when did you give your baby a "bedtime"?

[sake]

Currently, Grant is taking an evening nap, sometime between 6 and 7:30, staying asleep for 30-45 min and then he's awake until we feed him and go to bed around 10. But the past few nights he has been REALLY fussy starting around 8:30-9. We wake him up at 6:15 to feed him, and then he goes back to sleep at the baby sitter's house after I drop him off at 7. 

I know that toddlers are supposed to get 12 hours of sleep (ideally), but when did you start laying your baby down in their bed earlier than you were going to sleep?

[Deleted]

6-7 weeks is when we started our 7:30 bath/bed routine.  ETA until 12 weeks they were waking at 3amish and 5amish and waking for the day around 7 (that was our Start of Day when we'd wake them anyway).  At 12 weeks it was just 5am and then they started waking for the day around 6:30 when they dropped that waking.  That's been our schedule since, I don't know, 14, 16weeks?

Now the boys HATE LYFE at 7:30 on the dot, which makes it easier actually to take them out in the evenings -- no guesstimating, we just leave at 7:15/7:30.

[cleo29]

K wanted to be asleep early and kind of early on, but for a long time 6:30 was as late as she would go.  C was a bit of a night owl and 9 was her baby bedtime.

[eddy]

When I went back to work we started doing a bedtime since he was in a daycare schedule. We started putting him down around 6:30 and he would wake once in the night to eat at some point then wake for the day at 6:30.

[sake]

I'm also sort of nervous that if his last feeding is at 7:30, that he will be awake before the night is over b/c he's hungry. If we feed him at 9-9:30 then he sleeps through the night like a champ, and I don't want to mess that up.

[janiejones]

I haven't figured this out. But we sound like we are on similar schedules.
Nights-
6-7ish nap (an hour or so)
up until 10ish, sleeps for 4 hours.
feed
down for 3 hours
feed around 6am, wakes at 8 am

Naps-
10 am for an hour and a bit

1pm for 40min

4pm for 40 min

of course if we are out running errands he naps longer, an dif we have play group or infant massage he skips the early afternoon nap.

[poppyseed]

Sake, M was on that same schedule until about 5-5.5 months. Only in the last month has she really started going to bed at the same time consistently, usually 7:30-8pm and she sleeps all night.

ETA:  I start the routine around 7 or a little before.  Book, bath, jammies, sleep sack, nurse her in my dark bedroom with the fan on, sound machine on, and seahorse on, and she's out by 7:30 or 8pm.

[Deleted]

Mar 28, 2013 12:33:47 GMT -5 sake said:

I'm also sort of nervous that if his last feeding is at 7:30, that he will be awake before the night is over b/c he's hungry. If we feed him at 9-9:30 then he sleeps through the night like a champ, and I don't want to mess that up.

DREAMFEED!

Also tank him UP before his last feeding -- cluster feed.  We did that, we had "dinner" at like 6:30 and then they had their night bottles at 7:30/8. (actually we still do this only dinner is real food)

[partiallysunny]

Actually, the kid has always gone to bed before us. He did his newborn feeding ever two hours on the dot and around 6 weeks he started sleeping for longer stretches starting at 7pm. So 7pm has always been his bedtime. He sleeps until 6 or 7am, like clock work.

[ndolehan]

When Emily was about 2 1/2 months she had a "bedtime". Mostly because she seemed to go to sleep at the same time every night. I just kept with that and every night at 10:30 I put her down with her seahorse and she falls asleep! I begin bed time routine around 9:30am (feed, change, etc.) and she sleeps until 9am or 10am! 

She also takes a cat nap around 6:30/7:30pm, as well. But it's super short. She used to go to bed at 11:30, but that was a little late IMO (I wanted to go to bed earlier ) so I started putting her to sleep 5 or 10 minutes earlier until we got to 10:30. Once she get's older I might make bed time earlier, but for now 10:30 is good! 

[sake]

Mar 28, 2013 12:37:20 GMT -5 ninjabridemom said:

Mar 28, 2013 12:33:47 GMT -5 sake said:

I'm also sort of nervous that if his last feeding is at 7:30, that he will be awake before the night is over b/c he's hungry. If we feed him at 9-9:30 then he sleeps through the night like a champ, and I don't want to mess that up.

