3 month old bedtime routine

[Mel32]

What does your bedtime routine look like? I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. He loves baths,seems to get annoyed by books, indecisive about whether he likes baby massage. He likes hus mobile but seems to get really upset as he is just about to sleep, don't know if he is struggling to.soothe himself? Sometimes he can fall asleep in his basket but others it turns into full on crying.

He falls asleep while feeding easy and we end up co-sleeping nearly all the time but I know that's not teaching him to soothe himself.

Thinking about skipping the moses basket and going straight from cosleeping to the cot at 6 months but I don't know if that's too late?

What's going on with your 3 month old, or what's your past experience?

 

[Phoenix85]

You can't teach a 3 month old to soothe them self, they don't have that level of cognitive awareness at that age, self soothing is a fallacy.

I definitely think you could go straight to the cot at 6 months, that's what we did with my first. With my second I decided to co sleep until it got too intrusive (around 18m she started wriggling too much and wanted to be attached to the boob all night, so around 21 months I night weaned her and got her to sleep in her own bed and that was very successful, went from my bed to sleeping through in hers in just a couple of weeks, no crying.)

Tbh with my second baby I didn't really bother trying to enforce a bedtime or anything. At some point in the evening she'd get a bath if needed, changed into jamas, then fed and allowed to fall asleep on the boob and stay downstairs with me til I went to bed. It worked for us, and I plan to do the same this time round, baby will stay in the living room with me til I go to bed, only time I'd change that would be as they get older if the light or noise was disturbing them so they needed to be in the bedroom. But young babies don't mind a bit of noise or light and can sleep through most things in my experience.

 

[Mel32]

I've heard a lot about the self soothing but not made my mind up about it to be honest. He usually whimpers to sleep if he's not in my arms which to me isn't soothing, I've figure this out when he's in his basket when I'm in the shower or when I'm doing a job and don't get to him immediately.

Yeah there's been no bedtime other than ours which varies! He generally falls asleep about 8pm or something in my arms, us going to bed later often wakes him, so I take that opportunity to do a top up feed and he's back to sleep. He's no trouble in the night he just feeds and goes back to sleep. I personally just don't sleep well out of paranoia of having him with me which has lead to me experimenting with the moses basket but with mostly no success.

 

[Pumpkin9]

If he's getting upset with his mobile it might be a sign that he's over stimulated. My little girl (whose 4 months now) get la really ratty of she's trying to fall asleep and there is too much noise sometimes.

She is my second so it's abit different as I have to work around my sons bedtime routine whose 2. At 3 months we were quite in a routine but in the past few weeks we're abit better. We sometimes do bath before bed by to be honest it depends on how knackered I am and we only tend to go for every other day anyway. She now goes down at the same time as my son goes to bed so around 7.30pm. This was her choosing not mine, she crys if it gets later as she gets fed up and you can tell she wants to go to sleep. She has a dummy to help soothe and Ewan the dream sheep which we use the music option and that's about it. We stay with her until she's drifting off and either stroke her, put the dummy in or cuddle depending on what's needed.

Self soothing is something more for older babies I'd say. At this kind of age they still need the security of knowing their parent is there for comfort.

 

[Mel32]

Yeah it's strange one, unless we hold him he seems to whimper to sleep and its really sad to watch. I don't think it's related to his mobile but I'm not sure. For example if his mobile wasnt on, I don't think he'd lie there at all.

I might just keep going as we are as he is so content sleeping with us and tbh we absolutely love having him next to us , and transfer to his cot at 6 months. It just means he's mostly glued to us 24/7 he'll play for a bit but generally wants us to interact with him but I guess that's normal for a baby!!

 

[flexilexi394]

My daughter is 5 now, but I was really really good with routine pretty much from the start. She would have her "last" feed at 6pm, a bath and cuddle then down in the Moses basket by 7. Then of course she would want feeding at 9, 12, 3 and 6 (she was Breast fed every 3 hours) but I made sure she had day and night differentiation - And I used a dummy every now and then til she was about 5 months just to help her initially get to sleep then she always spat it out.

Also Moses baskets are little, I don't think my daughter liked it very much and she slept even better when I put her in her cot at about 3-4 months old - the cot was in my room too so that was easy!

I've got to remember how to do all this again now lol - good luck xxx

 

[Emcb82]

I've just started trying to get my little one to sleep on his own and he's 3 months. He was refusing to nap unless it was on me, and I would spend a couple of hours rocking to sleep at night. It was starting to really affect me, as on the one hand I wanted to do what he needed/wanted, but on the other hand I literally would not get a break from him to do anything. I have started just putting him in his crib with his dummy and seeing what he does. Sometimes he cries straightaway and I'll put the dummy back in and pat him and he goes off. Naps are still hit and miss and he never sleeps for long enough so he still ends up on me, but I feel like I get a little break now. I'm hoping as time goes on, he will get better. He settles himself at night after a feed so I know he can do it. I wouldn't be able to leave him to cry although I know it works for some people. He's still little and if he needs me I'll be there! My mum gave me the best advice and told me to do what was best for me and him as I was worrying that other people would judge me for having a baby that wouldn't self settle!!

