advice on bedtime routine for older babies

[emmalou76]

Hi girls i wondered if any of you can advise, Liam at 10 months has recently learnt to walk in the last week and for the past few nights he is tired after his dinner so give him his bath and he is wide awake till 9pm+ last night he was dancing at 9.30pm lol.

I was wondering if it could be to stimulating for him he does love to play in the bath.

I just tried bath,dinner,bottle and he is fast asleep the only problem is it could become a pain as he gets messy at dinner time.

what do you advise he has 2   9 oz bottles of milk a day,three meals a day, i morning nap of 30 minutes and two hour nap in the afternoon.

Please note he has recently in the last week learnt to walk

 

[~*Nicole*~]

I do a bath only ever other night or so. I just do a wipe down during pajama time the other days. If DD's hair is a real mess from food, I'll do a bath, but most often it's just her face/hands, legs/feet that need a good wipe down. I also put some lotion on her and that always freshens her up.

So I think doing it before dinner or dropping it to every other day or so may help you stay on track and less overstimulated before bedtime.

His daily routine seems to be going well....I don't know the times of his naps, but the amount of sleep seems pretty good. You just want him to be in bed earlier to avoid that OT hyperness where it's hard to settle.

Your other choice is to have dinner earlier, so you can make bathtime earlier and then have calmer activities with his last milk before bed to calm him down.

Hope that helps!

[emmalou76]

thanks for the reply, i once tried giving dinner at about four pm, bath at 6pm and in bed at 7pm which worked a treat but he woke at 9pm absolutely starving and drank a full bottle of milk so i thought i was giving dinner to early for the last week our routine has been like this

Wake@ 7am have milk and breakfast
play till about 10am has milk and a morning nap @ 10.30am for 30 minutes
play till 11.30am have lunch at 11.45 am (meat and carbs)
sleep from 12.15pm normally till 1.45pm
plays till dinner at 5pm
bath @ 6pm
milk@6.30pm
bed@7-7.30pm

[~*Nicole*~]

Is he having snacks? It might be time to start introducing them. You said he has 2 9oz bottles of milk, but I see 3 milks listed in your routine. That's fine but it seems as though he is getting enough milk and likely wouldn't be hungry if he had dinner earlier and then the 9 oz bottle before bed. But you could do something like:

7-wake, milk, breakfast
9ish or so-snack
10-milk if he wants (or combine with snack sometime between 9-10
11:45/12-lunch
2-snack
4/4:30-dinner
5/5:30-bath
try to stay more calm now....
still do milk around 6:30 and keep the rest the same?

Or if you keep everything the way it is, but add a snack after dinner/bath, but a not very messy one, so he gets a little substance in his belly but doesn't get messy after his bath?

As he heads toward 12 months+ ....He may enjoy having those "snack times" as he'll start switching from getting his nutrients from his milk feeds to getting them from the solids. So it gives another opportunity to get some more calories/nutrients in each day.

Just throwing out ideas.

Especially if he's walking now...he's going to burn a ton of energy!

[emmalou76]

thank you i will try that, i think you could be right with the walking burning more energy for the third day he has eatern the following:

breakfast of milk and toast @ 7am
lunch at 12.30pm
ate half my sandwich at 2pm plus milk
dinner at 5.30pm
milk at 6.30pm(9 oz)
woke for another 9 oz at 10pm drank the lot

[~*Nicole*~]

This all might be developmental b/c of the walking, being a bit more hungry, etc.

Hope it settles down soon!

[emmalou76]

lets hope so thanks  x