Bottle Before Bed?

In your nighttime routine, is giving a bottle the last thing you do before you put them down? We've been doing it that way & the babies will often fall asleep in the middle of it. I've been okay with that till our pediatrician told us to quit doing that & to put them to bed drowsy but awake. So I'm thinking of re-working our nighttime routine & moving the bottle earlier & the bedtime earlier. We do baths & story time before that last bottle, but now I'm wondering if I need to do them after the bottle instead. Do any of you give the bottle earlier & not right before bed? And if so, did you have to do a lot of CIO to get them to put themselves to sleep? I'm just curious to hear what works for other people.

 

We do dinner around 6:30. Follow that with a bath and some playtime in their room. Usually just about 10-15 minutes. By 7:45 they are ready for their bottle. They get their bottle but don't ever fall asleep when they are drinking it. They almost always go to bed wide awake and fall asleep within just a few minutes. I have good sleepers! I always nursed DD1 to sleep so she had a rough time doing it on her own.

 

For a while they had their bottle but went to bed 30 minutes later. You could try that.

 

here is our nigth time schedule
5:00 - solid foods
5:30 - baths
6:00 - play while we eat dinner ( or just play if they are really crabby)
6:30 - last bottle/burps
7:00 - up to nursery for books/burps/singing
7:15 - 7:30 put in cribs for night (we do CIO, usually 5 - 15 min of crying)

 

they both usually fall asleep during the bedtime bottle. i havent gotten to the point of caring (dont think i ever will!), i just want them to go to sleep so i can take a break lol. naps are usually the same.

 

Mine have baths followed by bottles. They never fall asleep while drinking and we put them in their cribs wide awake. They are asleep on their own within 15 minutes. I make sure to start all this before they are overly tired...it's been working for us for several months.

 

When we did the feeds and baths at 23.30, the babies would often fall asleep on their bottles. They were 2-3 months old then though. Now, we do bath, bottle then bed at around 7.30pm. We put them both to bed awake and they go to sleep no probs.

 

I'm breastfeeding, but I do allow my babies to breastfeed last thing before I put them down. As they get older, I feed them and start reading to them (increasing reading time, eventually weaning them from breast to book to soothe at bedtime. . . weird, yes). We don't bathe the kidlets every night because my kids get pretty dry skin if we do.

 

Some nights the babies pretty much fall asleep during their bedtime bottle. But usually they wake up when we're burping them, talk a little before they fall alseep for the night. If yours are too tired, maybe let them take a small [10-15 min] nap a little while before you do the bath routine.

Ours has worked out well for us thus far. There hasn't been any issues. But of course all babies are different. See what works for you! Maybe they'll prefer: bottle, bath, then bed ^_^

 

We do dinner, baths, and a little playtime. Then my DD gets a bottle out in the living room while I nurse our son. They both get hugs & kisses and then off to bed.
We turn on a CD and a sound machine and shut the door. They both normally go to sleep within 5-10 min. They may fuss but never screaming. I can NOT do CIO. They also go to bed with the same blankie and stuffed animal every night.