 

[Mel32]

Yeah it's so hard to know what's the best to do! I might just carry on as I am and try the big cot in 3 months. I'm getting plenty of sleep but I think the broken sleep is affecting me because I find it near impossible to come round in the morning, not just the usual tiredness.

Sure I'll be fine for a few more months till we try the cot.

 

[Holi]

My little girl is 3 months and I've been doing this routine since 6 weeks (we have a toddler so just seemed normal for them both to have a bedtime routine)

She wakes from her afternoon nap around 4:30/5. Once she's awake no more sleeping Til bedtime.

We then play on her change mat and walk round house/garden til about 6. Then it's upstairs for a bath.

Into PJs and sleeping bag after bath at 6:30.

Into my dark bedroom for milk and cuddles.

In her own room cotbed for 7pm normally awake. Mobile on. If she stirs I go back in to sooth with a dummy but normally I never hear a peep x

I then do a dream feed at 10:30. This will normally satisfy her til 3/4, sometimes we've been lucky and she's not woken to 6am! But that's rare!

I never had a routine so in place with my first, but I really needed structure for both my girls as I'm often on my own at nights cos their dad works late.

 

[Mel32]

Wow that's impressive! I feel like there's too much going on, like something always happening to prevent routine. I keep trying, and because he gets upset I'm discouraged from being consistent. I secretly love having him in my room too.. well it's actually not a secret, but I know I can't do that forever and I know a routine would be healthy. Just torn... Haha!

 

[Rose83]

Holi is that breast or bottle feeding? I know bottle fed are much easier to get in to a routine even if it's expressed breast milk. By three months with my daughter who was exclusively express breast fed she was in her cot asleep at 7 and would dream feed at 10 then not be up til 7am.

Now my son who is 3 months is breast fed (not express) and the only consistency with bedtime is that he has a bath every night with my daughter at 6.30. She is in bed at 7 and asleep but he comes down to the living room and feeds then will fall asleep in bouncy chair with some encouragement but will wake maybe an hour later and feed again and then he might stay asleep but might not. So sometimes around 9/9.30 could be his last feed and he goes up to his cot in our room at around 11. But sometimes he'll wake at 11 and get another feed. He then always sleeps until 4.30ish and feeds again then sleeps until about 7am or whenever my daughter wakes us up. I don't really know how we'll improve on this until he is weaned because he feeds every 1.5 hours through the day. Sometimes he can go for 3 hours once a day but not always. It's very different to my daughter who had a 4oz bottle of breast milk every 3 hours and was perfectly happy in between! X

 

[Rose83]

P.S we have the stokke sleepi cot so it's a small size when they are tiny then you change it up to the big size - we just changed him up to the big size yesterday. But from the 4.30 feed he does tend to mostly end up asleep in my arms in bed with me but I'm just working on breaking that at the moment x

 

[Mel32]

Thanks, it's so good to hear other people's experiences!!

 

[Holi]

Holi is that breast or bottle feeding? I know bottle fed are much easier to get in to a routine even if it's expressed breast milk. By three months with my daughter who was exclusively express breast fed she was in her cot asleep at 7 and would dream feed at 10 then not be up til 7am.



Now my son who is 3 months is breast fed (not express) and the only consistency with bedtime is that he has a bath every night with my daughter at 6.30. She is in bed at 7 and asleep but he comes down to the living room and feeds then will fall asleep in bouncy chair with some encouragement but will wake maybe an hour later and feed again and then he might stay asleep but might not. So sometimes around 9/9.30 could be his last feed and he goes up to his cot in our room at around 11. But sometimes he'll wake at 11 and get another feed. He then always sleeps until 4.30ish and feeds again then sleeps until about 7am or whenever my daughter wakes us up. I don't really know how we'll improve on this until he is weaned because he feeds every 1.5 hours through the day. Sometimes he can go for 3 hours once a day but not always. It's very different to my daughter who had a 4oz bottle of breast milk every 3 hours and was perfectly happy in between! X

Bottle! Your right I breast fed until 8weeks and routine in that time was a lot harder! Then moving on to bottles seemed to make everything more predictable and easy to establish routine.

I honestly can't keep my dd2 awake past 7. She only has little cat naps in the day so she's exhausted by 6pm! It's hard even keeping her awake til 7 sometimes! My dd1 was never like this and we didn't have any real routine til about 6months! It didn't do her any harm! Just do what ever works best for you! X

 

[T84]

3 months is still so young for self soothing. I remember being so caught up in my dd1 soothing herself after reading how it was better yada yada. Then you quickly realise they aren't infants for long and they are trotting up to bed themselves no bother.

We had our babies at the same time I remember. R is now 3 and a half months and I still work on her cue. Sometimes she falls asleep on me downstairs and I put her up in her cot, other times I see she's getting a bit tired so I take her up and put her in her sleeping bag and feed her last bottle in her bedroom. It's all trial and error and eventually they fall into a wee routine that you can tweek to suit yourselves. R is already in her cot in her room too cos she was growing out of Moses. We have her breathing mat tho so it doesn't worry me

I think the thing to remember is go by your instinct and use what you read loosely x