Bedtime Routines

[Knitting Mama]

Cross posted from my DDC.

I thought I'd post a new thread asking about them. Who has a bedtime routine already for the noob? And what does it consist of?

We don't really have one yet, and to be honest I'm not sure of what I'd do for the routine! I mean, we sort of have a routine in the sense that I change her diaper and put her in jammies between 8 and 9, then we nurse to sleep oun the living room, and then we migrate to the bed once she's totally zonked.

Tell me about your routines! And if you have older kids, when did you start their routines?

[kitteh]

This is our first and I'm interested to see what others say about routines. We don't really have a set routine or schedule for her daytime naps or for bed time, but she's only 4 months old. I'm thinking that we are going to want to start some sort of routine eventually though, at least for night time. I'm not sure what to do about naps, though. Right now we just let her sleep when she wants and follow her lead, but maybe that's a bad idea in the long run? I don't know!

[Knitting Mama]

I don't know! I am just following Cecilia's lead too, especially since she's young, not quite two months. Naptime definitely is not at the same time each day, nor is the number of naps she takes. I'm totally fine with that. But since bedtime is fairly consistent, I figured it might be time to start a sweet little routine.

[JordanKX]

I *think* we started about 4 months. January, yeah, that was 4 months. Started with bath, food, bed. About 9:30. Once he got consistent at going to sleep at the same time without us with him in the bed (we co-sleep), then we started incrementally getting earlier. Since about 5 1/2 months - 6 months, he's been steady. 7:30 bath books bottle. And he's in his room with music on at 8:00 and almost always falls asleep. Maybe once a week he'll fuss for a minute or need me to come back in and rub his head.

Of course naps are still whenever he wants. And there's no telling what to expect during the night.

But Going To Bed, that's one we have down :-)

[TSomm]

My little girl is just about 4 months and for the last few weeks we try to keep a consistent bedtime routine. We'll bathe her to settle her, then on the changing table read a book if she's content, dress her, and finally nurse to sleep in our bed. She sees to want to fall asleep around 7:15 / 7:30.

If we've had a busy day and bedtime has approached without the bath or books, we'll put her right down. She seems to appreciate consistent time rather than a routine.

Naps tend to run like this... Wake in the morning, 45-60 min later 1st nap. Wake, 60-90 min later 2nd nap. Wake, 60min-2hr later 3rd nap. Wake. Lucky if we get a 4th nap, but she really fights that. Then she gets so overtired by the time bedtime rolls around.

I should mention that our DD needs so much help to fall asleep. We use white noise, boob, and side lying for every sleep opportunity. We only recently stopped swaddling her because she was fighting in the early morning hours.

[LindsC]

My DD is older (11 months), but she fell into a routine on her own around 4-6 months. She has pretty much gone to bed around 7pm since she was that age, which works out great since that is the same time we put DS to bed too. What we do is bath (every other night), massage, pj's, nurse, sleep. She is now sleeping in her own bed in her own room, but that only happened a couple of months ago. Before that, she was in our bed with us.

I never really forced a bedtime routine on my kids. I just followed their lead and they just kind of fell into one on their own.

[sunshadow]

DD #1 had a very set routine every night. Bath, massage while listening to relaxing music with baby oil, nurse and read, then sleep.

DS #2 is 4 months old and I have not done that one time! He goes to sleep when he is sleepy and gets a bath once a week! ha.

[octobermoon]

routine? what's that? every time i think we have one down DS changes it all on us. i am not going to fight too hard with an 8 month old. i can't force him to sleep. right now he has extreme separation anxiety, i can't sneak away from the bed once he's down for the night anymore. if i do he wakes up SCREAMING in terror, it's really sad. we co-sleep and recently he woke up sat straight up looked around and didn't see us cause we were behind him. i watched him start to panic and cry. poor thing. so yeah routine schmoutine! but if it worked i'd be ALL over it!!

[octobermom]

My first DD is a Cecilia (and we used to live in Tucson)
Anyways my current newvie goes to sleep realy well and its insane how easy.. I know shes storign up sometihing for me latter in life cause I have it WAY to easy currently

Our rountinue
around 8-8:30 I go put on her nighttime diaper and jammies (or I do a bath if its time)
nurse her
around 9ish (or when shes is done nursing) we go say good night to daddy to sister ect (not shes awake)
go lay her in her crib on her tummy
leave and tun off lights
shes puts her self to sleep no crying (on the occasion shes does I just go get her its super super rare)
She sleeps till around 7-7:30am
Shes done the magic 8pm sleep since birth
Shes also self programed to nap at 10am....
Our rough hours are from around 3:30-7pm but nap and bedtime are insanly easy...

Deanna