DREAMFEED!

Also tank him UP before his last feeding -- cluster feed.  We did that, we had "dinner" at like 6:30 and then they had their night bottles at 7:30/8. (actually we still do this only dinner is real food)

We did this the other night b/c he ate at 6:30, and then again at 8:30 (instead of waiting 3 hours like usual)b/c he was crying and nothing would console him, so we figured he mUST be hungry, and he drained his 5 oz bottle, and then we fed him again at 9:30 before we went to bed, and he only ate like 1.5 oz. and then he was so asleep that the bottle was just sitting in his mouth, and he wasn't even sucking. I don't think he gets the concept of dream feeds. lol

[luckyval]

We started just putting him down between 8-9 pm wiht he was a nb. Once we got to around 2-3 months, it becamse very obvious he couldn't make it past 7 before having a meltdown, so 6:45 was bedtime

That has been pushed back in the past year to 8 pm

[Deleted]

LOL! (re: dreamfeed) He'll get it if it works for you guys.

And to totally counter Booby (she isn't wrong, it depends on your kid!!) our boys flourished with a schedule. We have a combo baby-led/parent-led philosophy and it worked really well for us. We were already feeding every 3hrs per doc's orders (Gabe had trouble gaining at first) so we went with an EASY 3hr schedule. Start of day was determined by them over the course of a week (we averaged when they were waking up) and then we stuck with that and would wake them. Until 5 months naps were a total crap shoot and they'd tag-team us (one up one down), then we went to a 4hr schedule and things have been progressively better since. They liked having a more predictable day especially early on. It's helped us to have a strong baseline to adjust based on growth needs and sleep needs. They're no longer eating in intervals, they're eating like people, and their now 2 naps are longer and they sleep better during.

Now they are much more flexible, except the 7:30 thing, and can even have a totally fucked up schedule day and be golden happy babies. Some babies get really rigid. But for us it gave all 4 of us peace of mind to relax a bit during that first year.

[fizz7678]

We didn't start with a formal bedtime until about 8-9 months and I think that was a mistake on our parts.  My son is not a great sleeper and now looking back I think a true bedtime and routine would have benefited him greatly. 

He wakes about 6:30-7, naps at 10 and 2 for anywhere from 1-2 hours and goes down for the night between 7:30-8 and he is a much happier kid since we started really sticking to that routine.

[sake]

Maybe we'll try going to bed a little earlier next week. I want to see if this fussiness is just a phase, or if it's really that he's just super tired.
Also, i don't like the idea of missing out on time to spend with him... but I guess if he's going to be crying his eyes out, then it's not really quality time anyway. :/

[melodramatic26]

probably around 6 weeks? She would go through her witching hour from about 4-6pm and then she would just be so exhausted that it was either nap or bed. I remembered that we started and early bedtime with Adele too.

Once we started daycare at 12 weeks, it was obvious we needed an early bedtime b/c she wouldn't nap nearly as well as she did at home so she needed the extra hours of sleep.

[Tacocat]

I think my DD is about your sons age (3 1/2 months). Now that I've been back to work, we have a pretty good schedule going for the evening. We get home around 5 and she is usually ready for a nap shortly after that. She'll sleep for 45min-1 hour. Then we put her to bed around 8-8:30. She still gets up once a night (except 3 nights where she has STTN) around 2-3 and then goes back to sleep until 6:45 when we wake her to go to daycare. This schedule seems to work pretty well for her.

[sugarbear]

Mar 28, 2013 12:37:20 GMT -5 ninjabridemom said:

Mar 28, 2013 12:33:47 GMT -5 sake said:

I'm also sort of nervous that if his last feeding is at 7:30, that he will be awake before the night is over b/c he's hungry. If we feed him at 9-9:30 then he sleeps through the night like a champ, and I don't want to mess that up.

DREAMFEED!

Also tank him UP before his last feeding -- cluster feed.  We did that, we had "dinner" at like 6:30 and then they had their night bottles at 7:30/8. (actually we still do this only dinner is real food)

Definitely do a dream feed when you are ready to go to bed.
It worked like a charm for us!