help putting baby to bed please

[jerabelle]

any suggestions appreciated....
have an 8 week old son that fights going down every night. we start bathtime between 7 and 7:30, feed after bathing, then it begins - he dozes in and out for 3 hours and doesnt fall asleep for the night until 10:30 or 11. we soothe him the same way that we do during the day but it isnt working at night. any suggestions from my fellow mommas? (we are first time parents that are learning as we go).
*THANK YOU*

[LadyCatherine185]

What time is his last nap? What time is he up for the morning? He may just not be ready for bed until 10:30 or 11.

[alegna]

Sounds normal to me. Neither of mine went to sleep earlier than that as infants.

-Angela

[carmen358]

DD was nowhere near going to bed that early at 8 weeks old. She would go to sleep for the night anywhere from 9pm to 11pm. It wasn't until she was about 5 or 6 months old that she showed signs of wanting to go to bed earlier.

[luckymamaoftwo]

Originally Posted by carmen358

DD was nowhere near going to bed that early at 8 weeks old. .

Same for us.

I would say that your babe just isn't ready for nighttime sleep that early in the evening.

[Lilygoose]

I agree with the other posters. At that age DD regulated her sleep. She wasn't old enough/developed enough to respond to a routine. And she generally was awake between 6 or 7 and 9 or 10 at night. I think she slept maybe every 3 or 4 hours for about 2-4 hours at that age.

[FloridaBorn]

My DD is 2 months old and we cluster feed pretty much all evening, then she goes to sleep around 10:30 when we do.

[plantnerd]

8 weeks is early to expect much of a schedule. D would fall asleep on the boob by about 9, and by then I was so beat I would take him up to bed with me. I think at that age they just really feel wrong alone too, so cosleeping at least for a little while may be a good solution.

[LittleBirdy]

I'm not sure where in the country you are located and what time sunset is, but I've noticed DS (also 8 weeks old) is very sensitive to daylight. This time of year where I live we are losing daylight FAST. A few weeks ago there was no way he'd go to sleep before 9:30/10:00. Now that the sun is setting around 7, I can do bedtime routine at 7:30 and have him down by 8:00 or 8:30. (This also could be attributed to him getting older but I swear it's related to sunset.)

[Zoesmama]

Sounds about right. I did that too. Down at 7-8 but she woke to eat around 10-11pm and then slept all the way through to morning. Does he sleep through after 11? That is pretty typical of the times parents say they are sleeping through the night they mean roughly midnight to 5-6am or whatever their normal waking time is. Usually a little earlier but the work it in with the baby's routine.

It sounds like you are doing really good encouraging self soothing some. I have to admit at 8 weeks dd was co-sleeping and nursing to sleep still. Well I'd put her in the playpen(bassinet really all that got used) until 10-11 when I went to bed. She stopped nursing all the way to sleep later in her first year on her own. She would pull off and then go to sleep.

[PseudoDiva]

We started a bedtime routine with ours right around that time, but it took weeks before he'd go down then. I'm not at all a schedule stickler, but I did want to introduce a good routine for winding down. We just kept at it, holding him, nursing, and soothing any way we could. White noise was a lifesaver, as was motion and the Moby wrap! It gets better. Good luck!

[SilverFish]

8 weeks is WAY too young to expect much in the way of "bedtime". they are still on short cycles at that stage, ie wake, eat, sleep, repeat. i think it wasn't until around 12-16 weeks that dd actually went to bed at a specific time and woke up at a specific time. at first she was going to bed at 9pm and waking for good around 6am. at around 5 months, we started shifting bed time earlier and now she goes down at around 7pm. if it relaxes you to have a routine for bed time, that's fine, but don't really expect your son to get much out of it until his cycles get longer, and until he's spending more time awake during the day than asleep.