what do you do with your newborn on an evening?!

[gingajewel]

I no this sounds like a really odd question but what do you do with your newborn on an evening? At the moment Isla has a bath about seven and then a bottle and then stays down stairs with us as she is normally super awake at this time. She hates to be put down on an evening so she will generally sit on one of our laps and drop to sleep on us about 8.30ish (although this differs a lot!) at ten we take her up to bed and give her a bottle and she is normally pretty good at falling to sleep in her Moses basket.
Do any of you take your lo's up earlier than that? Are any of you thinking about a routine? If so how are you going to start it?
There is no way I could put Isla in her Moses basket after her bath yet as she is so wide awake!! She is 5 weeks old btw.

 

[jessmke]

Starting around about 5 or 6 weeks old we implemented a bedtime routine - bath, massage, a story, feed, then put down in her moses basket which was in our room. For the first few weeks she often wasn't tired at this time, but we would still do the routine and then I would sit in our room with her while she squirmed around in her basket. If she got upset then I would pick her up and hold her, but if she was content then I would just leave her in her basket. After a few weeks she got used to the routine and she started to get sleepy at bedtime when we would do the routine. By the time she was about 3 1/2-4 months old she would go to sleep immediately following her bedtime routine. I'd suggest you start a routine (make it something quick and easy to do because you will be doing it every night for several years!) to start to teach her body to get sleepy at bedtime. I spent many evenings in our room watching Netflix on my iPad while my LO squirmed around in her basket, but it has paid off enormously in the end. My LO now goes to bed with absolutely no fuss every single night (now we just need to work on her staying asleep!).

Also try to pick a bedtime that works with her natural clock at the moment, you can always bump it ahead earlier as she gets older. So if she often drops off to sleep around 8:30 pm, then start her bath and bedtime routine at 8 pm. I'm pretty sure we started putting my LO to bed around 9 pm at 6 weeks old, and her bedtime just naturally started getting earlier as she had longer awake periods during the day. Now she goest to bed sometime between 7-8 pm depending on when she wakes up from her last nap.

 

[Left wonderin]

Everyone is different but at 5 weeks for us its way too early to be thinking of routines . Our LO is now 12 weeks old and has almost put herself into a routine ! She likes to play on her mat kicking ect..or on our Knees between 5-7 .. Then usually she will have a feed , gets sleepy . Will go down awake in her pram in the living area and sleep until 11 when I pick her up and being her to bed with me . She will usually have a feed and then go back to sleep in her crib. I should now start to put her into her crib at 7 . Maybe next week lol.....

 

[penelopejones]

I'm just starting to get into a routine with my LO now, around 11 weeks. Before that, he was pretty unpredictable in terms of when he'd go down, and I was wearing him in the carrier to sleep a lot so I'd just keep him there until I went up to bed. Now I've started taking him up to bed with a feed, massage, pjs, and rocking/singing and he usually goes down around 7:30/8, although sometimes he is wide awake (or cranky) and hangs out with DH and I until 9 or so when I can finally get him down.

 

[CRWx]

When she was really tiny I used to put her in her poddlepod beside me on the sofa and talk to her/watch TV with her, then took her upto bed and gave her her last bottle whilst sat in bed with her. Then started her bath, cuddles, book, bottle, bed routine when she was a little bit bigger. She's just over 3 months now and has fallen into that routine and goes to bed between 8 and half past! xxx

 

[Cupcake9596]

DD usually spends some time playing with OH when he gets back from work, then she gets a bottle around 7 and bathed around 7.45 (bottle, bath and bed for us as she wouldn't take a bottle after her bath for some reason so we had to switch things up lol). She selfs settles in her crib and is usually asleep for 8.30 x

 

[dani_tinks]

We started E's bed time routine at about 6 weeks when we noticed her falling asleep at the same time each evening. She has a bath every other night, bottle and bed by usually half 7 but can vary between 7-8 pm.

 

[lau86]

She has her dinner, bath and stories but often won't go to bed! If she will that's great if not she sits with us or just does what she does in the day

 

[MindUtopia]

We did pretty much exactly what you did, except with her in a wrap in the evenings until 4 months. Then we transitioned to a feed in bed and having her sleep in a co-sleeping cot attached to our bed in the evening from about 6:30pm while we went about our evening downstairs. That worked really well. It was a smooth transition from being with us to sleeping by herself because by that time she'd gotten into a good routine of falling to sleep around that time anyway. I think do what works and change it when it doesn't. I don't see the point of struggling to force a routine for weeks and weeks, when you can just go with the flow and do what works and then transition into doing something different when the time comes.