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I would have happily coslept and fed on demand for the first few months, but my DH is an awful, restless, easily startled sleeper so between night feedings and DH's shenanigans, no one was sleeping. At all. I read The Baby Whisperer and we started using that routine at 4 weeks.
We moved DS to his crib and started a 6:30 p.m bedtime. I'd go to bed by 9, DH would do a dream feed at 10 p.m., and I'd get up for any night feedings (usually 1 and 4) . By 6-8 weeks DS just woke once between 3 and 4. It was like that until about 6 months when he started STTN and we dropped the dream feed.
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I wanted to add that I started a strict bedtime of 8 pm at 8 weeks and started doing bedtime routine as well as a bottle of pumped milk before bed. I couldn't handle the inconsistent bedtimes and since my 3 year old was always up for the day by 7, letting the baby go to bed at 10 and having him sleep until like 8:30 really didn't benefit me at all. Coincidentally (maybe?) R started giving a longer stretch of 3-4 hours right around then. And I want to say that by 10 weeks was doing 2 wakeups. I'm not sure if it was the routine and bedtime that helped, or just getting older. By 4-5 months his bedtime crept a little earlier to 7:30 and around 6 months it became 7.
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I agree with Winniebee -- we started DS2 on DS1's nightly bedtime routine at three weeks. We bathed both babies, got dressed, and read stories together for bed time. This helped establish the first long stretch of sleep. We thankfully were able to skip the "witching hours" altogether with DS2 this time due to our early routine. He started out at 4 hours, then started to stretch to 5/6/7/8. Sporadic at first, but then gradually more consistent over the second and third month.
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Yikes. She would only sleep with my boob in her mouth or DH holding her. I didn't have a swing or RNP or anything! It was rough. DH and I just took turns...
We didn't even have a recliner or glider or rocker....
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@Rainbow Sprinkles: at 6 weeks I was having DD sleep in the bassinet next to my bed. (DH was in the guest room) Our routine was roughly swing at 7pm (2 hour stretch), 9pm nurse then down in the bassinet, 1am nurse/diaper then down in the bassinet, 5/6am nurse/diaper down in bassinet or rnp, 7/8am nurse/diaper/up for "day" - meaning we moved the party downstairs!
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@Rainbow Sprinkles: My almost 12 week old still isn't on any real schedule, so don't feel bad about that! My parenting has been tainted by my first LO, who was and is the worst sleeper of all time. I started a strict bed time routin with her at 6 weeks and did all the "right" things and nothing ever worked, and I basically drove myself crazy.
This time, I'm just going with the flow. No real nighttime routine yet (except always putting on the sleep sack over her jammies) and I haven't attempted to try to get her to an earlier bed time yet.
This baby is a night owl and used to have her "long" stretch after 1 am and be up constantly fussing before that. It's very slowly moved up and now she is usually asleep by 10, sometimes a bit earlier. Then she sleeps till 3-4 am, then is up every 2 hours after that.
So last night she was asleep by 10, woke at 3, 5, and 7 to eat. At this age she usually eats and goes right back down, so I don't mind the wakeups so much.
At 6 weeks she was sleeping in the crib which is pushed up next to my side of the bed. But back then she was still up every 3 hours around the clock to eat. She was also still very sleepy during the day at that point and was probably sleeping 18-20 hours a day. At least it felt like it!
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@winniebee: Restarting an old thread but DS2 is 6 weeks old today. Can you tell me more about what your bedtime routine was like at 8 weeks? I'm blessed that he is a decent sleeper, 1-2 wake ups and goes back down easily most nights. But I go back to work when he is 2 months exactly and I NEED a schedule as I won't be able to nap/sleep when he does.
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@ladybee: It was simple - sometimes a bath, sometimes not. Then, white noise and dim lights, swaddle, bottle/breast, lights out, binki.
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