routine before bedtime? lots of questions!

Jennifer - posted on 03/04/2010

Hi there! Our bedtime routine is pretty easy. If it's a bath night, bath at 6.30 or 6.45, pj's fresh diaper and read a book, sometimes two, and then Miles nurses for 15-20 minutes and he's in bed and sleeping usually by 7.15 and sleeps until 6.30-7.30 the next morning. When he was about 2.5 months, he seemed to pick 7 as a bedtime and I just worked a schedule around it. Good luck!

Belinda - posted on 03/04/2010

Hi, My 5 month old son has a bath, bottle and bed around 7 - 7.30pm every night, we ensure he always wears a bonds wondersuit so he knows they are his pj's and its night time (sounds crazy but I am sure it works) and then we wrap him and cover him with a balnket and he sleeps through till 6am. he sleeps in a room with his 17 month old sister and they both sleep through now. He has S26 gold and is fed 4 hourly but I top him up at bed time, he has rice cereal of a morning and pureed veg at lunch and dinner but no weaning yet. I bath him every night it relaxes him. He has two older sisters a 17 month old and a almost 4 year old. No heat but a wrap and a blanket.
However I had the same problem with my second daughter (the 17 month old) with sleeping my first and third are great sleepers I looked at the karitane website and changed her routine and discovered she was getting overtired and thats why she kept waking up at night. So it was weird but she had to sleep more in the day in order to sleep all night but the website is very helpful, she weaned herself off bottles at 10 months. Good Luck :)

SHANNON - posted on 03/03/2010

I give my baby just a lil bit of infant cereal w/ formula (Enfamil) 6oz in her bottle right before bedtime which is 9pm. But she only likes the oatmeal & banana. But it make her sleep 4 9 hrs/ so u get a lil cleaning done while she's still sleeping in the morning!!

ALEA - posted on 03/03/2010

My son is 22 Weeks old and sleeps through the night for 8+ hours 99% of the time. 1st baby & no siblings. He is breastfed and we supplement with 2 bottles of formula during the day...either Enfamil or Similac. We always keep the room at room temperature, more on the cool side and don't change in the evening. We have late schedules, so he goes to bed late, but this is our routine. At 11:30PM every night I run a warm bath for him, use soap every other day, and he spends about 10-15 minutes in the bath. Then we come back to the dimly lit room where I have calming yoga/spa music playing. I put a new diaper on him & wrap him in a blanket. Then give him a massage with his baby lotion and put him in his clean PJ's. I still swaddle him from the chest, with both arms free, for bedtime. After that I allow him to nurse for a total of 20 minutes wich makes him groggy. After that I lay him in his bassinet with a white noise machine playing nearby, he normally falls right to sleep. If he's having a bad night I might need to settle him with his pacifier. He sleeps next to our bed and we keep a nightlight on so I can easily keep an eye on him. Occasionally he stirs halfway through the night, but I just give him his pacifier and turn his noise back on for a minute and he settles back down. He sleeps from 12:30AM until I wake up at 8AM or 9AM to get ready for work. I change him and feed him and put him back to bed and he doesn't wake up again until between 11AM & Noon. We prefer to have him in our room, so I'm not sure how he'd do if he was on his own in a nursery. Good luck though!

Crystal - posted on 03/03/2010

Cole's routine starts at 7pm with me giving him a bowl of stage one pablem then I give him a bath for about 20 min to let him work the last bit of energy he has in his system off then after the bath I give him a bottle of formula (Nestley Good Start) and he's usually conked out for the night. He might wake up once but I just put is soother back into his mouth and he falls right back to sleep and he's not up untill between 8 and 9 am.

Hope that helps!!

Christina - posted on 03/02/2010

My little guy starts his night routine at 630 and is in bed by 730. We start by feeding him a vegetable (1st food) and then he gets a bath where we play in the water for about 10 mins. After that he gets his night bottle which consists of good start soy formula (2 1/2 scoops and 5 oz water) and rice or rice and apple cereal in the ventaire bottle. I make the night bottle pretty thick so it stays on his tummy longer. He sleeps from 730 -800 or 830. Before we started this it was like war to get him to go to bed, but now he let's us know when it gets time for his routine and we don't fight about bedtime anymore. We do keep the heater set on 67 but we have a fan in the hall blowing on his door for noise and to keep it cooler, but we still cover him with blankets. Hope this helps. The only downside is once you start a routine you have to be home to start it on time. Good luck with your little one!

