What is your go to sleep routine?

[jazmin]

I am looking to set up a firmer nap and go to sleep routine with my 19 mo ds.  I'm schedule-phobic and until now have had a relatively loose go to sleep schedule (bath, pjs, say goodnight to papa, nurse to sleep) and at nap time have just followed his cues and laid down with him to nurse when he first started to get tired.  Now I'm 5 months pregnant and nursing is painful for me and not very satisfactory for him (I don't think there's much milk left) and only puts him to sleep about half the time.  If he's not asleep by the time my nipples wear out, it's screaming to sleep (while being held and cuddled and whispered or sung to, but no fun for either of us.)  So we're looking to establish a firmer routine with the eventual goal of weaning.  But nursing has always been a magic pill for us and now I don't know where to start... 

So how do you get your baby to sleep?!  (Bonus points for methods that don't involve nursing.)

And when do we get to that magic time when ds falls asleep without me?  Just give me an age range so I can start dreaming of that magic day... 

[NEastMomma]

Hi Mama,

Oh, I feel your pain.  I used to dread night time b/c it took forever to nurse ds into coma, and then he'd wake roughly 6 million times/night and I'd nurse him every time.  We enjoyed cosleeping, but wanted DS to sleep for a few hours on his own in his crib so that I didn't have to go to bed at 7pm.  Finally, at 16mos, something clicked and all on his own, DS started STTN in his own crib.  DH was away and I was exhausted trying to get him to sleep.  I'd started the new routine, but DS would not stay asleep in crib.  So finally I was so frustrated I put him in crib and walked away -I'd planned for a  3 min sanity break for myself.  Well, by the time I got to the door of his room, he was asleep.  We've never looked back adn now he loves to go to bed.  Sometiems he even takes DS by the hand, pats the rocker and says "milk!"  He wakes at 5am-ish and we bring him into bed for dawn nursies.  

I do feel that one reason DS is comfortable STTN is b/c we go to him ANY time he cries/calls for us.  So he can relax, knowing we are there for him!  

So here's what night time looks like for us:

• Supper: 5:30
• After supper: lights are dimmed, quiet playing
• 6:30: jammies and brush teeth w/ Dada, perhaps some additional quiet bonding time with Dada
• Kiss Mama goodnight
• Into the nursery with Dada
• 7pm: Sippy cup of milk (yep, even tho we just brushed teeth, I know) while Dada reads 2 or 3 bedtime stories to DS in rocking chair 
• Kiss night night to the toys in his crib
• Kiss night night to Dada
• Put in crib fully awake, walk away, turn out light and "See ya at 5am, kid!" 

*Of course there are plenty of night where DS wakes randomly, but can usually be quickly soothed by DS without even being picked up or anything.  Sometimes he just requires a hug, then throws himself down on mattress and back to sleep.

Good luck and hang in there!

[princesstutu]

Oh, the joys of nursing while pregnant!  It gets easier the more times you do it, but to answer your question:

Perhaps you can include some classical music or meditation music?  For my older kids, we would take baths (add lavender eo to the water for the more physical kid), oil down with a hint of relaxing massage, lie in the bed and tell a story (or something equally fun yet relaxing), then listen to music as we fell asleep.

For a nursling that I wanted to nurse less, I couldn't have my breasts anywhere near the child, so no cuddling.  For a child that didn't really care about nursing to sleep, we could cuddle a bit. 

It took longer for the child to fall asleep at first, but after a while...it was easy peasy. 

Good luck to you and yours!

[Baby_Cakes]

When DD stopped nursing to sleep for naps, unfortunately she gave up naps.  I know that's not at ALL what you want to hear, but that's what happened to us.  Sometimes she'll fall asleep in the car midday and I'm ok with that, though it tends to push bedtime way later.

When I was ready for DD to stop nursing to sleep (she had already been nightweaned for quite some time, just needed 5 min to fall asleep) I just switched up the routine.  Instead of bath, jammies, and boob, we started bath, jammies and songs.  I lay with her on her futon mattress in the dark, and we talk about the day for a few minutes.  Then she chooses a song, or I do, and I sing until she falls asleep.  Usually it takes 20 min or so, sometimes longer.  But it gets the job done.  Then I leave and she usually STTN - but it's been quite a journey getting htere.  She's 2.5 now and we started this around her 2nd birthday.  Just be patient and don't expect miracles right away!  And of course, there are always regressions!

