[erigeron]

I'm not sure I understand the idea of having a bedtime for a small baby. My daughter is just shy of 1 mo old. She sleeps on and off all day and night, though she may be awake for as much as 2 hours at a time sometimes--as often as not this is at 2 am, and she fusses, which I think is often intestinal, and one of us has to sit up with her. The concept of putting her down at a given bedtime seems meaningless because it's not like she is up and then I am putting her down--she's down already, just perhaps not in her crib (usually in the day she naps in a bassinet in the room with one of us, or sometimes on our laps or in the Mei Tai--at night she sleeps in a sidecarred crib, and if one of us is taking a nap during the day we'll have her in the crib with us). But I see moms on here talking about bedtimes for their babies. Is this something we should be doing? Where's the benefit? Can a baby this young recognize a bedtime routine? How would I go about initiating some sort of demarcation between day (sleep) and night (also sleep)?

 

[matyja]

We welcomed our ds a week ago today and like your dd, his sleep schedule is all over the map. Currenlty his most awake and fussy period seems to be between midnight and 3 a.m.. He feeds, burps, cries, settles, fusses and does this cycle over and over for three hours. Finally we are exhausted and he falls asleep for a good stretch. How to get him to recognize the difference between night and day sleep? In my opinion I think it's too early to start adjusting him. He'll find his groove eventually so be patient. The only thing we try to do is not keep the house quiet (with a 6 and 4 yr old this is impossible anyway!), and make sure during the day it's bright and obvious that it's daytime. I think we have amnesia for a reason when our babies are brand new... or we might not ever have anymore!

 

[BabySmurf]

a "bedtime" that young, pfff! yeah right! At that point, we were both still just rolling with the punches. Luckily most of my DS's awake time was during the day, (unless he had an early morning poop wake up and he would get stimulated during the diaper change...but he would usually go right back to sleep after 10-15 min of rocking). I made sure that day time naps were done with the lights on and there was some noise and that night time sleep was in the dark, which was easy since DS was born in November. At some point along the way, he fell into his own pattern of "bedtime". At first he would nap from 6pm to 8pm and be awake until 10pm before his "nighttime" sleep happened, and eventually that awake time disappeared and his "bed time" was 8pm. (which may have happened around 4 months). And up until now that has stayed pretty consistent, but it wasn't something that I created. Now DS is 8 months old, and I feel like all hell has broken loose!

Don't worry too much about try to have a *schedule* because the thing is with babies, as soon as you get a routine down, they change! lol. Listen to their cues and they will tell you what needs to happen.

 

[anjsmama]

Haha! Yes we had no such thing as "bedtime" at 1 month with either child. Closer to 2 months, we did as the previous poster mentioned and divided what we called "day sleep" and "night sleep". When DD began her "night sleep" (usually around 7 pm) we called that "bedtime" - however, it wasn't a set time, and it wasn't like she was about to stay asleep. She would sleep 7-10, 11-1, 2-5, 5-7, maybe, around that age. DS DID have a very "set" bedtime of 630pm as a baby, but he was mostly bottle-fed. He also is very serious about his routine, and is almost 3 now, and still sleeps 630-530 like clockwork. DD is just about 6 months and we still don't do a bedtime. I guess we have a bed "timeframe". When she is ready to nurse sometime between the hours of 8pm and 10pm, I do a soft massage and get her in her jammies, and turn out the lights, and nurse her to sleep. That's bedtime for her, though it varies daily, it definitely sends a cognitive message "we're going to bed now...".

So I'd say yes, SOME babies could recognize a routine. My DS has always loved his routine, but that's just his personality. My DD has no idea what a routine is and couldn't care less. She's a very go-with-the-flow baby and that really is easier on us anyway. It's very stressful trying to get a baby to follow a routine that they don't set for themselves. If you really want baby in bed at 8, and they really want to be up til 9, it will probably take you til 9 to get them to sleep anyhow!

matyja said "I think we have amnesia for a reason when our babies are brand new... or we might not ever have anymore!

" -

-

Sooo true. Amnesia kicked in with DS when he was only like 4 months old. I had DD planned 2 years prior to her arrival. Now she's 6 months and I'm still waiting for that blissful forgetfulness...... maybe 2 is enough....... LOL!

 

[erigeron]

Good to know, so it's not just me! We are trying to get her adjusted to be up a little more during the day and, by extension, less at night. Following the recommendations of a friend (mom of twin toddlers) that basically boiled down to, feed her frequently and try to keep her awake after feedings during the day. Day 2 of that and we've managed to shift from 3 hours up in the middle of the night to 3 hours of agitation and intermittent crying starting at 7:30 pm. ... We'll just have to see how it goes.

 

[P.J.]

When DS was a newborn, he just went to bed with us sometime around 10 or 11pm. I can't remember how old he was, maybe 4 months, when we realized we could actually put him to bed before we did and get a little time to ourselves. And it worked! He won't go down before 8, and usually closer to 9 though. Not sure if it would've worked as a newborn, but it honestly didn't occur to me to even try. It just seemed natural to have him on or near me at all times.