Nakima - posted on 03/02/2010

We do bathing every other night, but our routine is a bottle and rice cereal at 7:15ish, 1 or 2 books, prayers, and then he's down no later than 8:00. If it's bath night, then the bath comes after the milk/cereal, then books, prayers, and lights out. No siblings yet. Yes, we have the heat on so he doesn't get cold and wake at night but we also have a fan in the room. We use Nestle Good Start formula and he usually drinks 6 oz. every 3 hours along with baby food.

Cara - posted on 03/02/2010

i have a 6month old our rountine is bath at 7, the into pj's, then story and bottle, and bed by 8, she has 7oz of cow and gate no. 2, avent bottles, started weaning onto baby rice few days ago so only an oz at breakfast so she gets used to it, she has a bath every night but only wash her hair every 3 or 4 days, have heating on til bout 9/10 so she has warm towel after bath and its warm in her room to go sleep, and she has a half sister who is 3 1/2years

Gisselle - posted on 03/02/2010

My son has been on this routine since he was about 10 weeks and we are probably just lucky but this has worked for us ever since. I bathe him every night between 6:30 and 7:00. He likes splashing on the tub so this takes about 15-20 minutes. I dim the lights in the bedroom before we go in. Then he gets creamed all over, massaged and dressed for bed. I read to him (how many stories, depend on how active he still is) then I sing a few lullabies. Then i feed him 6 oz (Similac Advance) of milk (he's happy with either Dr. Brown's or Playtex Ventaire). Then I transfer him on his bassinet. I would feed him 3 hours later with another 6 oz and he'd sleep through 6:30 or 7 a.m. the next day. We'd normally heat the room before we go to bed but switch it off before sleeping. The A/C makes the air so dry causing stuffy nose for my baby.

Sometimes he would waken during the night but i wait a bit before going to him and most often than not, he goes back to sleep on his own.

I read somewhere that I shouldn't let him fall asleep while nursing. He should be awake when I put him to bed so that he learns how to fall asleep on his own. I might give it a try but our routine is working so well, I don't know if its necessary to change it.

Sara - posted on 03/02/2010

It's great to see that I have the same routine as alot of other parents out there. My lil man has his bath every other night because of his dry skin, we also lotion up and do massage before he gets his pj's on about 730. He usually nurses about 8pm and is asleep by 830. Sometimes he wakes up at about midnight to eat...(usually if cranky from teething, or going through a growth spurt) Usually he just gets up at about 3am and nurses then back to sleep, and then crys about 6am in his crib, so my husband puts him in the bed with me before he leaves for work...and we sleep till about 7 or 8.

It is nice to know that there are many people out there who still nurses thier babies. My mother in law has made me feel terrible because she wants to be able to feed him too, but he refuses to take a bottle and pacifier because it makes him gag. I told her I thought I was a pretty strong mom for being so gung ho about it! lol

Marina - posted on 03/02/2010

My son is five and a half months old right now and he has been sleeping pretty much all through the night since about 6 - 7 weeks old. I have a four year old step-daughter, so routine has always been a part of everything we do. At 7pm we start my step-daughter's routine and she's in the bath at 7:30pm, so at that time, I feed my son his vegetables, since we're at that stage now. It'll take him about 20 minutes to eat, and that's when I'll get my step-daughter out of the bath. I'll finish her nighttime routine and she's in bed with a movie on by 8pm, movie turns off at 8:30pm. So since the daughter is completely taken of by 8pm, that's when I'll continue to finish with Roman, my son. I'll get everything for his bath ready at the point, and in he goes. I always use the Johnson & Johnson bedtime bath with the natural calming essence, it really helps. He gets a bath every night, but only wash his hair every other night, and only use the bedtime bath stuff. After the bath is over, I'll get a new diaper on with Johnson's baby powder to keep his bottom dry :) Then I'll massage his whole body with the bedtime lotion, the same kind as the bath wash. After the lotion is put on, we do little exercises to kind of engage him and to somewhat get him smiling and laughing to get him excited to then wind down. Once his jammies are on, I'll make a small bottle, we use the Similac brand and the Air-vent playtex bottles. While he's drinking that small bottle I'll either have a lullaby cd playing softly or I'll sing to him and it calms him down. He'll usually be rubbing his eyes and fusing a little bit by 9:00pm, and that's when I'll lay him down in his crib. He's getting to the point now where he won't cry anymore and just accept that it's bedtime and not fight it. Before he would cry and fuss for about 5 minutes. The thing with my baby boy though is that he sleeps on his stomach. I don't fight with him because that is the only way he will sleep, he hates being on his back and will roll over onto his stomach to fall asleep.



It took us almost a month, probably more, to figure out the perfect routine and to get the right combination and order of things that worked for him and our family. Every baby is different because I have taken care of four other babies since they were practically born and they all adapted to different routines. But the common factor in all of them was the Johnson's bedtime bath wash and lotion that they all simply loved!!

