Okay, I'm stumped.
I read in all the books and on everybody's blogs how they have this bedtime routine and here's my confession - we have none.
The only thing we do differently (obviously) is close the curtains and turn on the lights in their room :)
I'd heard that bathing is supposed to soothe your baby and make them feel ready for bed.
Well, we tried it for a few nights but our babies just woke up MORE. And we don't need MORE awake babies at night, thank you very much.
So since that wasn't working, we moved bath time to around 3pm since that's the most convenient for us! I will admit we last tried the bedtime bath probably 8 weeks ago so maybe we should try it again?
When they wake for the feed around 7-ish (see? very vague. they wake when they're hungry :)), I feed, change nappy and if they were in short-sleeved clothes, I change them to long-sleeved towelling babygrows (or sleepsuits, as I saw recently in an Edgars brochure) so they'll be warmer and sleep better. And when I put them down again, I add another blanket since it's night time.
That's it.
That's the extent of our night time routine.
No bathing, singing, reading, praying (except under my breath that they'll sleep for a good 5 - 6 hours), nothing!
Mine is just as boring - mug of tea, into bed, read as long as tea lasts, lights out and deep slumber until I hear a baby cry!
Okay, so what's your bedtime routine?
No worries...they're still so young! Here is ours:
ReplyDeleteDinner
Clean up the living room (we clean up...they take more crap out)
Go upstairs for baths
Dress/Diaper
Play
Into cribs with bink and lovey
Dim light
Read three stories (we read the same ones every night...boring too)
Lay them back down, add blanket, and leave (night light on)
You're not boring...you'll find it.
We started imposing a bed time routine when it was time for me to head back to work and for the girls to start daycare (11 weeks old).
ReplyDeleteI got way more strict about it when Lucas went to Iraq (5 months old).
Our current routine is this:
1. Dinner
2. Play time with Mama
3. Bath (every other night)
4. Dry off and get into pajamas
5. Drink milk
6. Brush teeth
7. Brush hair
8. Tuck in each child
9. Kiss each child
10. Say goodnight to Daddy's photo
11. Turn out the light and leave
Remember, my girls are closer to four years old now than three!
Our infant routine was this:
1. Tandem nurse
2. Burp
3. Rub gums with a finger toothbrush
4. Change diapers
5. Dress in pajamas
6. Read Good Night Moon
7. Kisses
8. Put them in the crib with their lovies
9. Say "Goodnight Daddy! We love you."
10. Turn out the light and leave
Eventually, the girls started asking for different books, and we eventually dropped the book time altogether in the interest of spending more time talking over dinner.
Your babies are still very young. They are really the same age as my BB..not quite 10 weeks. My pediatrician says that a routine usually doesn't start until around 4 months. We are in the same boat as you. Just feeding when hungry...sleeping when sleepy. One thing I have been trying to do is put BB down for the night between 6:30 and 8:30. (rocking her to sleep). I've found that if I can get her to sleep earlier that she sleeps better through the night. Of course she still wakes up to eat every 1 1/2 to 2 hours but she is not fully awake.Just give it a little time.
ReplyDeleteYour babies are still very young. They are really the same age as my BB..not quite 10 weeks. My pediatrician says that a routine usually doesn't start until around 4 months. We are in the same boat as you. Just feeding when hungry...sleeping when sleepy. One thing I have been trying to do is put BB down for the night between 6:30 and 8:30. (rocking her to sleep). I've found that if I can get her to sleep earlier that she sleeps better through the night. Of course she still wakes up to eat every 1 1/2 to 2 hours but she is not fully awake.Just give it a little time.
ReplyDeleteMy boys are 4.5 months old and since they were 3 months old we have done the following:
ReplyDelete-bath at 7 pm (with sleepytime lotion)
-dress them in a sleeper and swaddle from the waist down
-bottle at 7:30
-upstairs to their bedroom and reed 2 books
-into the crib with nothing in the crib..no bumpers,blankets,toys,etc.
-they sleep till 7 am
*** If they wake up they do not get a bottle, we have had 2-3 nights of crying it out for 15-30 minutes. Now they may wake and fuss a little but they go back to sleep. They actaully slept 12.5 hours on Saturday!! Also, we are feeding them baby food now so we start that before bath time.
I have three kids... My husband takes the boys (4 and 5 years old). They read some books, watch a t.v show, drink some juice or milk and fall asleep. The older boy we put in his room until he comes back to our room (he does this most nights). The other son sleeps next to daddy. I get my 2 1/2 year old daughter to sleep by reading books while she drinks some milk. Then I lay her in her twin bed and I lay next to her. All night. When they were babies they slept with us. We have issues! But we all sleep so that is all I want!
ReplyDeleteAt that age I was pretty routine less. We tended to nap 5-6 hours after waking when they were around a year. I LOVED napping with my babies and I broke all kinds of rules and did things like sleeping with my babies and nursing them to sleep.
ReplyDeleteNow they are 4 and 7 and I miss that but they are such beautiful big girls. Our routine now is dinner, bath some days, meds, prayer time, tuck them in bed and turn out the light and turn on the music. It works well. Especially now that it is so dark out.
Routine schmoutine! We tried to get into the pattern of nightly bathing followed by a lavender oil massage (no, seriously!) and maybe 3-4 nights a week it works out, never at an exact time, more a "sheesh we want to have dinner soon - let's try knocking her out with a bath", but realistically we don't manage to get our act together every night. Heck, we don't even change her into a more appropriate outfit! I had visions when I was preggers of changing her into a lovely wee gown every night... but she HATES being changed, so I avoid that stress when I can :) I reckon routine will come as we get to know our babies better, and THEY start to do their bit by sleeping *properly* etc. Until then - randomness rules.
ReplyDeleteI think there is great value in a bedtime routine, you only see results once it has been in place consistently for a long period of time. With my first baby I only started a routine when I was ready, with my second he had a bedtime routine from his first night at home.
ReplyDeleteMine goes something like this:
Dinner together (5/6pm)
Play time while the bath is run
Brush teeth and have any medicine while in the bath
Cream and massage if theres time
Pajamas and sleep sack
(This is when the start rubbing their eyes and yawning)
Bottle in the dark
Into bed and walk out (7/7:30pm)
The nice thing about a routine is you can do it in your sleep ... LOL.
ReplyDeleteLaRue doesn't have much of a routine, but we do have a rhythm of waking/sleeping that we follow. A routine will follow as she is awake more than 30 minutes at a time. Sunday's are rough on her because we are out of rhythm with a car ride to church, eating, library before a car ride home. She doesn't get many baths right now, maybe once a week, but as she gets older we'll switch it to 2 and then 3 times a week until she can sit up in the tub at around 7 or 8 months. It's really cold here and she hates being cold.
Joel has had the same routine since about 18 months old, though it sometimes varies and doesn't always happen the same time every night. Eating, Clean up, Feed the dog (and last year we added take out the kitchen trash - a grocery bag hung on a chair that we put everything in and he takes to the big dumpster outside right beside our steps, he still needs a little big sister help), bath, bedtime stories, check list, teeth, kisses and prayers, turn on music or sound machine, into bed (usually followed by at least one trip to the bathroom and a drink because I forgot to send him)
Sooner or later you'll realize that sometime along the way you've developed a routine, whether it is 30 minutes long or 2 hours, it's just doing the same thing the same way every night.