Set bedtime and waketime each day 4 month old - impossible or what??

[kitten2014]

Hi guys, I have loosely been following the EASY routine with our lil miss, she takes 7 bottles per day, 6 during the day, one middle of the night, roughly 2hrs apart during the day and 8hrs and 4hrs at night. She stays awake anything from 1hr 15mins to 1hr 45mins depending on activities.

I have been trying in vain to maintain a 7am-7pm day and whilst that is relatively simple to do in the morning she messes her naps up some days and either have to send her to bed earlier or much later. For example, today she woke at 7am, each nap approx 45mins approx 1hr 20mins apart but when she takes a really long/short nap the timings fall apart and right now she has just woken from her 4th nap and somehow I have to keep her awake til 6.30pm for a 7pm sleep time...Impossible, but I also don't want to put her to bed at 6pm as too early and means MOTN feed and wakeup tomorrow is out, how do you eventually get a set wake time/bedtime even if the day schedule is a bit hit and miss? Any suggestions would be much appreciated...

 

[Rooster30]

You don't at this stage I don't think. Babies generally fall into it themselves.

 

[kumber]

A waketime and bedtime routine at 4 months? Good luck! Baby is far too young for a routine like that yet. She will set her own routine and is unlikely to be regular until she's much older.

 

[littlemonkey]

My youngest is three months and has kind of settled into a routine of going to bed between 7-8 (although it was 6.30 tonight!) and he wakes for his first feed around 5-6 am, although he has also been known to wake up at 4am. I've always just followed his lead.

Is there a particular reason you want him to have a set bedtime? I've only ever been strict about bed time when I was working and I has to be out of the house by 7.30am. I made sure my son was in bed by 7pm to make sure he'd had enough sleep. Now I'm home and on mat leave, even his bed time is pretty flexible between 7-8 pm depending on how tired he is. He can sleep in in the morning now if he needs to catch up on sleep (not that he ever does!).

 

[kitten2014]

There's no specific reason just wanted to get her into a routine of those times so she knows what to expect thats all, I do follow her lead and generally she wakes between 6/7am and goes to sleep between 6/7.30 but thought it would be good to get it regular but when go away etc it gets thrown out anyways...tonight she took a while to sleep anyway so didnt sleep til 7pm anyway, I also find her bedtime dictates her waketime as she generally sleeps 11-12hrs per night...

 

[Kiagirl]

My LO had a bedtime of 6.30 from 6 weeks. She would obv wake again but would feed upstairs and she wouldn't come back down. She would wake early but would pop her in with us for cuddle and we would get up around 7 so she has always had a routine of 7-6.30, she is 2 now and still is ready about 6.30pn for bed but started waking a bit earlier but tends to play in her room happily until 7ish, I think a routine is the best thing you can do for them, we haven't had a sleepless night with her, she has always settled after 20 mins which we put down to her settled routine x

 

[Rooster30]

My LO isn't 'set'. We go upstairs for her milk and bedtime 1830-1845 and she is usually settled in bed by 1915. The past 4/5 days she has taken to waking at about 0530 (though today was 0430) and then she resettles and sleeps like, ALL morning! Yesterday she woke properly at 10:30am. We definitely don't have a set morning routine at all, I let her sleep as much as she likes especially since her naps are horrendously pants. She obviously likes big bulks of sleeps.

 

[kitten2014]

Thanks Kiagirl, thats what I believe too, I am a big one for being organised and knowing whats happening and when and put it this way, the minute I started her on EASY we never had an overtired, overstimulated or hungry baby again, we have a wind down nap routine now for 5mins as there is so much she wants to see and do that the minute I start swaddling her she fusses and I can tell its a 'im tired but dont wanna sleep' fuss as opposed to 'im not tired ' or 'im too tired, too late'...so she cuddles a teddybear and I sing songs with her for a few mins wityh lights dim so she knows its naptime, its worked for them, I think she is stil trying to figure out her naps though, I have a 10minute rule when she wakes, if she sleeps clock starts ticking again when she wakes, if she doesnt sleep, we've only lost 10mins of her hr n half waketime. If I dont get the timing right she doesnt nap well...

as for bedtime she normally settles after 10-15mins of her mobile being on and also goes through the night (or at least 6/7pm to 2/3am (for her MOTN bottle) then a bit restless til 6/7am but still sleeping. I do think its important they know from the get go when its day and night and surely if bedtime keeps changing that confuses them...plus I keep her last waketime before bed relaxed and chilled, music, dimmed lights, massage, book, change of clothes, bottle then bed. We dont do bath as bedtime routine as she gets so excited in the bath its better as penultimate activity before final nap of the day lol...

