a question about routines... and how they work out

[tinkerbell*]

firstly i was wondeing, did you put your LO in to a routine (ie:Gina Ford) or did they fall in to their own routine?
if you do follow one, then how strict should you be... i would have thought that you have to be fairly consistant for it to work out???
and how do you get your LO's to sleep when they are "meant" to sleep

i was talking to OH abouty when times comes to try and establish a routine and he was not keen, we tired it when theo was way to young, but took silly advice from someone (haha)... wish we never had! he was way too small

what happens when you have a routine for sleeping, feeding ect... but when it comes to going out in the car ect ect... becuase babys nearly always sleep in the car, theit whole pattern gets mixed up surely? do i plan everything around their routine so that ti does not get mucked up???

sorry to ramble on, i personally think that routines are a very good idea, be them set by the baby or my the parent... i just dont understand how they can ever work. theo is a nightmare sleeper though so it seems so daughnting to me

 

[newmum]

At rthe beginning we just followed our LO with her pattern and found that she gradually adjusted her sleeping and waking times, getting better and better until she reached around 10 months and then she settled at the same times most days. A couple of times I tried a routine thing but it was too stressful because more often than not she did something different to the plan.
Now we kind of have a routine but it does get thrown out by small things very often I try to follow a little pattern in the morning but led by activities rather than time but I do keep an eye on how long she has been awake and try to get her down for a nap earlier rather than later. Eg. get up - nappy - breakfast - get dressed - play with books and toys - play outside and go for a walk - watch learning dvd - nap etc.

But it usually goes wrong in the afternoon. Everything is controlled by her pm nap. (which she HAS to have. I tried to drop it but she just had it at 7.30pm for an hour and was then up until midnight )
I try to make her sleep and wake before 3pm so that she will go to bed 8.30 at the latest. If she sleeps longer or later then that is our evening gone and we have a hyper little girl until 10 or 11pm

But even if she sleeps later we still follow the same routine: bath - bottle - bed whatever time it is and that helps.

And car journey??? no solution. We try not to go out in the car if it is near bed time otherwise we are screwed for the next 5-6 hours!! Same as if she falls asleep in the pram. But I think it is more of a problem now she is older than when she was as small as your LO.

 

[LisaJ1986]

At the moment Angel just does as she needs. She's fallen into her own at night time but during the day the world is too interesting to sleep. She has a nap in the morning/lunchtime (no specifics there, just whenever) and again around 4pm. I'm lucky if it's 15-20 minutes. I can go out in the day coz she's well behaved. If she's tired she'll sleep. I try and be home by 4 to get the nap in undisturbed.

 

[Sherlock]

Galen slowly fell in to his own routine for most things. Apart from sleeping and feeding during the day. He does that as and when.

He started sleeping longer at night around 14 weeks and is sleeping through most of the time for at least 8 hours since about 16 weeks now. We just gradually got him used to day and night differences (feeding at night is dark, no eye contact or speaking etc, daytime is light, bit of background noise etc) and started bathing/getting ready for bed around 7pm and he gradually fell into this and now goes to bed around 7.30-8pm and is asleep within minutes.

I personally don't like babies on a strict routine as its inflexible and babies don't understand that. I go with the flow and LO has found his own oattern for nighttime. The daytime stuff I don't worry about as I tend to not like to live by set times. If he is tired I don't try to keep him awake till 'nap time' or any such stuff. He is a small baby and cannot understand. I let him guide me.

Your LO will find his own routine in time. And then you can slowly start tweaking things to suit you a bit better.

 

[Charlie:-)]

We have 2 bedtime routine that i introduced around 6 weeks. The rest of the day Maia feeds, sleeps and plays whenever she wants. Although i have gotten to know what she wants really well so for example on a morning i know that she likes to nap about an hour and half after getting up and she can stay awake for about 2 - 3 hours the rest of the day between naps, she feeds roughly every 3 hours or there abouts. i start her bedtime routine at 6pm i take her upstairs and get her ready for bed which includes a bath every other night and a feed and a story sometimes a massage depending on her mood. She's usually in her cot between 6.30pm and 7pm again depending on how tired she is. I put her down awake and she's off within minutes. I have always put her down for naps in her cot with the curtain closed and at bedtime i have 2 lullaby cd i play till she goes into her cot. If we are out during the day Maia will sleep in the car or if we are out with the pram she will usually fall asleep at some point. She still sleeps at night regardless of the sleep she's had during the day.