[belltree]

Ours is pretty short and I follow my child's lead which has been going well so far.

We have dinner. We play. At some point between 6-8.30pm my ds will say "bed" and waive good night, so we go brush teeth, change into a night time diaper, daddy gets a kiss, turn on the music and go to bed. I nurse him down, but when I am not around, dh puts him to sleep.

Sometimes, he can't fall asleep (yet), so we get back up or just do some reading and singing in the bed, until he is ready again.

[oregonianmama]

Ours is usually pretty short since I am constantly late getting dinner ready so my son, 16 months, is usually ready for bed after dinner. We usually do a quick bath with daddy then get on our PJ's, turn on the white noise machine, get in bed, and nurse to sleep. If it is a night where we ate at a descent time, then after bath we will go into the living room with the lights dimmed and read some books(can't read in the bedroom as DS only wants to nurse when we go in there).

I would love to hear from other mamas when that magic window happened where DH could put them to sleep. Only mama and boob do the trick for us.

[thedenverduo]

My son is 18 months old and the first year of his life he always nursed to sleep.  Now he still nurses at night, but I always put him down awake and he waves goodnight and blows me a kiss and then puts himself to sleep.  His routine is brush teeth, read book, nurse, get in bed.  Just in the last month or so he has occasionally skipped nursing of his own accord and just gone to bed.  When dh puts him down he does the same thing: brush, book, bed, except he stays for a few minutes and rubs his back or sings him a song until he is really drowsy.  We just recently nightweaned so I am going to give that a few weeks to settle down and then we are hoping to cut out the nursing to sleep.  (I don't really want to totally wean him, but I do want my cycle to come back). 

When we are ready for that I will probably just switch the routine to nurse, brush, book, bed, and then gradually space the nursing farther from bed time.

[MrsBone]

well, we went from nursing to sleep, to me getting pregnant, and weaning at 11 weeks pregnant. DS was 20 months at the time. Nursing wasn't calming to him anymore, and after 3 days of no nursing, he put himself to sleep just cuddling next to mommy. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. It probably helped that my milk dried up and DS tried to nurse anyway, but no milk came out so I think that's why it didn't take very long. He knew the milk was gone and was trying to figure out how else to get to sleep. DS is 26 months now and in a toddler bed(has been since 15 months) so I had to figure out a way to keep him in his room. for a few months I'd lay down with him for every nap and bedtime(but I'd fall asleep myself and miss out on my whole evening. It was rough on DH and I. DH who works a ton and so I never got to spend any alone time with him). So one week when DH was off work due to inclement weather, we worked on getting DS to sleep without us having to stay with him the whole time. We tried to just put him in bed, after snuggles, a book and music then white noise, but he'd always get up and come out of the room. We tried the whole "get back in bed" or put him back in bed, and he wouldn't scream or cry, he'd just get back up and come out like..oh it's still play time.. We finally put a gate on the door, and the first night he cried, but after that it got so much easier. It's like he was back in the crib again. he had a physical boundary and knew he couldn't pass it, and that we meant business. I don't think the gate works for everyone, but it did for us, with very little tears. The gate is still on the door(it has a little door on it, so after DS falls asleep we unlock it. I never liked the idea of a kid being trapped in his room. So DS knows when he wakes up in the middle of the night(doesn't happen that often anymore) he can come out of his room and into ours. The other night he even fell asleep by the gate, and we all went to bed. DH said when he left that morning, DS's door was closed and he was in his own bed. That was the first time that had happened. I am finally sleeping through the night again, and I'm just counting down the weeks (10 more!) to where I'll be up all night again, lol!

[MrsBone]

Oh, I also wanted to mention, that lately he's been falling asleep on either DH or I while watching a movie at night..somewhere between 10 and 10:30. His normal bedtime is 9 or 9:30, so if we're feeling lazy and don't want to do that whole routine, we'll plop on the couch, make sure DS has had his teeth brushed, jammies, fresh diaper and he'll pass out on one of us. He's a pretty easy kid though. I hope the next one is this easy! lol