And it wasn't until he was 6+ months that we started having a bedtime routine (bath, story, nursing, singing, bed).

 

[Beauchamp]

I'm trying to figure this out, too. My DS is 6 weeks, and I definitely have amnesia...I can't remember much at all about DD's early days. I recall she would nurse to sleep easily, but it took a while before I could move her. DS does not reliably nurse to sleep, and so I'm trying to find new ways to soothe him. Nothing works two nights in a row, and often his eyes pop open the second I put him down.

Putting times on anything is soooo out of reach for me, as in, I doubt I will EVER be able to say something like "DS goes down at 8pm." My DD is two and I can only now give a rough estimate for her bed time (we start the bath around 8pm~ish, and try to get her in bed before 9pm.)

I wish I could get DS to get himself into a rough routine of getting his longer blocks of sleep at night (don't we all?

) but I just don't really know how to do that. He takes his longest "nap" in the morning, very shortly after waking.

What hurts me the most this time is that my husband is basically not helping with the baby at night like he did with DD. Knowing it's all on me, SAHM all day, and all me at night...

DH often goes onto the couch to sleep because he has to go to work the next day and needs his sleep. To which I have responded (both silently and aloud) that I work, too, just not out of the home.

So, yeah. I wish DS had a "bed time" which signaled to him to sleep for a longer block. How to get there? Beyond me, other than to wait for it to happen on its own.

 

[samstress]

yeah, i wouldn't say ds (nearly 10 weeks) has a bedtime. there is a time (anywhere between 10:00 and midnight where he goes down and sleeps for the longest period (anywhere between five and seven hours), but i wouldn't call it bedtime. we do get him ready for it (we swaddle him which we don't do throughout the rest of the day), anticipating that he will sleep for a while (and he usually does).

how to get there? i don't know. it just started happening in the last week or so. before that he was up every two to three hours through the night.

 

[Blanca78]

My DD is almost 13 weeks and her bedtime finally seems to be creeping earlier (previously we would put her down anywhere from 10-midnight, just depending on how it worked out). Lately it's started being closer to 9:30-10 because that's when she crashes--but it's still very variable. I don't think babies really can approximate anything close to sleep schedules/routines until they are at least three or more likely four months old, and then it probably depends on the baby. We are trying to be consistent with bedtime as much as it is reasonable so that her wake time becomes a bit more consistent, but really it's still all over the map, and I understand that's completely normal at this age.

 

[Megan73]

Quote:

Originally Posted by erigeron

Good to know, so it's not just me! We are trying to get her adjusted to be up a little more during the day and, by extension, less at night. Following the recommendations of a friend (mom of twin toddlers) that basically boiled down to, feed her frequently and try to keep her awake after feedings during the day. Day 2 of that and we've managed to shift from 3 hours up in the middle of the night to 3 hours of agitation and intermittent crying starting at 7:30 pm. ... We'll just have to see how it goes.

Believe me, I KNOW how exhausted you are but I'd hesitate to try to keep a baby who needs to sleep awake. Everything I've read about how babies sleep suggests that they don't start consolidating sleep for months and a two-hour cycle of wake and sleep with one longer sleep period at night is totally normal. Evening fussiness is - frustratingly! - common in newborns, too.
Dr. Weissbluth's sleep book is great on explaining sleepy windows and research about how babies of different ages sleep - just ignore the sleep training stuff.

 

[la mamita]

nak
we do a bedtime. essentially its the time when we move into the bedroom, i lay down, keep the room dark, and most of the time don't have to get up and walk/soothe the baby, he'll just nurse & fall back asleep. during the day he definitely has awake times, shorter sleep periods & often needs to be soothed to sleep. bedtime is 8pm and were up for the day at 6 am. he's 5 weeks today.

 

[erigeron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megan73

Believe me, I KNOW how exhausted you are but I'd hesitate to try to keep a baby who needs to sleep awake.

Well, it's not really as bad as it sounds because we're not really trying all that hard. It's more like, after a feeding, we'll talk to her, pet her, basically just engage with her to see if we can get her to stay awake, rather than trying right away to soothe her down for a nap. If she drops off anyway then we'll put her down to nap. (And this kid, if she wants to sleep, she'll sleep, no matter where or when it is.) We're not setting off an air horn or dousing her with water or anything.

 

[Blanca78]

Quote:

Originally Posted by erigeron
We're not setting off an air horn or dousing her with water or anything.

 

[MrsBone]

Developing a bed time has been fairly easy this time around with DD, but with DS, he never had a consistent bedtime until he was about 22 months old. DD started sleeping through the night at 4 weeks, so I started putting her down to bed around the same time as DS, 8:30 or 9. Some nights she's up late if I'm out with friends(I'll wear her in the sling and she sleeps on me), but she seems to like routine, so I've just run with it. If it was a struggle, I certainly wouldn't push it, but she seems to do better with a set bedtime, even at 1 month old. She's 2 1/2 months old and it's getting harder to take her with me everywhere in hopes she'll sleep on me, because then it throws off her bedtime routine. This would have never flown with DS. I think you should really just take their cues at this age, but yes, at 1 month, it's certainly not too young for them recognize a routine.