Hi ladies,

I know my little boy is still a bit young to really understand bedtime routines but I'm just thinking ahead a bit and wondering when it would be sensible to start to put some sort of routine in place.

Over the past few days, Thomas has started going through a really fussy phase in the evenings, cluster feeding, unsettled, then getting over-tired and cranky. The positive is that he is sleeping a bit better at night, only woke once for a feed between 1 a.m. (when he finally settled) and 8 a.m., which is great for us as he used to feed every 2 hours or more during the night. But I can't really see how it would be possible to build any sort of routine around this sort of feeding schedule - he was feeding on and off from about 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. last night, he will sometimes doze for 20 minutes in between, other times he will cry and needs to be rocked or calmed down with music. Should I just wait for him to become a bit more settled before I start trying to put a routine in place, or should I try to start a simple routine anyway even though there's not a hope in hell of him going to bed/sleep afterwards? I'm afraid that might just confuse him. Mind you, I have a morning routine with him, I generally get him up between 8 and 9 a.m., feed him downstairs instead of in bed, then top and tail him and get him dressed, after which he usually promptly goes back to sleep, LOL!

Sorry - post turned out a bit long!

I started to bath Ilana at about 6pm, then massaged her, then took her into the darkened bedroom until the morning. She might not sleep until 10pm and be feeing non-stop until then, but she stayed in the bedroom where it was quiet.

from when isabel was about 8-9 wks i got her in a routine of getting ready for bed at 7:30 and in bed for 8. i don't bath her every night (probably every 2 nights) but i do the same routine of putting her in a dark room to change her into pj's then feeding her in my room in the dark before putting her in basket to sleep. we also now put on a night light that projects images onto the ceiling while we're changing her so she'll start to associate that with bedtime

she cluster feeds from about 4/5 til bedtime (though this has lessened from every 30 mins or so to every hour)

i also agree with becstar above...once she's gone up fot the night we very rarely bring her back downstairs

Thanks, I agree about the idea of bringing him upstairs after 'bedtime' - the only problem is that OH is a bit of a night owl and if I bring him upstairs I am generally left up there to deal with him, whereas if we keep him downstairs OH is fantastic for soothing him and getting him to settle a bit.

Do you think it would be OK to keep things as they are for the time being and start to introduce a bedtime routine maybe at about 2 months?

yeah defo...as i said isabel didn't go into a routine til about 8 weeks as to be honest until that point she was oblivious to what went on around her and would sleep through noise much easier...now she's so easy to distract that for her own sake it needs to be quiet when she goes to bed!

plus although she still sleeps in with us we use a baby monitor so when she goes down for bed we shut the door and can still hear her easily while we're downstairs...that way OH and i take turns to soothe her if she happens to need it and by the time i go to bed she rarely wakes for anything til the morning feed so i can get a nice sleep

And keep in mind some babies just don't do routines for awhile...and that's ok. My son is not ready for a routine yet, we've tried. But it's ok, it'll come when he's ready.

Same here, No matter how tired Rose is or what we try she will not go to bed before 9pm, but always at 9pm. obviously she is making her own routine. cant complain as she sleeps till at least 5am each day now.

oh and she still cluster feeds all evening!

Ryan doesn't really have a routine either, especially as he has a complete meltdown after being bathed.

To try to help him distinguish day sleeps form night sleeps I try to make sure that he goes to sleep somewhere dark and fairly quiet after 7pm, whether this is upstairs in his moses basket or in the kitchen in his pram cot with the lights off, adn during the day he sleeps in his prma in the living room with me with the tv or radio on.

This way at least wherever I am I can help him to know whether he should be sleeping or napping and help him to get into his own routine.

In the last few days he has started sleeping 9pm to 11.30pm then 12.00 to 2.30am, 3.00am to 6am, don't know if it will last but it's better than waking up every hour!

With twins we have to be on a schedule. My girls started with every 3 hour feeds in the ICU and have stayed on every 3 hour feeds since coming home. Occassionally they get hungry early and I feed them but for the most part it's every 3 hours around the clock. During the day I keep them up for 30-60 minutes after a feeding and then put them down for a nap and at night I put them directly to bed after every feeding. Through the night they usually sleep straight through until the next feeding when I wake them up.

I think cluster feeding twins would make me even more exhausted then I already am!

Well done, it sounds like you are doing a fantastic job! I completely see that you would have no choice but to have a schedule with twins! I don't know how you do it - respect!! But it must be amazing as well.