I don't get it

How do you establish a "bedtime" when all the baby does is eat and sleep every 3-4 hours? This is all so confusing.

Re: I don't get it

When they are little its a little harder to do. Ryan basically makes his own bedtime but what I do is feed every night at 11 anyway to top him off before I go to bed. He usually wakes up around 3:30 again to eat so at least I can get a few hours in a row of sleep.

Re: I don't get it

Michael came up with is own schedule - but in order to get a bed time in - what we did was around his 9pm bottle we gave him his bottle in his room sitting in the glider with the lights low and put him down in his crib after as if it were bedtime -he still woke up 2-3 times at that point, but he always went back in his crib. Eventually he started sleeping longer and then through the night... his bedtime is still 9pm although he has his bottle earlier.

It is tough at such a young age, by time Michael was 2 months we started doing it this way.

Message edited 2/14/2006 11:42:11 AM.

Re: I don't get it

Well you can't really establish a bed time until the night feedings are gone because like you said, they need to get up to eat every 3 - 4 hrs. After they hit 11lbs they are metabolically able to sleep through the night. That doesn't mean they will. But I wouldn't even really try to establish a "bedtime" until that weight is reached and until after at least 6 weeks of age. I don't know how old your baby is right now but that's something to keep in mind.

Re: I don't get it

I did similar to MichaelsMommy too. We let Kevin dictate his schedule/bedtime. For him it was 11pm for awhile and maybe closer to 6 months or so he went down to 10 and eventually 9pm as he slept longer stretches.

When he was little and getting up every 3 hours to eat - the last bottle for bed we considered 11pm (because after about 4 weeks or so after that bottle he started to stretch more than 2-3 hours after that bottle), we always did the same routine, change to pjs, dim lights, bottle in glider with daddy.

Re: I don't get it

Like the other mommys said you really can't when they are that young.

My son will be 12 weeks on Sat and he is just starting to settle in his routine.

He goes down at 8:30 and sleeps through the night till 7 am or later. He is up til 10 am then naps... usually he is up 3 hours then naps for 2 hours. I dont let him sleep later than 5pm so that way he goes to bed on time.

He has 30 ounces a day (6 ounces per bottle). Once your little one stops eating at night he should sleep. Now if Jack wakes up at night I won't feed him.

Re: I don't get it

okay, makes sense now. Roman is only two weeks old, I guess I was rushing things a bit

Re: I don't get it