Starting a good night time routine

egankn

We've been trying to bath her every night between 8 and 10pm about 30-60 min after a feeding, at this age should we start laying her down awake or putting anything else into the routine? Also, what is your routine and does it work?

MrsBatty

We do a bath before the feeding.  Bath, bottle, cuddle/rock, bed.  After having her last bottle DD would NOT be down for a bath.  She is super tired and ready to lay down after her last bottle.

bim38106

We don't have much of a bedtime routine w/ DD2 yet (just 1 month) but I can tell you our routine w/ DD1 who is 21 months. We started this around 2-3 months and nights we don't do it, you can tell! LOL. Babies/toddler really do love their routines!

First bath, PJs, read a few books, BF (now sippy cup) and rock. 

With DD1 we weren't able to put her down awake until 9 months when we did Ferber (also because she was still waking every 2 hours). I don't want a repeat of that w/ DD2 so I asked her pedi at what point we should try putting her down drowsy but awake and she said 2 months is a good time to start. We try now and it works every once in a while..

4realyo

Everytime we get a routine, she decides to change it. lol. Anyways, I try to nurse every 2 hrs in the evening -- she is usually quite cranky during this time. Around 830 ish (depending on her feeding schedule) we will give her a bath and then put in her in her sleep gown. I then nurse her until she relaxes and then swaddle her in her miracle blanket. Sometimes she will nurse a little more and sometimes she will just let me rock her to sleep. I also read her a book. When she is either asleep or on the verge of sleep, I put her in her crib with the ipod playing lullabies and the sound machine on the heartbeat setting & the projector going. Then I tiptoe out and pray for some sleep!

MrsPreK

MrsBatty:

We do a bath before the feeding.  Bath, bottle, cuddle/rock, bed.  After having her last bottle DD would NOT be down for a bath.  She is super tired and ready to lay down after her last bottle.

Same here. I have also always put DD down awake BUT I know that is very rare at a young age. She falls asleep on her own very well, even at 6 weeks. DS would NEVER have done that though. 

Love Sugar Sweet Minxy

MrsBatty:

We do a bath before the feeding.  Bath, bottle, cuddle/rock, bed.  After having her last bottle DD would NOT be down for a bath.  She is super tired and ready to lay down after her last bottle.

Same here, except we read a book while cuddling.  Arden usually falls asleep during his last bottle.

Rachel2315

With DS, we give a bath at 8:00, let him sit and soak for a good long time b/c he really gets relaxed.  Then we play with him for a few minutes on our bed and read a few pages from a big book.  Then we get him dressed, swaddled, and give him a bottle.  I try to get him all the way asleep before I put him in his pack and play but sometimes I can put him down drowsy because he wakes up anyways and moves around then gets himself back to sleep.  FWIW he will be 6 weeks on Wednesday.  The one night we skipped his bath he woke up 5 times as compared to his usual 2 times so we're sticking with it.  I am slowly creeping his bath time up, it used to be 8:30.  By the time he's 2 months I hope to be at 7:30 so that after he's asleep I can go have some DH/me time for a bit.  Right now its 9:00 by the time he's down so I just crawl in bed.  

hmarsano

We start our routine at 6.  Starts with a bath, then jammies, then either a bottle of EBM with daddy or boob with mommy, then to the swing for a story.  Sometimes he falls asleep in the swing, sometimes he needs another round of boob and falls asleep then.  We started this around 5 weeks, and it was pretty solidified by 7 weeks.  He is now 3 months and always falls asleep by 7:30! 

ZacksBride

we do bath around 7:30-8.  then into jammies, lights turned down low and start last nursing session.  we swaddle in between sides. then we put him down in his crib which we warm up by a heating pad and have white noise playing...

TarheelsInNJ

DS will be 6 weeks old on Wednesday and I'm interested in starting a routine as well. Right now he has what we want to be his "last" feeding around 10 or so, but then is often still awake (either happily alert or a little fussy) until 12:30 - 1:00, when I will feed him again and then put him down. He only wakes up 1 time from that point on, so that's good, but I'd definitely like the whole thing to start earlier.

bchap122

since she was a bout 7 weeks, we have used the following:

starting at 5:30

bath (every other night) 

Change to night clothes / diaper change

swaddle

feed in the dark (ok, the TV is on for me)

she falls asleep within 20-30 minutes

put on the "white noise" machine

tiptoe out of the room  

 

She sleeps until 5:30 am ( sometimes with one feeding around 2-ish )

 

Whatever you choose for a routine, stick to it...once the baby is used to it, IT WORKS! 

 

smilelari

We just moved up the time for this tonight.  We were doing this starting at about 9 and getting DS to bed around 10:30, but he starts getting fussy pretty early, so tonight we started at 7 and had him in bed before 8:30

-bath

-PJs

-bottle (right now it's the only bottle of the day, and DH gives it)

-swaddle

then we either cuddle if DS seems reasonably settled, otherwise we nurse and then cuddle

-bed - if DS wakes a bit when we put him down we turn on the FP seahorse