8 week old day routine

[poochielove]

Teddy has recently worked out the difference between day and night and has a fairly good bedtime routine which usually happens in between 8-11pm depending on how he has been during the day.
He seems to go from one extreme to the other...either he is alert and awake most of the day, having a few 10 minute naps and one long one in the afternoon or having a feed and then sleeping having a feed then sleeping and so on. When he has been awake i can get him down but 8-9pm but when he has napped all day its more like 10-11pm and sometimes as late as 12.
Obviously i would like him to be alert most of the day as he sleeps 3.5-4 hours between feeds at night where as if hes been napping all day its more like 2-2.5 hours. I do try and keep him stimulated but when he is tired he grizzles till he gets him dummy and i either rock him in my arms or his chair and then he is out like a light.
Any tips or advice? I am expecting too much of him at this young age?

 

[ninjawomble]

Islas the same...either a catnapper..getting sod all sleep in 24 hours, or like today, sleeps and sleeps and sleeps (until I want to sleep

Ive tried bedtime routines (she goes ballistic at the fact Im putting her to bed when shes not ready), and waking her for feeds.

Ive given up! So Id love to see if anyone has any tips too!

 

[NickyB]

At Teddy's age, I went with what Lucy wanted, she went to bed at 11 fairly consistently then though. I think it's kind of mean (no offence) to try and keep them awake during the day if they want or need to nap, they only get grumpy or cry anyway, then you've that to deal with instead.

 

[lea m]

Im the same as Nicky! I just go with Lola! Iam lucky she got herself into a good routine and I help encourage that but if she is still awake at 10pm and wants to go bed at 11pm then she does! As she gets older it will gradually come down to an earlier time!

 

[charlotte_]

Teddy has recently worked out the difference between day and night

lucky you

 

[Huddsgirl]

I think at this age they are still finding a routine themselves.
Mollie usually starts to get tired around 9.30 - 10 so i feed her at 9 and make that her last feed, she then wont wake till 2.30-3 am.
I do worry when she sleeps alot in the day(thinking she wont go through the night) but then i remind myself that she may sometimes go through her growth spurts where she may need to sleep more some days.
not much help but thought i would share

 

[nori]

Ollie is aorund the same age as Teddy and he has days where he sleeps alot and days when hes awake alot.

I've tried a few routines but was fed up witn the strictness of them. We've established our own little routine now which works for us. We always start the day at 7am(first feed) we then have 3 hourly feeds up until 10/11pm and he managed to sleep to around 5am.. he then has a cuddle with me for an hour or so and then we start again at 7am. I do wake him gently for his feeds if hes asleep but he doesnt seem to mind that. 9 times out of 10 he's like clockwork and screams every 3 hours on the dot (it amazes me).

We also try and fill up the evening by giving him a bath before his 7am bottle then i put him in his cot. I wake him at 10 or 11pm and then we are done for the night. This seems to be cutting down on his crying time.

Between the 3 hourly feeds it varies between being awake and asleep.. i gave up trying to get a routine for that.. it was far too restictive for me and him as we are now going to lots of mother and baby meets. I didnt want to feel i couldnt go because it was his "sleep time"

Hope you both find your own little routine soon. If you write down what he does each day you may see a pattern already.

Clairex

 

[bobby1]

Kai seems to have got himself into a routine of sorts himself. We didn't impose anything on him but just let him let us know what he wants and when he sleeps.

 

[crackers24]

I started Hafsah's routine at around 8 weeks. she doesnt sleep for hours during the day so that helps.

I change her, top and tail her and massage at 7.30 so she's having her bed time feed at 8 and this feed is a really long one and can last up to 90 mins. But by the end of the feed (9.30) shes fast asleep and usually has a good sleep of about 6/7 or even 8 hours if i'm lucky. I try and reduce her bedtime by a few minutes a day and so when a week has passed by she is sleeping about 15 mins earlier than the week b4.

Before i started a routine with her she would be sleeping at 1am and now its been reduced by 3 and a half hours.

 

[tinkerbell*]

down to my own experience i dont think that 8weeks is too young for a routine, this is the age we started doing one with %Theo. before we started Theo used to wake up every hour throughout the night, he used to sleep for 10mins in the day wake up have a little bit of bottle, fall alseep for another few minutes. he was hardly getting anysleep (and neither was I). he wasnt very happy either, we started doing a routine that looked bit like this:

7am Wake up & Feed
8:30 Nap Time
10am Wake Up
10:30 Feed
11:30 Nap Time
2pm Wake Up & Feed
4pm Nap Time
5pm Wake Up
5:30 1/2 Feed
6pm Bath Time
6:30 1/2 Feed
7pm Bed Time

it only took 2 days of putting theo down at those times and waking him up at those times also, and he had it, now he have just altered it acording to his age and how long he can go between sleeps ect. i would defo do it again! it has made such a different, before Theo was getting over tired so wasnt settling down to sleep at night, now he gets more sleep he actually sleeps so much better.