Bedtime Questions

When my daughter was that age, it was between 6:30-7:30pm and wake up time was always 6:30am. I highly recommend the book "On Becoming Babywise" which really helps set a great schedule (which is at first based on what time needs to be wake up time (if you work or have to be somewhere) or just what time you WANT wake up time to be! :) Train them early and they'll be great sleepers in no time!

K.

My daughter has a 3 3/4 month old baby boy. He goes to daycare and with the activity he doesn't sleep much there. So when he comes home he ready for a feeding, bath and SLEEP by 6:30 - 7:00 p.m. He then sleep till 11:30 p.m. and we feed him a bottle with cereal and he then may sleep till 3:30 - 4:00 and want to eat again, then goes back to sleep till 6:00 or so. It really depends on how much they sleep during the day and each baby is different.

Hi B... for the first 4 years of my oldest childs life the whole family was nocternal(sp) so all these baby books and time tables never worked for me.. so I used white out our wake up time was about 1PM to 3PM. so i wrote that over where the baby book said wake up time and worked backwards.. and it ended up working out that we put our children to bed 1 1/2 hours after dinner time which was between 2 and 3 hours before mommy and daddy went to sleep. all in all they did really well on 10 to 12 hours of "schedualed" sleep a "night" with the mid "night" feedings and such.

hope this helps
A.

Hi my name is A. and i have a 8 month old, at about 3-4 months we started to bath her about 7:30-8 and put to bed around 8:30..since then she lets us know when her schedule is needing to change. Now we bath at 7:15 and shes asleep by 8, so i hope that helps the best thing i can tell you is the bath it is very calming for them and helps start the nighttime process. Good luck

A.

I think i did at 8. She woke up on the dot every 4 hours, so it worked perfect.

I think it depends on the baby, which is why you get such a wide variety of answers. My first born slept through the night at 3 weeks. We didn't follow any special routine, just him. He would go to sleep around 10:30 and sleep until 8pm. He was happy and still is. He is now 4 years old. If I let him take an afternoon nap, he will stay up until 11pm - midnight.

My second one is just the opposite. She has always went to sleep about 7pm, since the day she was born. Unlike my son, she has only slept through the night a few times. Sheis 16 months old and likes to get up around 6:30 - 7:00 am even though she wakes up two to three times a night. I don't believe in letting them cry it out, but that is a personal choice, don't feel like a bad mother if that is what you choose to do. At least you'll get some sleep eventually. It's so hard to do. From what I have seen on Mammasource this is not uncommon for babies not to be sleeping through the night early on. All babies are different and all moms are different. You need to do what ever works for you and your baby. Read books if you want, but I do caution you not live by them if they are not working for you and your baby. You will know instinctively as a mom if it is or not. If it doesn't feel good to you, don't do it. Good luck!

There is a great book out there - Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It explains babies sleep patterns and it will help you devise a sleep routine. We followed it for my daughter and she is a great sleeper and has the personality not to be a great sleeper so I really believe in the book and guidance it gave us. We also plan on using it for our son who will be born in January. At four months a babys sleep pattern start to form - a 9:00 nap starts to show and a 1:00 nap and a 4:00 nap. At 6 months these will become more on the dot as far as the time so at 4 months the timing will be earlier. A baby should never be up for more than 2 hours at a time. By the 2 hour mark the baby should already be down for it's nap. (In other words don't start the soothing process at 2 hours of wakefulness - start it before so that at 2 hours the baby is already in its crib to go to sleep.) A rule of thumb that we used is when I saw my daughters first yawn I would scoop her up, change her diaper, put on the music, rock in the chair and then lay her down for a nap and she would go to sleep easily w/out any fight. When they fight sleep they are overtired and you have missed that "moment" to get them to relax and fall asleep easily. If you follow this your childs bedtime will evolve naturally based on their sleep pattern and not the clock. My daughter was going to bed for the night around 7pm when she was 4 months old but at 8 months the 4:00 nap drops out so at 8 months her bedtime was around 5:30 - 6:00PM.
Good Luck!! A restful family is a happy family! Rest is so important for children - it is when they process all the information/stimulation that they learned during their wakeful period. It gives them coping skills and patience when they are older. There is a huge difference in personalities with a rested child and one who never slept properly. I have always protected my childs sleep schedule even if it meant to miss out on outings or get togethers. There was plenty of time for that now that she is older and she is more well behaved and has a better time at outings because she is restful.

