Routine help please

[elliej]

hi, Amy is 3 months on Friday and is not a bad baby, i just wanted to know what other people thought i might be doing wrong
i usually give her a bath at around 7 to 7.30 then feed her, change etc feed a little more then she will fall aslepp and i put her down in her cot, usually by 8.30 to 9. most of the time she will stay asleep but sometimes she will yell and i have to pick her up and feed her some more before she goes back to sleep, sometimes 2 or 3 times, if i leave her she just yells; wen she is gone, she sleeps till around 5 or 6 in the morning; the problem is i seem to feed her a heck of a lot, after she wakes in the morning i usually put her back in her cot, and she will go back to sleep, unaided, usually for a couple of hours; then we get up and i feed, she plays, feeds,and naps all day, probably feeding every 2 hours sometimes. i think she just likes to suck some of the time but although i hate dummies i haave tried one just to give her something to suck but she gags on it and wont entertain the idea; sometimes she feeds for ten mins then stops only to search for more half hour later;i know i should try and get her into somesort of routine really but its really hard when i have to go out a lot with her to hospital and shopping etc and she falls asleep the instant she is in the car and quite often stays asleep for the whole trip thus ruining any routine, its driving me mad as i cant get anything done; how long should she be sleeping for really, what would anyone advise me do? i dont know whether part of the problem is being uncomfortable as she has a displaced hip and has to wear a splint but i cant do anything about that; im not the worlds greatest at organisation so any help would be great;
cheers
ellie

 

[CoreysMummy]

Seems really you need a feeding routine more than anything. I cant help as I bottle fed, so its easyer for me to impose a routine.

As far as I know, with breast you should just feed on demand. Im sure thats what most of the girls would say. I cant help im afraid - the only thing I could sugest would be having a look at the GF book, and taking from that what you like. Dont follow it word for word by all means, but thats the only one I know that accounts for breast feeding.. I think.

 

[purple13]

why do you need a routine??

honestly, i'm just curious

breastfeeding can't really be done on a routine (sorry coreysmummy, a certain person - whose name shall not be mentioned - gives total bullshite advice on bf-ing ) and it sounds like amy is feeding completely normally connor fed every 1.5/2 hours until he was weaned at 6 months - and he fed more frequently when going through growth spurts.

if you're happy with things as they are, just go with the flow amy will probably start to settle into her own routine soon enough; connor decided that he wanted to go to bed at 8.30pm when he was about 4 months old, so i followed his lead and adjusted bath and feed time appropriately. he finally started having regular daytime naps about 6 weeks ago but was all over the place (or just not sleeping at all during the day) until then.

it sounds like you're not the sort of person who thrives on routine naturally, so just have a vague bedtime and morning routine and let amy tell you what she wants the rest of the time.

 

[elliej]

You know what, that seems like a good idea, i had a brainwave last night and recorded what she did all day today aand realised she isnt too bad at all; i decided to do bed a bit earlier tonight and see whether she was just getting overtired and she went down like a dream by 8pm still asleep now at 9pm so far so good; opefully she will still manage to get to 5am but we will see. thanks for your answers guys, i think i just worry too much.

 

[CoreysMummy]

As far as I know, with breast you should just feed on demand.

As I said - I bottle feed.

Look at it this way - things could always be worse. Sounds like you have a happy little baby there, just follow her lead, and things will all fall into place Try not to worry to much sounds like your doing a cracking job.

 

[elliej]

THANK GUYS, she made it to 3am then went back til 8 last night, i think i will just let her carry on how she is; but i mustadmit i never realised how hard it can be to split yourself between two dogs, a cat, two horses, a husband and a baby is, how long before i get time to myself? ????