Getting Baby into a bedtime routine, my way!

Although Marky is only 2, I still can’t remember when he started going to bed and not staying downstairs with us. But I do remember him falling into routine with his older brother and sister. I had every intention to keep him up later, but he would get tired and settle easiest in his cot and it just so happened that it would be around 7pm. What I wasn’t expecting was that Emma, at 5 weeks old would follow the pattern. For some reason she settles better upstairs in her Shunggle basket, downstairs she only naps off and on, where as in her Shunggle she sleeps soundly.

For the past week I have been getting her up at my bedtime of around 11pm-midnight to feed her. But she was still waking up at 3-4am. But something popped into my head, what if I didn’t wake her up to feed her? So last night I let her sleep, and she woke up 4am still! She has slept a whopping 8 hours. Now my mother almost screamed when I told her ‘But she will starve!’, well in my experience she will wake if she is hungry. She feeds every 2 hours during the day and is putting on weight, so I doubt very much she will starve for sleeping 8 peaceful hours.

People are always amazed that my children settle in bed so well, and stay there. I might be tempting fate here, and Emma could turn into a nightmare for me…but I always kept night time as night time. I would feed them in the dark, and as harsh as it sounds I never made any interaction with them in the night. No eye contact, no talking, nothing. Night time was for sleeping, not play time. And before you pick up the phone to the NSPCC, I am not talking about a newborn baby here who needs feeding in the night to survive. I am talking about older babies, especially around 8 months when they might think that the middle of the night is a fun time to play.

As a mother to four children I am still learning, I don;t think you ever stop learning when it comes to children as what may work for one may not work for another….each child is very different from the next. I am ready to proved wrong by the baby Emma….