Every parent lives in hope for the day their baby sleeps through the night. When Henry’s silent reflux was at its worst, sleep was a battle. It would often take hours to rock him to sleep, he would wake continuously throughout the night, often just an hour after he’d fallen asleep, and all three of us were completely exhausted. We considered it a good night if Henry managed to sleep 3 hours straight before waking. Our lives completely transformed once Henry’s reflux was under control with the right medication when he was 12 weeks old. Once he was no longer in pain, Henry suddenly started being able to fall asleep on his own (no rocking or breastfeeding required!) and completely amazed us by sleeping through the night, much to our joy!
We have a nice little routine in place now, so Henry knows that bedtime is approaching. We start the routine at around 6.15pm, shortly after Matt gets home from work, and Henry’s in bed and asleep for 7pm, waking in the morning around 7am. Here’s how it goes…
1) Bath or swing – Henry has sensitive and eczema prone skin, so we don’t bath him every evening, but when we do, we’re careful with the products we use. If it’s a bath night, we use Oilatum Junior Bath Formula as an emollient in the water, followed by a mini massage with Melvita Baby Oil or Oilatum Junior Cream. If it’s a non-bath day, we pop Henry in his Mama & Papas Slumber Swing for some gentle wind down time.
2) We dim the lights in Henry’s nursery, then change him into a Pampers Baby-Dry Nappy, put on his pyjamas, and zip him into his sleeping bag.
3) Then it’s time for cuddles and a bedtime story in our bedroom where Henry still sleeps. Our favourites are Snuggle Bunny, On The Night You Were Born and When The World Was Waiting For You.
4) Time for Henry’s last feed, with only the glow from the Angelcare Monitor night light.
5) Kisses goodnight, and Henry goes into his crib awake, with his Cloud B Sleep Sheep on a very low volume and the night light turned off.
What’s your little one’s bedtime routine?
Gosh sounds so perfect! Thanks for sharing your routine. I still consider Finlay sleeping for 3 – 4 hours at a time to be good, as he wakes for at least two feeds a night. I guess if there's a downside to breastfeeding (from mum's perspective) is that the milk gets absorbed in their systems so quickly. I'm hoping once Finlay's having more solids I might get a chance at a full nights sleep again. Fingers crossed! I know it won't be forever but lack of sleep is definitely not fun x
OMG! 7pm – 7am! Dream!!
Hux goes down at 9pm, wakes up around 3am for a feed and then wakes at about 7am. We thought he might start sleeping all the way through once we introduced solids but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.
We give him a bath and put him in his jammies at 8pm, then read him a story and then give him his milk at which point he's so tired that he just nods off by himself.
Recently he's started stirring at 1am too though which I'm hoping is just a phase as I googled sleep regression and apparently it's something to do with them learning so much at around 19 weeks (which he is) so hopefully that will pass soon! Saying that, we're going to America in 2 weeks so what with the time difference we could totally mess up his routine for good!
x
Lovely post. So glad I found your blog through Oh So Ameila Link up. It's lovely and i'm your latest follower xx
Great post and beautiful blog 🙂 #Shareitsundays with Oh So Amelia x
Wow you are so lucky 7pm-7am! We also loved our swing and the cloud B sheep. Great post! Thanks for linking up at Share it sundays. x
brilliant routine hun 🙂 my girls also go to bed 7pm to 7am 🙂 its worked so well and have done this since they where 6 months old 🙂
Melissa
How cute is that sleepy sheep! I don't have a baby yet, but I utterly enjoy your posts about your little one. So precious!