Routines...

[bigbee]

Just wondering what everyone's morning/night routines are; what time do you start/finish your days.

Ours are something along the lines of:

MORNING. Wake up. Feed. Wash baby's face, hands, bum in the sink. Get dressed. Don't really have a set "wake-up" time...

EVENING. Feed. Bath. Moisturise (we use cocoa butter). A little massage. Put babygrow on. Feed. Rock to sleep.

We have only just started an evening routine... The last few nights we went upstairs at 8 pm, baby was asleep at 9.30 pm. Tonight we started just before 7 pm, as he had injections and was very cranky.

So.... What time do you get up? And what is a reasonable bed time?

(Baby is just 8.5 weeks. I'm planning to incorporate story time etc later on.)

 

[Belfa]

Oh yours makes me sound really unorganised lol.

LO pretty much takes a feed at 12, 3, 6, 9 AM and PM. So, we get up between 9am and 10am. Sometimes I'll get up a bit earlier but I generally fall asleep after the 6am feed. He just gets a wiped with water wipes and dressed in the morning. I moisturise his face and feet.

At night he's bathed at 8.30pm just before the 9pm feed, jammies on and depending what needs done in the house we go back downstairs until just before the midnight feed and then go to bed or we go to bed at the 9pm feed (I have dogs and don't like them sitting downstairs alone).

When he goes longer through the night and is a bit bigger I'll put him to bed himself and bring the monitor downstairs x

 

[Elliott]

Morning was are generated getting up about 7-7:30 ish having had a feed around 6am maybe. Dressed and ready for the day.

Evening bath about 18:30 and feed about 7 (OH trying a bottle but lot that successful) from this point we always put her down in our room in her crib and we try and get our tea whilst keeping an eye on monitor and attending as necessarily). Usually she we want feeding again at various points through the evening and she notmay settles for s longer nap about 21:30 - 220. We go to bed around 22:30-230. She'll eat again normly before midnight but sometimes will last until neay 2am.

Above folk are you formula or bf? Just to know if I should feel bad for our feeds being so all over the place in comparison! It really is impossible to predict!

 

[El1en]

We are so bad with routine. Lo usually wakes at 5.30ish with wind and tummy pains. She comes into my bed for a cuddle and feed and might drift off until 6.30/7. Then we get up and dressed and I use a wipe on her face. She usually sits in her vibrating chair while u have breakfast and she'll fall asleep again at 8.30/9.

In the evening is quite difficult, we live on a farm and can't really predict when daddy will come in for supper. She'll watch us eat then she'll have a feed. I only bath her every other night usually at about 7.30ish, she'll have a little sleep then be awake for a play and cuddle then another feed and bedtime at 9.30/10 and then up briefly at 1.30

 

[Rooster30]

We don't have a particular routine in the morning. In the evening she has a bum change and put in pyjamas then upstairs for bottle, then crib time. This all happens at about 1845 whilst OH gets my son ready and off to bed. That way we're usually both downstairs for around 1915 for much needed child-free time. She has only recently taken to this routine. I started taking her up at this time from 6 weeks old and it would take hours for her to settle. Then at about 9/10 weeks old she suddenly just did it. She self settles now too (by thumb sucking, grrr) so saves on having to rock her.

 

[Jessiecat]

We get up about half 7 everyday, baby will wake and want feeding, then up changed and dressed ready for school run. After taking big brother to school he will have a nap for about an hour.
At night he sort of just goes with the flow, we'll bath both boys about 7ish but then baby just chills with us until we go to bed about 10ish.

Bigbee are you getting any more sleep at night now? We're stil on 2 hours max. I'm knackered.

 

[kitten2014]

Hi guys, we started a routine at about 6/7 weeks when she showed signs of not needing as many night feeds, usually the day runs as follows:
3-4am - dreamfeed - remains swaddled, dim lights, ssh sounds only quietly burped and put back down again
6-7am - wake for the day, use mobile as activity whilst get up myself and prepare her bottle, clothes etc, then nappy, hand and fash wipe wash, outfit change for the day, bottle then back down for a nap,

during the day she usually goes 1.5hrs waketime and feeds every 2-2.5hrs (so feed times would like like this: 9am, 11, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7pm) so approximately 4-5 naps during the day ranging from 20mins to 1hr, try and get longer nap in at lunchtime, will leave for 10mins when wakes to see if she'll self settle - sometimes works sometimes doesn't, shortest nap at end of the day with longest waketime and clusterfeed 6 and 7pm in bed 7-8pm after outfit change, nappy, bottle with story. bath once a week at this time (we go swiming once a week too so counts as second wash)

during the day we follow the EASY routine which on the most part works but our lil miss prefers ESYA which inevitably means feeding to sleep but this is how she prefers it, I struggled to do activity after feed as after burp time she'd be all calm/dozy and would have to stir her for play at which point you always get spit up but will try and adapt later on as want to wean her off feeding to sleep but tbh sometimes she'll go down drowsy but awake and self settles 10-20mins usually...

she is formula fed and takes approx 32-34oz over the day. have tried to incorporate dreamfeed at 10/11 but she still needs a 4am feed so dropping that unless she wakes and asks for it. nights can be hit and miss - last night she went 7.30pm-6am with one feed, night before same time period 3 feeds, a week prior all the way through no feeds so going with the flow is definitely important but some nights will try and settle with dummy if she wakes which takes anything from 20mins-2hrs but it works which suggests she wants comfort not milk...she has hit the growth spurt that occurs 12-13wks so hence think she's crankier and feeding more, jabs next week...sigh

3months old today - no longer a newborn - yikes where has that time gone...???

