B is for Bedtime Routine

You can start implementing a predictable nighttime routine from about 8-12 weeks old or when your baby starts to smile socially. This is usually a good sign that they are making connections with their environment and can understand the predictability of a nighttime routine. A before sleep routine can go a long way in creating a solid sleep foundation for your child moving forward in their sleep journey. 

Certain parts of the bedtime routine are particularly important:

First, a bedtime routine must be a predictable and consistent series of events that happens before bedtime.  Keep it short and manageable. Over time, a very similar routine should be used before naps as well. The steps of your routine should happen in relatively the same order each night. It matters less what activities the routine consists of and more about whether it is consistent every night. For example, you may start off with some play time in a stimulating room in your home, go into your child’s bathroom to undress for a bath or bathroom pitstop, go into your child’s room, dim lights and turn on white noise, change their diaper, put their pyjamas on, sing them a song and/or read them a book, and offer a bedtime feeding. At LUNA, we tend to not recommend reading a book for children under the age of one as it is a stimulating activity. We instead recommend singing a lullaby.  

Second, it is myth that you should not feed during your bedtime routine.  You can absolutely offer a feed but what you do not want to do is feed your child to sleep. In fact, integrating a feeding into the routine can serve as a cue that sleep is coming. You can also incorporate physical cues, like a sleep sac or swaddle, a security object (if your child is older than 1 years old and/or if you have the permission of a healthcare professional) that your child will learn to associate with sleep. However, to reinforce these cues you must only use them in the bedroom. Therefore, we don't recommend you take these “sleep objects” out of the bedroom. Similarly, if you tend to spend a lot of time in your child’s room playing, they may not realize that the bedroom is for sleep only. At Luna, we strongly suggest you bring toys and stimulating activities to a designated play area of your home. 

Third, when it is time for bedtime routine to start you want to make smooth room transitions until bedtime. This means, you don't want your children going in and out of multiple rooms of your home before bedtime. To ensure smooth room transitions, consider preparing items necessary for the bedtime feed (e.g. bottle, nursing pillow etc.) before you head to the bathroom so that you don't need to go back to the kitchen to prepare it once bedtime routine has begun. Although you do not need to bathe your child everyday,  you should go to the bathroom every night. Here you can brush your child’s teeth or gums, do a quick sponge bath or whatever it is so your child can start associating the bathroom with the idea that sleep is coming. From here, you would take your child directly  to the room in which they sleep where they would stay until morning. Once in the bedroom, you can continue the routine, like putting a sleepsack on, starting the white noise machine, dimming the lights, before feeding and putting your child to sleep for the night. 

Finally, before starting a consistent  bedtime routine, we recommend that all the adults in the household discuss it to make sure it is feasible and they feel comfortable moving forward. The most important aspect of the bedtime routine is that your family can be consistent with it long term. Therefore, it is crucial that everyone is on board and can replicate it should there be different people doing routine on a night to night basis.

*Most of our families report that it takes a few nights to develop a consistent routine but very soon look forward to the predictable and special time with their little ones*