My baby is almost 10 weeks old. After suffering thru the witching hour and struggling to get him to bed before 11pm for weeks, we’ve finally established sort of a bedtime routine over the last couple weeks, where we try to get him to bed by 8:30pm (nurse, bath, diaper change, swaddle, bottle, rock to sleep). We have not been 100% successful but we’ve tried to stay close to our routine. Since we’ve done this, he’s slept longer stretches (4-6hrs) at least once a night, which has been awesome.

I’ve been reading a lot about how by 3 months, a babies should have some sort of routine and should be able to fall asleep on their own.

We rock our baby to bed every night (and nurse to bed almost every night, though usually only takes a few mins) and only put him down when he’s asleep. I’m nervous that I’m setting our baby up to not be able to sleep on his own.

Can others who have had success with early bedtime routines, particularly if you’ve been able to get your baby to fall asleep on own, share what they do for the 3 hrs before babies’ bedtime?

Thx!!