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Night time routines (also in BIJ)

Hi Everyone, hope you all had a good weekend?

My son is six months old next week and up until two weeks ago his night time routine would be the following - bath, change into bed clothes, last bottle and then he would fall asleep in his swing - we would then move him into his cot when he was asleep (we tried to just lay him his cot awake but i couldn't stand how upset he would get) - anway all of this would start at 6pm and without fail he would be asleep by about 6.45, we would then do a dreamfeed at about 10.30 and he would sleep through until about 6am.

I realise that teething etc can change their routine however for the last two weeks we have bathed him at the same time and he has not gone to sleep until about 10pm by which time he is so over tired that he ends up screaming and screaming until we manage to rock him to sleep - I don't think this is just a phase i.e growth spurt etc as it has gone on for too long.

The other thing I should mention is that he is a good eater throughout the day and has been on solid foods for a while now (on hv advice).

I was just wondering what your night time routines/timings look like as I think I need to change ours to get him back to winding down and understanding that it is time to go to sleep - not for myself but for him as I hate him going to sleep in the state that he gets himself into.

Thank for reading my ramble.

Lisa xx

Replies

  • My LO is 7 months and we start our bedtime routine at 7.15pm in the bathroom for a bath/wash, we then move into his bedroom and dress him for bed, give him his last bottle, brush teeth and then put him into his cot awake with a muslin comforter and put his sleeping bag on. Sometimes he goes straight off to sleep, other times it can take 15-20 minutes but I never bring him out of his room, once he is in.

    We used to this early but at around 6 months we moved it everything back a bit, to try to get him to sleep longer and it worked. Maybe that might be worth a try for you, as it seems he's not ready at 6.45 to go to sleep.

    HTH xx
  • my ds is 5 1/2 months old and we managed to get into a bedtime routine pretty early on (thankfully! and more by luck than knowing what we were doing!). we bathe him about 6.30-7ish then dress in sleepsuit and give bottle. if he hasnt fallen asleep on the bottle then we put him in his cot awake and put his cot mobile on, leave the room and usually he settles himself to sleep. we listen out on the monitor as sometimes he's not ready to go to bed, wide awake!. if he wont sleep then we bring him downstairs for half an hour for a bit of cuddle time then try again by putting him in his cot. sometimes he has a bit of a cry but we wait it out popping into his room every minute or so to let him know we're around and eventually he nods off. he now sleeps till 7 in the morning.
  • My LO is 9 months and we have the same routine very night. We start quite early otherwise he just gets very overtired and grumpy.
    Bath is at 5.45pm
    Then take him to his room, with lights dimmed we dry and dress him then give him his last bottle.
    He is then put in his sleeping bag in his cot. This is usually around 6.15pm.
    We put on the same musical globe that we have done for months, that lasts a couple of minutes and leave the room, lights out.
    He also has a muslin as a comforter.
    He is usually asleep by 6.30pm, he sleeps though until 7am
    If he does get upset, we never take
    him out of his room, just give him a quick cuddle and put back down again.
    What are your baby's naps like during the day?
    At 6 months my LO had dropped an afternoon nap so that's why we started his bedtime routine early as he would just get so overtired if we tried to keep him up longer.
  • Thanks for your replys everyone - last night we tried something different on the back of all of your suggestions. I settled him down for his afternoon nap at about 3.30 hoping this would then tide him over until bed time but by 6pm he was terribly ratty so we bathed him, gave him a bottle, then red him a story(he just tried to eat the book rather than listen) and then i put him in his cot awake with his dummy and his blankie and he went off to sleep almost straight away. I think this was more fluke then anything else as he was so tired.

    Do you think I should try and give him a nap a bit later in the afternoon so that he is not so overtired by 6pm?

    thanks Lisa
  • That's great news. Yes, you could try to nap later or get him to have longer perhaps (not sure how long he has at 3.30). I try to have my LO awake from 4.30pm in order to get him to bed 3 hours later xx
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