 

[northerngirl]

Gosh what I wouldn't give for Felix to nap in the daytime, he just won't at all, lucky if he naps for half an hour all day so it's exhausting. He just wants to play and communicate ALL the time, which is lovely but so tiring.
I think our routine is pretty similar to most others for night time, day time there's no particular routine, tried it but as I said he has somewhat of his own mind haha. He's a good boy at bed time though, always asleep by 8.30pm and sleeps until 4, has a feed then back down til around 7 xo

 

[Pismo]

Morning: wakes 05.30-6.00 for morning feed and will then have some awake time. I'll get him changed and dressed into day clothes on this time aswell as getting DS1 up and fed. Will nap from 8am until 11ish. I'll shower in that time.

Will feed at 10.30-11.30, 2.30-3.30

Evening - he'll start cluster feeding at 6pm. We bath him every other night. Into pjays at 7.30-8. Continue to cluster feed until daddy gives a small bottle feed at 9.30. Into crib at 11am. Will wake once at around 2.30 for a feed but will.be awake.for.an.hour or so.

We haven't tried to force a routine but will try to get it better in month or so. Would.love some evening child free time

X

 

[Elliott]

Going to stop reading now as I'm either jealous or feel clueless when I see how organised and in a routine people are !

Impressive stuff

 

[Babbybo]

We tried a routine with bedtime of 8ish but it backfired with LO waking for feeds at 2 and 6am again (about week 10 I think). Since then LO has kind of settled it all himself and generally has a feed at 9pm and asleep or at least in bed for 10pm. For the last week he has went through the night with no feeds until anywhere between 6am and 9.20am. Last two mornings he has woken up and kicked and played about in crib around 5/530 but didn't need fed.

After we get up and get ready he gets fed around every 4-5 hours. He generally has two naps during the day. It can be two long naps (2 or 3 hours) somedays and others they can be shorter (around 30mins-an hr). Most days at least one nap will be long. He's breastfed and 14 weeks.

 

[bigbee]

Yes, forgot to mention - baby is breastfed. Last night he fell asleep at 8.20pm, then up around midnight, 3 am. He wakes up without fail at 5.10 am. Not convinced it's because he is hungry...think it's now a habit! Then he is up every hour until we get up at around 8 am.

We've only just started this evening routine. Before that we bathed him once per week. Bathing him every night seems to work. Relaxes him, I suppose. A bit worried about drying his skin out, but the cocoa butter seems to work.

And we too follow ESYA... EASY doesn't work.

Jessie, I hope I don't jinx it by saying he feeds quite frequently, but I think he is growing out of the 2 hour feeds.

 

[Belfa]

My LO is bottle fed. Sometimes his feeding routine goes haywire like at the weekend there which I put down to a growth spurt. He puts himself back into the 12,3,6,9 feeding schedule every time though so we are just led by him x

 

[littlemonkey]

We're only just starting to get into some kind of routine with our youngest now and he's almost 11 weeks old. My eldest was also a similar age before we started trying to get him into a routine.

The main thing is to follow LOs lead and accept that stuff will change from day to day. It will also change as they're get older and go through teething and growth spurts etc.

He's starting to feed about 3-4 am then feeding every four hours through the day until about 7-8pm when he'll then nod off for the night. Everything in between is kind of organised chaos trying to juggle him and my two year old! He's getting to the stage now where he's fighting naps more like my eldest did so I have to put him up in his cot in the quiet for him to get a good nap. Which I'm struggling with when my toddleraand I are used to being out and about most of the day!

 

[kitten2014]

OK im also jealous of the 3-4hr gaps between feeds, as our lil miss rarely naps beyond an hr by the time she's had that she's ready for activity time then feeding and try as I might can't extend beyond 2.5hrs as that then signals her being awake an hour and a half and would far rather feed regular than have an overtired baby. tried to extend naps but paid the price at night time when one day she went for a 3hr nap..think she got day/night confusion tho so took her outside for a walk the next day....trying to get a walk part of the daytime routine as she is only now showing signs of enjoying it (by that I mean no crying and looking around curiously) but it has to be overcast as she hates the brightness of sunlight...

not sure how to extend the feeding intervals but atm not concerned as would far rather she go through the night than feed every 3-4hrs during the day tbh.

 

[kitten2014]

bigbee sometimes she adopts the EASY when we're out and about as she gets anxious about new places, feeds sooner and then going home counts as activity so after the next nap she is bawling for feed, today I did this and managed to get 20mins playmat time after which doesnt usually happen but is gud to do occasionally...

 

[littlemonkey]

Kitten my LO is on formula and has only recently got to four hours between feeds. He's refluxy and been fussy with feeds until recently.

 

[Jessiecat]

Can someone tell me about EASY? I'm not familiar with it?

 

[Rooster30]

My daughter feed about every 2.5 hours too. I don't care. She sleeps super well at night so happy to have regular feeds during the day.

 

[kitten2014]

Jessiecat - see this link explains all:

http://www.babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=186622.0

In a nutshell it helps both you and your baby know what happens next and therefore should mean no nasty surprises and less crankiness (unless ill, teething etc ect) It is baby led to the extent that you are watching for their cues but parent-led in that you dictate what happens when so you dont end up with an overtired, overstimulated baby and they feed regular. I have found it works very well but you have to be prepared to throw it out of the window when out and about as you will find activity covers not just playtime but car journey time, nappy changes, etc etc so it helps to understand that that means they dont need playtime as they have had stimulation already. It now means that I know roughly when my lil miss takes her naps and her feeds and means I can make better use of my time so that when its playtime i'm 100% focused on her...

yes agreed rooster, to be honest focusing back on cluster feeding to achieve a longer gap between feeds at night but daytime it's fine, she'll soon show that it needs changing when she drinks less each time at which point she'll probably be ready for more waketime anyway...