WHAT SHOULD I DO AS QUIET ACTIVITY BEFORE BEDTIME STARTS?s

[Lovejoy]

before we take little one upstairs for her bath and bed we dim lights downstairs so it seems boring and have classical music on and let her and bit of a chat.

After bath she is still alert - she doesn't seem to have patience to listen books, so how can i tire her out without overstimulating her after her bath and feed?

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

I personally haven't had to worry about overstimulation before bedtime so don't do anything special - does your dd get too wound up for sleep?  If she doesn't I wouldn't worry too much, but if she does you could try things like a massage, gentle rolling around and playing on your bed perhaps or singing?

[Lovejoy]

LO is nearly 16 weeks old
she HATES bedtime, you may several posts already online here of mine, she screams for over an hour to sleep.

[fiona1973]

it will get better.  my little girl use to take up to an hour to shut up before sleep, now it can take anything from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. just stick to the same routine.
mine is bath at 6pm, milk at 6.30ish,  little play, then she listens to her favorite theme tune (emmerdale) on the tv then its bed. and i only go in to her if shes crying. most of the time shes chatting or making very high nosies.

[Christa]

Our wind down time lasts a whole hour. Feeding, walk around, bath, massage (if lo is okay with it) and then reading stories... your lo may not seem like she has the patience for it but give it a longer try. Sometimes my lo will fuss for a few pages, but then settle into it.

[LŠuren]

Hi
Our wind down routine is;

1st half of last bottle
Changed for bath, plays on the floor and listens to music or I read book while DH looks out PJ's and towel, etc
Bath time
Dry and massage (needs cream for baby ezema)
changed into PJ's and gro'bag
2nd half of bottle
burped
Put in cot whether awake or not.

This takes an hour.

[kyliemom]

My wind down is:
feed at 630
massage or bath 700 (i alternate these each day)
story 720 or 730
bed right after

My dd is 13 weeks and at first she was fussing at story time.  I cradled her and read and she cried.  I then had her sit on my lap facing out to see the book and she now loves storytime.  I think storytime is a great way to end an evening and the older they get the more they appreciate the closeness and cuddling before bed.

[taylorbean]

Hey, our windown is mostly the same , bath, massage, twenty minutes of rocking in a quiet room with celtic lullaby cd with soother and blankie and read one very quiet bedtime prayer book, I agree with Christa, sometimes it takes her a little bit to settle in but once they do, they seem to really enjoy it. then she's in bed with celtic lullaby cd and she has a bedtime bottle and then seems to drift off, the whole things takes about thirty minutes. She too is wired after her bath, it takes the all that stuff afterwards to finally quiet her down.

[Erin M]

Now that Katie is a bit older (14 months), I find that she crawls happily around her room entertaining herself for a bit between bath and bed.  That was a long time coming though!  When she was little, we had lots of tears (she's never been good at the end of the day, gets very cranky when tired -- like her mom!) and after a bath we would lower the lights, put on some soft music, and do massage, pajamas, bf, rock, and in bed.  (And generally do some pat/shhh or pu/pd to get her to settle to sleep).  Took quite awhile.  Now when I finally get her PJs on, we brush teeth, read a book, and I put her in bed and she falls asleep.  I didn't introduce books until somewhere around 8 months because they never really worked for us before then (actually we had books during the day, just not at bedtime).  Basically, whatever you decide to do, just stick with it and you'll see results eventually - I know I had a horrid time getting Katie to sleep when she was your LO's age, but now all the time and effort we put into it is entirely worth it.