Tamara - posted on 03/01/2010

My daughter has the same rountine most nights and has been sleeping 9+hrs since 6 weeks old and now sleeps 11 or 12. Zahara has a bottle of ebm (200ml) at around 6pm and then her dinner which is usually vegetables (about 75g). then at around 7pm she has a bath - i bathe her everynight because we live in the tropics. she then will have a bit of a play and then at 8 she is dressed in her pjs and is placed in her cot where i read her a story and then it is lights out. sometimes she will play on her own for a bit but most of time she goes straight to sleep and then sleeps till 7 or 8am. Occasionally if we have had a big day and she gives her sleep/tired signs she may go down earlier but still sleeps till the same time. i am in a mothers group of 20 of us where the eldest baby was born in june and the youngest just 3 weeks ago and EVERY baby has a different routine. so i think its gotta be what works best for your family.

Sarah - posted on 03/01/2010

My daughter is 22 weeks and sleeps from 7pm-7am. We read her signs(yawning, lack of alertness) and depending how her naps went through out the day sometime between 630-7 we start bedtime routine. I changer her diaper and put her in pj's. Then I breastfeed her or pump and feed her a bottle(we aren't starting solids for two more weeks and we are skipping rice cereal because it has little nutricional value). Then we read 3 books and I lay her down to do infant massage. Then I rock her standing up for 5 mins. and put her down whether she is awake or asleep. She sleeps like a rock.

Niki - posted on 03/01/2010

my son has been with his routine since 2 months, we usually start it around 730, with a bath every other night (on the nights that we don't do bath we just do massage) then mini massage and pjs. then he nurses for about 15 minutes (i think once i start him on solids the bedtime feed will dissapear), story from dad and he's in bed between 8 and 830. he's 5 1/2 months old now and has been sleeping through the night (excluding all the random awakenings- he's a roller and will roll on to his tummy and get frustrated) since about 3 months. i noticed bedtime routine really helped with him sleeping through the night. depending on when he falls asleep he gets up anywhere between 730 am and 9am. =)

Candace - posted on 03/01/2010

My son is in the bath around 6:30. Then we lotion with Johnson's and Johnson's bedtime lotion and put on pajamas. He then nurses and I read him a story which he seems to really love, even if he doesn't understand the story yet. I think it's special to sit with mom and have some story and cuddle time. He's usually swaddled up and in bed at 7:00. He goes to sleep easily without any fuss. We have a stuffed giraffe that plays white noise and a stuffed turtle that displays a star pattern on the ceiling. He's usually up like clock work, once at 11:00 and once at 3:00. He nurses, and then goes right back to sleep. He's usually up at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. for the day. I would love some advice on how to push is bedtime back from 7:00 to 8 or 9 so that the morning wasn't quite so early!!

Jacquie - posted on 02/28/2010

Wow its amazing how different everyone does things! My daughter is on a very thourough routine in that we do the same thing every night and it has worked for months she has been sleeping through the night since she was 8 weeks old. We have solids (veges followed by fruit) at 5:30pm. bath when she finished that. Breastfeed (for about 20 minutes) at 6pm and then she plays on the floor from 6:30-7 while we have dinner. This time is not "down time" in fact its the oppostite... the kids play with her and make her laugh. Then at 6:55 we put her in her sleeping bag, put her in her cot tuck her in and she turns her head and shuts her eyes - she doesnt even cry!! I wake her at 10pm (dont change her nappy) and feed her before i go to bed and she doesnt wake til 7am next morning. I have found having them on a routine makes it so much easier. Especially when trying to work around other kids!

Karen - posted on 02/28/2010

hi there! my son gets 3 tbsp of cereal around 7pm then goes for a bath, story when he comes out of the tub and around 7 45 he gets a 7oz bottle (i'm on parents choice formula and we use playtex vent air bottles). he's usually in bed by 8 15, asleep within five minutes and willl sleep through until 7am. he's starting to roll over in his sleep though and sometimes that will wake him up because he doesn't like being on his back and hasn't figured out how to get back to his tummy yet. if he does this i just roll him back and he's out like a light in seconds again. he's been in this sleep routine since 5 weeks old.

Laura - posted on 02/28/2010

My little girl was born 9/7 and is up 1-2 times at night. I BF so I nurse her at 8pm and we play until 9. I then change her diaper, dress for bed and put her in a sleep sack. I don't bathe every night, btw. Then I prop her up on her nursing pillow and I sing to her and if she's in the mood, I read as well. By 9:20 she is ready to sleep, so I wrap her in a blanket and my husband will lay her on a pillow and rock her to sleep on our bed. No holding needed. At about 9:45 I will put her in her bed. She'll be up at 1am to nurse and sometimes again around 4. She'll be up for the day between 6:30 and 7:30am.

