Confused about when to give bath

[becky1969]

Our L.O. loves his bath, but just gets so overtired by it that when I do it around the 6/7 pm time, getting him down for bed is really hard and it takes me much longer than normal to get him to go to sleep at 7:30/8 pm. For awhile we were giving him a bath after his 4 pm bottle, and he would go down for the night around 5:30 pm and sleep until midnight, have a bottle, then sleep until morning. It was nice, but kind of annoying when you're trying to get him to sleep thru the night.

Now we're doing a 10:30 dream feed and he's sleeping until 6/7 am, which is MUCH nicer for the parents! However, I just hate the bedtime fight! I don't like seeing him so agitated right before bed. Bedtime should be relaxed and fun, not a fight because you're overtired! So I'm wondering what advice do you have for me. Am I giving him his last bottle/bath too late? Do I still give the bath after the 4 pm bottle, but wake him for a 7 pm bottle too? or do I just skip a night time bath and institute a different bedtime ritual?

As ann experiment, I didn't bathe him last night to see how he'd do. He had a great catnap - slept so great I had to wake him. But we were a little off schedule, and he didn't wake up from the catnap until 6:30. Then we had a light massage, diaper change, jammies, bottle at 7 pm, then down for bed. By the time we got to the bottle I could see he was really overtired. His movements were really jerky, he was sucking frantically, and he just seemed overtired. For my LO, this is clearly too late.

Any suggestions??

[*Natasha*]

Could you post us your whole day to see if we can't figure out an altenative for you.

[Shdef]

We bathe Scott once a week, always in the morning, otherwise he gets cranky and overtired. The ped suggested that we shouldn't bathe him more often because his dad has very bad asthma, hayfever and the other members of his family have eczema as well. So to protect the natural thingy (don't know the word cause I'm German) of his skin we don't do it often.

We wash him with a cloth and warm water whenever he is dirty and we give his hands and his face a wee wash all the time...


He sleeps great at night and goes down well. A bath REALLY knackers him.

[jordon&dylansmom]

We bathe our lo every night before bed, don't use soap everynight though, too drying on the skin.  However his bedtime is generally earlier than what yours seems to be.  We do bath between 6 and 7 depending on what time he woke from his afternoon nap but is always asleep by 8pm.  We've been doing this for about 4 months now, since he dropped to two naps a day.

I might suggest doing his bath a bit earlier, so that you can put him down to sleep around 7pm.  But I agree with the other moms, that to be really effective it would help to see what the whole day looks like.  I think it might be a bit strange that he is waking up from a nap at 6:30 and going back to bed at 7pm. 

Hope this helps.
Judy

[shannonp]

hi there, i have to agree with judy.  I give my LO a bath between 6-6:30pm and I give his bottle right after and he's down at 7pm every night.  I as well do not use shampoo every night because it can cause dry skin.  This is his routine for the past 8 months and he is 11 months now.  if i give a bath earlier then he'll be alittle off and want to go to bed.  good luck

[redfroggy]

Bath is part of our bedtime routine too. But I give him a massage right afterwards with lavendar scented lotion.Then I rock him for a few minutes. It starts to calm him down. You may want to consider just starting a few minutes earlier, or do something to wind him down like a massage.

[s_olano00]

Anna Krisztina is a very Spirited baby, and after many failures when trying to bathe her before sleeping, I decided to do it in the mornings, around 10am. It seemed that the bath before going to sleep was too much for her to handle.

When she turned 6 - 7 months I started giving her baths before going to sleep, and they have become part of her going to sleep routine.

[jsorrow24]

I give my ds a bath every night too and use the lavendar soap. I play soft music and a lavendar lotion massage also. Then we sit and I read him Goodnight Moon. I give him his paci if he wants just to start relaxing him. I turn off the lights and then go swaddle him, sit for few more minutes then lay him in the crib and pat/ssh him. If he is not real relaxed I give him a paci to help him but I won't let him fall asleep with it.

Our routine is feed between 7 and 7:30, bath around 7:45 then to bed at 8:15pm. It was 8pm, but with DST and more evening sunlight I moved it 15 min later so that it would be darker in his room. He usually drifts off by 8:30. I then dreamfeed at 10:30 and he usually sleeps until 5am.

I liked putting him to bed at 8pm, but there is still some daylight in his room and the blinds don't completely shut it out. I really need some dark curtains. If we get those soon, I will probably push him back to 8pm bedtime. It's hard for us to keep the exact time since me and my dh both work until 6. But since ds has moved to 4 hour EASY, his evening feeding has been consistently between 7 and 7:30pm.

Our ds skin is not dry so it's worked out giving him a bath every night. My dd was different, her skin is still dry so I still do not bathe her every night. She is 3 1/2 years old.

Hope you find a routine that works for you.

Jennifer

[becky1969]

Thanks for all the replies. We moved our routine up an hour, so now he is bed by 6:45 at the latest. It has made a big difference in his fussiness level, and now I have to wake him up at 7, whereas before he was waking up at 6-6:30 in the morning, so it seems to be working that way too! Go figure! I really don't understand how the earlier bedtime makes a later wake-up in babies, but I sure do like it!

He's mellow after his bath right up until we start putting on the clothing. My DH seems to think it's the feel of the dry clothing against his moist skin, and it's irritating. I don't know. But at any rate, after a little fussiness then, he mellows out again once we go upstairs for a bottle, singing, a little rocking then swaddling and bed. I have to swaddle last because as soon as he's swaddled his little eyelids droop and I'd never get him in the crib awake if I swaddled first!

Thanks for all your input. I love doing an evening bath, but he was just too crazy later. Now it's working for us and  I'm so glad!

[s_olano00]

Becky,

Something that works great for me is drying Anna Krisztina with a hairdryer... she looooves the warm air...