bedtime routine for a bf baby

[Lizzybee]

Lo is 5 months. Ebf. We don't have a routine yet. Other people I know have sent their lo to bed at 6.30 - 7.30pm after a bath. But when my and oh are back at work we won't get home til 6pm and will want to spend time with lo. Also people are telling me I shouldn't feed him to sleep as he will always rely on this to settle and won't be able to self settle. But if he wants a feed I can't Help it if he falls asleep while latched on.
Has anyone ignored the advice about bedtime routine and done their own thing? Did it work?
I know o eperson who coslept for a year and then did the transition to a cot. Only one night of crying and her LO was fine on the second night.

 

[Rican47]

Bump! Very interested in this also for when my little one comes.

 

[Lizzybee]

Congratulations Rican47.
I'm just not into this early to bed idea. He sleeps through the night but only for 6 or 7 hours. If I put him down too early we will be back to 2am feeds again!! I have to be up for work at 6am so I want him to sleep til then, ready for a feed and then off to nursery. I have 2 weeks to get a "routine" going before I'm back at work!!! I think I will go with my own thing but want some success stories to boost me up!!!

 

[LaraSue]

I feed my LO to sleep, but it's kind of on accident. He gets hungry, I feed him, he falls asleep. I don't hesitate to feed him to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night also. It gets him back to sleep quicker, me back to sleep quicker, and everyone's happy. He doesn't always need/want to be fed, so I'm not worried about it.

 

[Mwd1985]

I'd say, do what works for your family. If your happy and everybody is sleeping keep on keepin on! The only thing I would suggest is to do some type of "bed time" so that when your baby gets older they still associate the routine with sleeping, even if your not nursing to sleep. I nurse my LO to sleep, but we do a diaper, Jammie's and snuggles. She is 5 weeks now and what we are doing so far works. With my old son I didn't have any routine and bed time/sleeping was rough! You will find your grove. Just make sure it something you can follow through with each night, I also don't get home till 6 and my older son needs to be in bed by 8 or he is a hot mess the next day. By the time we did dinner, and everything it was late. We didn't have time for a long routine so ours now is very short, but works for us. Please ignore errors, typing one handed on my phone. good Luck!

 

[irish_cob]

I don't collect my kids from the childminders til 5pm, today was 5.45pm due to traffic! No chance of them being in bed for 7pm when I have to make tea and we have to eat it and we have to play and tidy up and read books before bed etc. mine both went to bed just after 9pm last night which is later than normal for dd1, she's usually in bed for about 8.30, but it's average or even early ish for the baby. They both slept through!!! Yay!!! First time in weeks for the baby!!

I feed to sleep. Dd1 would not feed to sleep and wouldn't self settle and bedtimes were a 3 hour battle of wills involving lots of crying (mainly by me), lots of lying her down in her cot hundreds of times, and lots of sitting on the floor by her cot watching her crawling and later walking up and down it. She wouldn't accept shush pat, she wouldn't accept pick up put down, she wouldn't accept gradual retreat, we never dared try cc or CIO as a couple of evenings I had to leave her for literally seconds eg to run to the toilet and she'd be sick she was so hysterical. She was an incredibly hard baby though, I've never met anyone else that one of those techniques didn't work for. So dd2 feeds to sleep and I think it's amazing and will continue it until she's 4 if necessary lol I just can't explain how horrendous the first 2 years of dd1's life were when it came to sleeping, it cast a shadow over everything knowing that at some point you were going to have to take her up to bed

 

[Lizzybee]

Thanks Ladies I feel better now. Yes he falls asleep by accident too larasue!! I am starting to do bath and jammies and then a feed but it was midnight before he was in his own bed. That said he slept until 7.30am this morning!!! I'm going to start getting him up a bit earlier each day so hopefully the bedtime bit may become earlier too!
Mwd1985 what time does your son get up if he goes at 8pm? Also how old is he?

 

[PCOSTTC]

My son is 11 weeks and has had a routine since about 5!
We have our supper at around 6, he nurses while I eat, Then at 7 he takes a bath ( every night, I find it calms him to go to bed) Then he eats a bit more and plays for a bit. Then we rock and nurse until he falls asleep usually around 9. Sleeps in his swing until 11-12 when he wakes up, then we actually go to bed. Been on this exact routine since he was about 5 weeks old!

 

[Moolia]

Dd is 5 months old. She usually falls asleep feeding by accident to as is so tired! No way I could keep her awake past 6:30/7! She is exhausted by then! I do bath for dd and my almost 3 yo ds at about 6 and then sleeping bag, feed, bed. She wakes at about 11pm and 4/5am for feeds, then wakes for the day around 7.
It's up to you if you want a later bedtime. I personally love having my evenings to myself and believe that an early night is important for los

 

[Mwd1985]

My older one is almost 2, he sleeps till 730ish.

 

[Lizzybee]

Dd is 5 months old. She usually falls asleep feeding by accident to as is so tired! No way I could keep her awake past 6:30/7! She is exhausted by then! I do bath for dd and my almost 3 yo ds at about 6 and then sleeping bag, feed, bed. She wakes at about 11pm and 4/5am for feeds, then wakes for the day around 7.
It's up to you if you want a later bedtime. I personally love having my evenings to myself and believe that an early night is important for los

I don't want him to have a late bedtime!!! I too need my evenings but if he goes that early he wakes after 30mins!!!! I'm up and down stairs like a yo yo so he might as well stay up a bit so we all sleep better!!!!

 

[Lizzybee]

My older one is almost 2, he sleeps till 730ish.

There's hope for me yet then!!! Thank you!!!!

 

[MommyJogger]

When I worked and DS1 was around that age, we picked him up between 5 and 6pm. Then we'd go home, play with him, and I'd nurse him in a carrier (to help him catch up on his milk for the day) throughout the evening while we got things done. He commonly wasn't in bed until closer to 8-8:30, but we had the benefit of allowing him to sleep as late as he needed in the morning (usually until 6:30-7:30) and then leaving for work because our mornings were more flexible than our evenings. I'm glad that we didn't have any early-to-bed routines when he was young because as he got older and began really ramping up on solids (around 15-18mo), it would have been incredibly difficult to get something healthy on the table in time for him to continue an early bed time. I don't find that I need alone time in the evenings, we were able to relax while he was still awake and we enjoyed the time with him we might not have gotten as a two-working parent household had he had an earlier bed time. I don't think the bedtime itself is as important as the total sleep a child gets and we were lucky that our preference happened to also be his natural sleep pattern.

 

[Lizzybee]

Thank you mommyjogger. I'm not worried now, he gets plenty of sleep and is a very happy baby. I'm a teacher so while I plan to do as much work as poss at work there will be times when I need to do some at home. But we will find our way as we go along!!
Thanks all