Thanks for listening!! Hope it helps!

If I could have done it over again, I would have put my son down by 8pm.

I have a 2mo old girl and a 16 mo son. Old they both go to bed between 7 and 8 pm. He wakes at 8am she usually around 7am.

Hi B.-
I have struggled with this question myself. My son (Dane) is now just over 4 mos & at first he was taking late naps or sometimes not, but still didn't go down to bed until rather later at night, around 10-11 pm. That was all before we implemented the Ferber method for sleep training. Now we have a good routine down every night & he goes down anywhere between 6:30 & 7pm. He usually does not take a late afternoon nap though, so by this time, he is really exhausted & giving him his bath puts him into sleep mode. I have usually nursed him about an hour before we start the routine. We also still swaddle him when he goes down, b/c those hands are just wild when he's crying it out. It is working well for us, b/c he is sleeping a good 8-9 hr stretch!

I think in the beginning you have to feed more often & if you are nursing, feed on demand, so that makes for a later bedtime, at least it did in our home. I would let him go to bed a little later though, if he would take an afternoon nap.

I am also 32 & a SAHM. I don't know if you happen to be local to my area, but if so & you ever want to get the kids together to play & some FT-mommy-swapping-stories, I'd be up for it! I live in Port Richey.

Hope this helps!
K.

Hi there, I have an almost two month old and would also love to hear from other Mom's. So far he goes to bed around 10 but then wakes up by 2 and then again at 4 or 5. I have always heard that we are supposed to go on their demand for feeding until they start to eat other foods at around 6 months old.

Hi B.,
I'm a first time mom to a 4 month old bouncing, baby boy!
From all the research I've read and talking with other moms, the best "bedtime" is whatever works for your family (providing that it's not detrimental to the sleeping habits/health of your child.
That being said, this is what works in our household. Our evening routine starts around 5-ish and works around me cooking dinner at the same time (busy, busy!)
At 5-ish, I nurse my son. Then give him about 1/3 to 1/4 of a cup of oatmeal.
I start my son's bath around six pm with low lights and soft music playing (dinner is usually baking in the oven at this point). Then, after his bath, I give him a massage, put on pajamas, sing him a lullaby or read a book. Then, he gets a 4-6 oz bottle of formula from his dad. Then, we lay him in his bed partially asleep/dozing and most nights he drifts off to sleep (with the soft-lullaby music playing). If he does cry, we let him cry for a few minutes (5-10), pick him up and rock him to sleep and try again. Then, we usually get to eat dinner around 7 or 7:30. James (my son) usually falls to sleep anywhere between 7-7:30 at night. He'll wake up twice for feedings (but we are working to get down to one feeding and it's been going well) and is awake for the day by 6:30- 7:00.
The book that has been MOST helpful/informative/interesting was Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy CHild by Mark Weissbluth. I HIGHLY recommend this book for parents!
Hope this helps!
K.

ps- I'm also a stay at home mom taking time off from teaching (for now.)

My son kinda put himself on his own schedule very early...around 7ish. As he got a little older it was 7:30, and now at 19 mos. it's 8:00. He's always been a good sleeper and wakes up around 7 am no matter what time he goes to bed.

my daughter would go to sleep between 7 or 8, then I would wake her up around midnight to give her a bottle (her first month home after being in the hospital for an extra 3 weeks after birth) but ever since she was about 2 1/2 months, she has slept thru out the night w/o waking up until about 8 am. You can say that I was lucky to have a good baby (she likes to sleep like daddy lol hehehe). At 9 months now, she still goes to bed anywhere between 730pm to 9pm and sleeps thru the night, I guess it's the little things that I do for her to get her ready for bed that helps her sleep.