way to get them sleepy, too. type Happiest Baby On The Block into Youtube and watch the Richard & Judy clip for an explanation. I didn't really start doing it with my DD until about 12 weeks, but it works pretty well despite the late start.

Ds was a totally anti-routine baby, until at least 10 mo or so. Before that he'd nap at some point late afternoon/early evening when I'd make dinner, and then while we ate he might sleep or be in his bouncy chair with us, and a fair bit of the evening involved me watching telly and he'd be bfing or on my/MrNC's lap. 12 weeks was a time of evening feeding frenzy so was easiest just to hang onto him until I went to bed.

Around 12 weeks he started sleeping for about 5 hours at a stretch and it suited me better that he did that when I did, so I'd put him in his basket when I went to bed - before that he wouldn't sleep except with me or in his pushchair.

By 6 mo he was napping well in his cot or anywhere else and by 10mo he'd happily go to bed around 7pm.

Hah, IC, I just need to teach DS to (a) go to sleep by himself and (b) sleep through the night before I can claim that title!

Harvey Karp's 5Ss are indeed fantastic for calming fussy babies.

Can I just say that I have found the replies to my question a MASSIVE help. Thanks for all the tips and reassurance. Honestly, you'd think I was nuts if you knew the extent to which I have been stressing about this. Must learn not to be so neurotic! Um... and probably to stop reading useless baby books too. LOL!

There is nothing like a baby book to stress you out. The only one that didn't and totally put all those 'perfect baby' books in perspective was a book called Dream Babies.

Anyway, fwiw, my DS had to have a nap between 4 and 5 - often a walk out and about in the sling, when he was this age, to get through to 6/6:30 ish bedtime without a comlete meltdown. Otherwise, he didn't enjoy his bath/massage at ALL and would go bananas, literally!

He did go into his cot from an early age, but we are in a small flat so its only next door and we left the door slightly open so he could probably hear we were there, and it took a while before he was COMPLETELY happy with it. I think the massage and bath and feed knocked him out though tbh, particularly the massage. He didn't have a choice but to pass out . I do remember very early on going to bed with him - our bed next to his - as I was so exhausted and he seemed to settle if I was there.

Totally agree with Angeldog. My DS has settled into his own routine (much to my dismay as I quite wanted him to stay up late to see his daddy and be really flexible!), and as other posters have said, I find he likes to have a nap at 4ish so that he is happy until 7ish when I put him to bed.

At 12 weeks he had no routine or logic to his night time sleep or napping requirements. I was feeding him to sleep downstairs at about 7-9, and them taking him up with us to bed at 11ish but now he wants to go to sleep upstairs in the dark (which completely took me by surprise!) and will just grumble if I try to keep him up.

Don't worry about what other people say, every baby is different and needs different things and your baby may well want you to do something different in the future anyway. Personally, I would stick with what you were doing that works until you want to change it. As long as your LO is happy, nothing else matters

hey there..

for me.. looking at getting some sort of symmetry and system in place for day sleeps, meant that the night time timing fell in to place.And IMO do think its important to, around 3 months, to get some time back for your relationship.but everyone is different on this i guess.

i started at about 8-10 weeks. luckily it didn't involve alot of crying, as would have given up! but the calming routine of bath etc, my LO really responded to. And we gradually got her into the bed time thing( from cuddling/rocking her to sleep, to putting her down awake, hence no meltdowns)

defo agree that if she has been up since 3, she will be over tired by 7 , hence the falling asleep on bottle and then going bananas.

i would agree with your sis in law on being in and winding down early evening. but again everyone is different, babies and mums. some mums need to have that structure, some openly crave freedom and a more laissez faire approach. none are wrong, just depends on your personality and style. if it stressing you out, then defo look at day naps and a bed time routine, but if its not.. then god don't worry.think they do find their rhythm, in time

I wouldn't stress too much about it all.

I recently did cc with my older baby and am not opposed to it at all but I wouldn't recommend doing it with a three month old.

Just go with what works for you and your family. Also, you can get some good support on sleep at www.sleepytot.com. That's where I go.

Haven't read all the posts but just wanted to add a word of encouragement - YOU ARE DOING A BRILLLLLLIANT JOB !!!!

It is SO difficult with your first, because everything is so disorientating and you've no idea what life is supposed to look like.

IME (DD4 is 11wks) - things just seem to work out somehow ! I look back at DD1 and see how I tried so hard to manipulate her routine into what I thought it should be, and needless to say, I'm doing things a little differently this time !
It is difficult, and you are by no means the first mum to feel some of what you're feeling, but you'll blink and she'll be old enough to have to be kicked out of bed to get to school on time ! A few weeks at this stage makes all the difference, so hang in there.