6 MONTH BEDTIME ROUTINE (GENTLE SLEEP TRAINING!)

Creating a good bedtime routine for my daughter is something we've worked on since she was old enough to get a bath. Early on, we decided we would rotate nights with her. This means one parent is entirely in charge of bedtime, and the other is completely hands-off (unless it's a super rough night). Since she wasn't getting the same parent every night, I knew it was essential to keep the routine.

DJ has always been a pretty okay sleeper. She slept in our room until she was about 4 months old, then we moved her to her crib in her own room. For a long time, getting her to sleep was not a pleasant experience. There was a lot of frustration, tears, and long, long nights. We would rock + feed to sleep and then have to rock and feed her every time she woke up 😩

Most nights, she would sleep perfectly from 7 pm- 12 am then be up every hour. It was becoming exhausting. I knew the cry it out sleep training method wouldn't work well for us and wasn't sure how else to sleep train. I did a lot of research and decided on a gentler way that wouldn't leave her completely alone but also give her practice in putting herself to sleep.

Her routine has been slightly tweaked as she got older and more alert, but at 6 months, it goes a little like this. ***Me and her dad do bedtime somewhat different. But the steps are the same*** ( We use this same routine sans bath for her naps! )

1. 30-60 minutes of activities + feeding. 5:30 pm

   I've found that super engaging activities as the FIRST step in her routine seem to help tire her out for the night. This might mean playing with her on the floor with stuffed animals or walking outside in her stroller! We'll also give her the first half of her bottle right after this is done! She has some slight reflux, so we don't like to feed her a ton right before laying her down.

2. Bathtime. 6:30pm

   She takes a bath and gets her hair washed! (I use toys with her in the tub, her dad doesn't) Either way, she usually always LOVES being in the tub. Depending on how she napped during the day, the bath may last 10 minutes or until the water is cold. If I'm trying to stretch her wake windows, a longer bath help keeps her calm.

3. Lotion, diaper, pajamas. 6:45 pm

   Simple as it sounds. We change her into her pajamas. This is another step where we differ slightly. I don't like to put her into her sleep sack until she's finished eating; he immediately puts her in the sleep sack. We haven't noticed any major feed-to-sleep assocations from it so far (now that we've stopped rocking at least)

4. Bottle, Burp, Bounce. 7:00/7:30

   Once step 3 is done, she doesn't leave the bedroom again. We have a SUPER attentive child; if she can see that things are still happening around the house, she will FIGHT her sleep. So we've found it easiest to just have the other person bring in anything we may need to the room (bottles, phone chargers etc.)

   She gets fed again if she still seems hungry, then rocked or bounced for about 10/15 minutes. We lay her down awake, turn on the white noise machine and leave the room. We aim to lay her down 20 minutes BEFORE she should be asleep. Meaning if her bedtime is 7:30, we lay her down around 7:10 pm!

5. The tears and the check-ins. 7:30- until

This is when it gets complicated. Sometimes we lay her down, and she goes right to sleep. Most nights, there are tears. If she starts crying, we let five minutes go by, then whoever was in charge of bedtime goes back into the room and pats or bounces until she's calm again. Then she's laid back down (awake still), and they leave the room. This is repeated until she's asleep. The first night we did this, it took two hours for her to fall asleep. Two. Hours. Now? She's usually asleep within 10 minutes. 

What We Do For Middle of The Night Wake Ups:

• If she wakes up crying:

  • Put pacifier back - 9 times out of 10. This is why she wakes up. She hasn't quite mastered replacing it herself yet. We replace and leave. If she wakes up more than twice in 45 minutes, we move on to something else.

  • Diaper change- I don't usually change her diaper at night (unless she poops), but I'll change it if she's super squirmy. For the middle of the night diaper changes, I do it in the crib, in the dark, and keep it as boring as possible.

  • Feed - If she's absolutely not going back to sleep after replacing the pacifier and changing her diaper, I give her two ounces of formula.

  • Bounce/Burp- If she's crying, as soon as we lay her back down, I bounce her and burp her for a few minutes until calm and then lay back down.

• If she wakes up smiling/playing -

  • Leave her alone. Our rule is if she's not crying, we leave her be. We had this problem A LOT before we cut back on her naps because she simply wasn't tired enough to sleep through the night! Instead of forcing her back to sleep just for her to wake up (and wake us up) 10 minutes later, I just let her be. She'll usually babble for about 30 minutes then fall back asleep again!

What I think helped:

• I started putting her in the crib for "playtime" before putting her into it to sleep. This helped her become accustomed to the crib without associating it with sleep or bedtime.

• I give her A LOT of independent play during the day. She's not usually shocked or surprised when we leave the room, and she's alone, PLUS she tires herself out.

• We had realistic expectations. She's an infant. I don't expect her to sleep 12 hours without needing something. Even adults wake up in the middle of the night.

• White noise. This blocks out the noise from the living room and lets her know it's bedtime.

• Her natural temperament. This worked for us because DJ naturally is pretty independent. We weren't forcing her to do something she naturally disagreed with. Suppose your baby is a huge cuddler or clinger. In that case, you may want to work on building daytime independence before attempting nighttime independence.