Help with establishing a routine

Try th controlled crying method, assuming your baby is feeding 4 times a day after the bedtime bottle take him to his cot then and you need to have a bedtime phrase like goodnight or night something that you always say. Leave hime for 5 mins and if he is still crying go in cover him up again and repeat your bedtime phrase and try not to make eye contact. Leave and if needed repeat again after 10 mins then 15 mins and so on. I promise it really works I did this with my son and my daughter she is 28 weeks and has been sleeping through since 9 weeks and going to bed at about 8.30. It does take a while but it really works. My sister was having the same issue with her son who is almost a year and when she tried the controlled crying method it worked after approx a week. Good luck x

My son is 22 weeks too. I would say you should wake up him up earlier and put him to bed earlier and only one day nap of max 2hrs. I travel to Mexico a lot and have to channge the routine back and forward, so I can I ssure you you can definitely control their routine but you should start by waking him up early. I he wakes up at 7, his nap should not be later than 1.pm so he will be tired at 8 pm.

Like Monkeymoo, I also found Gina Ford's contented little baby book useful for setting out a routine. I had no idea where to start, or how much sleep/food a baby needs, but since I started doing it Jake is such a happy baby. I would definately recomend reading the book as a starting place, but then just adapt it and use the bits that you want, the whole point of a routine is to make your life easier, not harder! x

Hiya, at 7 weeks old I started a bedtime routine of a bath starting at around 5 - 5:30pm, then I feed LO in the bedroom with the lights very low, no eye contact or talking, then place him in his cot, still slightly awake if possible and leave the room by 6:30-7pm. We had to leave him to cry a little to start with, which I found very hard but now he's absolutely brilliant at bedtime. I also read Gina Ford's book (contented little baby or something like that!) She is very strict and recommends waking your baby should they sleep past a certain time, feeding at certain times regardless of whether they demand food or not so not everyone agrees with her methods. I am half way through reading "Secrets of the baby whisperer" by Tracey Hogg too. I think both have been very helpful....Gina Ford's book explains how much sleep yr baby needs and how long they should be awake for and Tracey Hogg's book describes baby body language and how to spot signs that baby is tired/hungry/bored before all hell breaks loose! My LO used to be a complete nightmare if I let him get overtired, which I did realise was the cause at the time. Now if I spot his tiredness in time then he goes down without a fuss.....if I don't then it all goes to pot!!! I find putting the hairdryer on helps to calm him if he's struggling to get to sleep.

i was just about to post a simular post my little girl is 5 1/2 weeks and i really want to sort out a routine so we don't get into bad habits. She feeds on demand and doesn't have a set bed time she is still waking 3-4 times a night for a feed and as much as a lot of you won't agree she is co-sleeping (rob sleeps in the spare room in the week so we have a king size bed for me and her) i really want to stop the co-sleeping because i don't want her to not sleep in her own bed but she hates her moses basket and screams the place down. i don't want to disturb the neighbours and as i'm breast feeding it's just easier. i am so lost i don't know where to start. HELP

Hi all, my baby is 22 weeks and he still doesn't really have a daily routine. The only thing he is great at is waking up at the same time each day but sadly that is 9:30 am. He tends to not go to sleep till about 11pm and this is taking its toll on me. I try to get him to sleep earlier but he just wont settle, my partner and i are desperate for our evenings back and was wondering if anyone had any ideas? I would also love to see othger peoples set routines so i can try to use them myself to see if it helps. Thank you! Rosie