Dena - posted on 02/27/2010

Wow everyone on here seems very lucky, I can say that, do what works for you, My son, wakes up almost 7 times a night, i've tried tons of things, but not CIO, he is BF so i cant answer those, but i'll assume he eats around 4oz, has a bath every other night gets into his pjs has a story and cuddles until sleepy, put him to sleep and he wakes up all night, i havent gotten more than 6 hours of sleep in the 5 months he's been here, we now co-sleep and i wouldnt have it any other way, all babies are differnt in my opinion you should adapt to how your baby likes, whithin reason of course :-D

Kellie - posted on 02/27/2010

My son is very easy, just to put that out there...we are spoiled when it comes to bedtime but I'll give you our schedule anyway. He bathes every night at about 7pm. He loves to take baths so we play for about 15/20 minutes there. I take him back into his room to put on pjs and Daddy makes his 7 oz. bottle of Similac Advance Early Shield in Dr. Brown's bottles. Most of the time he falls asleep with his bottle by 7:45pm and we just lay him in his crib. If he still looks awake and alert we'll put him in his bouncy seat and put on Baby Einstein's Lullaby DVD...he looooves this DVD! Once he starts rubbing his eyes, we'll take him in to his room. I rock him sometimes just to get an extra snuggle in but he NEVER cries himself to sleep. He's such a good boy!

Noreen - posted on 02/27/2010

We really don't have a set routine for Abby yet. I don't bathe Abby everynight because of her ezecma, so she gets a bath every other night or so. Abby nurses every hr for 15-30 minutes from 6pm-10pm, she cluster feeds. Everynight at 630/7 all 3 of my children get their jammies on. The boys are in bed at between 7-8. Abby nurses until she falls asleep around 8pm and will sleep in my arms or in her swing for about an hr. Wake up and play for 30minutes or so, then nurse again until she falls asleep and will most likely be sleeping on the couch next to me. Then at midnight, I will change her diaper if she needs it, take her to bed and give her a dream feed. If I have to wake her up in the morning so I can take my oldest to school, I will wake her up between 6-630am to feed her again. If my husband is home, she will sleep until 8am, nurse then will go back to sleep until 10am, if we don't have to go anywhere. But she will sleep anywhere and usually will stay asleep until 10am even if we're out.

Brandi - posted on 02/27/2010

I give my little one a bottle around 7:30 and 8 with a tad bit of rice cereal..She take Similac Sensitive and we use the playtex drop ins.... She normally goes to sleep between 8:30 and 9 and sleeps through the night...She normally wakes up about 9 am......Hope this helps

Sarah - posted on 02/26/2010

Hi there! My son doesn't really have a set routine, but I do try to get him in bed around the same time every night. I don't give him a bath every night...I try to bathe him about every other night or so. I do his bath around 7ish & get him in his pajamas. Then he will play for a little while & I will give him his last bottle around 8:30 or so. I feed him 6oz of Similac Advance Early Shield in Dr. Brown's bottles. After he eats he's pretty much out for the night so I change his diaper once more & then lay him in his crib. He sleeps through the night until about 7:30am. He doesn't have any siblings. We usually turn down the temperature in the house at night so it won't get too stuffy. If it's really cold that night, I will put him in one of those Halo Sleep Sacks, but leave the temperature down low. :)

Kara - posted on 02/26/2010

hi hun,,
i only give my wee man a bath every second night as he has dry skin but i always keep his routine the same...bath nights just after 6 other nights its 630, i put his lotions n potions on then into pj's, i make up a 7oz bottle but keep oz back to make up his baby rice, which he had after his bottle then let him have a wee chill out b4 taking him up to bed, he will sleep right thri till 6/ 7am ish. he's bn in this routine for a few weeks now. b4 i started giving him a bit baby rice along with his bottle i use to wake him up at 11 for a bottle, but i felt really bad wakin him as he look so peacefull and wld sometimes b really grumpy. poor wee man.
amber is right tho,,every bubs is different
xx

Amber - posted on 02/26/2010

My daughter gets a bath at 730 or 8 and then gets a 4 ounces bottle (formula, and its enfamil prosobee). I put her down in her swing at about 930 to go to sleep. then at midnight I wake her up and change her diaper and give her a 6 ounce rice cereal bottle(6 ounce formula and 3 tablespoons cereal.) Then she sleeps in her crib until about 6! works for us, every baby is different though.