Anyways, she didnt sleep til 7pm last night and woke at 7am this morning so that was good...

 

[northerngirl]

It sounds like you've got it pretty sorted for her age so I wouldn't worry yourself, I'm sure it'll be spot on soon. Felix is the same in that he's sort of got himself into a routine. He has his tea (pureed veg or fruit) at 6, bath at half past, then we let him play until he's tired which is always half 7, bottle in the dark at 8 and he's usually settled by half past at the very latest. Has a feed at 4.30 then awake at half 7 xo

 

[kitten2014]

Thanks Northergirl, Im not worried just wondered whether others were trying to maintain set times or not. Our lil miss gets tired after an hr of activity lol so then final 15mins is calming her with quiet play then 5min wind down in the nursery. Doesnt give us a lot of time lol.

She has just tried out two new playmats that I bought from tesco direct - the fisherprice rainforest and fisherprice kick and play, both have baby movement activated sound and her face lit up when she saw it lol....now for the jumperoo...fully expecting to only do 5mins at most and have some fussiness the first few times as so new to her but cant wait to see her excited face as she realises she can jump in it lol...

Northerngirl, on another note havent tried pureed veg yet just the porridge which she is ok with but not overly excited with lol, should I try with pureed veg?

 

[JD.Deedee]

My sister in law does this quite a bit with her third, he's 8 months now.. Going bed at 7 but he tends to wake up anywhere between 4.30 and 6. No chance in the world I'd get up at that time... But her OH takes him down when she orders him too then when she gets up about 7-8 ish he gets back in bed.. I don't think it's ideal but the youngest wakes his older brother and he won't get back to sleep so they don't have much choice plus them two go to school and outside the holidays getting up at daft o clock is normal for them and I think having all the kids upstairs by that time gives them more peace downstairs even if they don't go sleep straight away..

My little one turned two in june and he only just started not napping and adding that time to his night so he does go to sleep anywhere after six and 9 in the evening sleeping until 8-9 in the morning.. Before that he just got too tired after a couple of hours being awake and he'd fall asleep himself.. I think when you do get down to one or two naps a day these hours might work and by trying to follow it from an early age you might chance your little one does eventually fit in to this routine that you want, I just think don't stress yourself too much about it.. Leaps, teething and all that jazz can mess things up big time I mean for the frequent feeds in the day and going without at night like that seems like a good start!

 

[kitten2014]

thanks JD dee, apprciate it, Im a big believer in start as you mean to go on but like you say plenty of leaps, teething not to mention the 4month sleep regression to come so not going to stress but I tried to bring the night feed to 11ish and tried to make her hold til 7am but she couldnt and didnt want to get into the habit of two MOTN feeds so dropped the 11pm one, she is happier with one feed between 2/3am, I go to bed myself at 9.30 so can get a few hrs in before it but sometimes struggle getting back to sleep lol....I am lucky that she takes 3-4hrs worth of naps during the day AND sleeps 12hrs at night (6hrs uninterrupted) not bad going for 4months I guess, hoping the sleep regression will bypass us as she settles herself really well and resettles fine during the night so guess it will just be more frequent...dont have any bad habits lol although was close to having a dummy association at one point...

 

[JD.Deedee]

You sound like my sister in law haha! I think you're doing fine

 

[kitten2014]

Funnily enough Ive relaxed it a bit now as she has started teething (yikes, never knew what vampires babies could become not to mention the mood swings!) and so try to ensure she gets her 12hrs at night as her naps have gone a bit pants now as Im guessing the pain is preventing her from getting a decent nap and at night once she's asleep she pretty much stays asleep...recently we've been doing 7/7.30pm bedtime and wakeup 8ish...