Time for a routine?!

[AmyQ]

Evan is now 12 weeks and I have been letting him call the shots as to eating, sleeping and activities. I have been very happy with this, and was adament I would not be implementing any kind of routine at such a young age...

However, last night he decided to take a nap at 7pm, which was interrupted briefly when he woke for a feed, and again briefly when he needed changing at half 9 but I decided not to wake him and put him to bed. This meant that at half 5 he was wide awake and mummy was not impressed.

I don't function well on very little sleep (he woke at half 2 for a feed too), in fact too little sleep sends me more towards depressive thinking.

I am unsure as to whether I should have woken Evan as it's something I wouldn't normally do, but normally he will go down at 9.30-10 and sleep to at least 5.

I don't want to impose a strict routine, as I know he's still learning the ropes, but should I start attempting nap times and go with the flow or should I just continue letting him do as he wants and hope for the best?

Thanks ladies xx

 

[Leah04x]

When Ethan was younger and wasn't in a set routine, I'd let sleep whenever in the day and then not let him sleep for 1.5-2hrs before bedtime and try and keep him occupied as best as I could. If you wanted to, you could introduce a bath, bottle bed routine every night as a trigger for bedtime xx

 

[Chezza]

I'll be stalking this as we have no daytime routine at all!

We've been doing bath, bottle, bed at night for about 4 weeks now and it works brilliantly - JJ sleeps from 9.30pm - 5.30/6am...wish it was a little later in the morning, but he always falls asleep at around 9.30pm! xx

 

[AmyQ]

I'm not sure whether to wake him up at a certain time in the morning as a routine. Only problem is I can't nap in the day (never been able to) so enjoy it when he can sleep in until 10 on some days.

 

[ChloeNat]

We have been doing bath bottle and bed at around 6:30-7pm for a good few months now, Lyla is nearly 8 months, and she knows its bedtime and sleeps right through till 6:30-7am. We started off putting her down awake and didn't take her out of her cot again until the morning. Just soothed her laying down. Definitely worked for us as before she was all over the place with her sleeping. We dont have any set routine during the day though. I just put her down to sleep when she starts looking sleepy and she has milk every 3ish hours or so as well as her breakfast lunch and dinner.

 

[HopesDreams]

I have always followed O's cues & it's worked so far. Though, I know & understand its not for everyone. We do bath, book, bottle, bed. He used to go down at 9pm(ish) but now goes down at 7pm/7:30pm & sleeps to about 6/6:30am. He's been waking in the night for a feed recently but he's going through a leap & seems to pick up an extra night feed during leaps. He naps in the morning & afternoon. He used to nap at tea time too but has since dropped that nap, hence going to bed earlier at night.

 

[littlemonkey]

I did post a reply to this but I think I mentioned something I shouldn't have cos it's gone to the mods?!

Anyhoo we've started introducing one now, not that I particularly want to, but cos it's easier and fairer on everyone when I go back to work and others look after LO. I've been working with LO's natural routine and just tweaking it by introducing set wake up, nap and feed times. It just makes it easier to say to whoever is looking after him he feeds then and sleeps then. Cos I'm working with what we already do, it's a lot easier.

I think one of the main things is make sure LO is awake for a certain length of time before trying to put them to sleep. My LO can managed between 2 and 2 and a half hours before getting cranky. If I get him down around this time, he's tired enough to sleep for a decent while.

 

[Ella1979]

We always went with our LO's own pattern when she was really small. She slowly got herself into a routine (although she's always hated napping during the day and is still a nightmare trying to get her to take a break and sleep if it's daytime!), we never started waking her at set times or putting her to bed at night at specific times, it just kind of evolved over the first 8 months or so. It's worked really well though as she's now very much in a strict routine of her own making - up at 7am for breakfast, mid morning milk, lunch at 12, mid afternoon milk, tea at 4.30, evening milk at 5.45 and bed at 6. Pretty much unchanging day to day.

 

[littlemonkey]

We always went with our LO's own pattern when she was really small. She slowly got herself into a routine (although she's always hated napping during the day and is still a nightmare trying to get her to take a break and sleep if it's daytime!), we never started waking her at set times or putting her to bed at night at specific times, it just kind of evolved over the first 8 months or so. It's worked really well though as she's now very much in a strict routine of her own making - up at 7am for breakfast, mid morning milk, lunch at 12, mid afternoon milk, tea at 4.30, evening milk at 5.45 and bed at 6. Pretty much unchanging day to day.

This is what my LO is like in the day, which is one of the main reasons I ended up introducing a routine. I just had visions of him never napping in the day and being cranky in the evenings if I left him with others. I've started making sure he only ever naps in his cot or car seat (out of necessity so I can actually leave the house!). I give him his dummy and swaddle him when in the cot. I then sing twinkle twinkle little star to him while I rock him to a half dozing state. I'm only a couple of days in, but I've got him to do hour long naps for once as a result!

 

[Chezza]

Sorry to hijack your thread Amy! How old were your little ones when you brought their bedtime forward from 9 to 6/7...?? I'd like to get JJ down a little earlier, but don't want him waking any earlier than he currently does...just have no idea how to make the transition?? xx

 

[clairebear22]

Jack never got into a routine so i slowly started introducing one at 6 months. Harry however set his own routine at 10 weeks and still sticks to it now at 20 weeks. I'd wait and see what he does for the next couple of nights and if he does the same you can decide whether or not to wake him x

 

[diane]

I had a "routine" from about 9/10 weeks which was basically nap every 90mins during the day, feed every 3 hours and bed for 7. She would then sleep till 8.30am.

She still follows roughly the same routine now, with naps at 10am, 1pm and 3pm.

We started her bedtime at 7 from about 9/10 weeks. My lo has always been a good sleeper and I was worried that putting her down early might mean an earlier wake up call, but it never did! She still slept through till 8.30am.

 

[EmiLou123]

Sorry to hijack your thread Amy! How old were your little ones when you brought their bedtime forward from 9 to 6/7...?? I'd like to get JJ down a little earlier, but don't want him waking any earlier than he currently does...just have no idea how to make the transition?? xx

My lo started going to sleep 7/8 by himself... he used to go when we went (10/11ish) but all of a sudden he was getting tired earlier... I'm sure this was around 3 1/2 - 4 months but he is still feeding frequently through the night, not slept through yet so I can't comment on waking times (it varies from half 5 - half 7 in the morning!) Xxx

tapatalking x

 

[kat1988]

we started doing a basic bath bottle bed routine at the same time every night when Ruby was just 2weeks old, yes I know that's early but it helped her sleep better at night straight away.

My midwife told me not to wake her unless absolutely necessary eg to feed if she'd gone a long time without a bottle, we started waking her every morning at 7am from about 6weeks as I realised she'd created her own rough routine of feed, nappy change, play, sleep, repeat. by waking her at 7am it regulated her routine, kind of like pressing the reset button every morning.

obviously every baby is different but I Definately think every baby benefits from some kind of routine whether its just bedtime, or as structured as ours now is

 

[Emamay]

Cays routine originally had him going to bed at 8pm.
It's now 6pm, and boy do you know if you're late, little grumpy-bum.

In terms of during the day, he still doesn't have a nap routine. (Six months old). He has a feeding routine since about 8 weeks old (although its been tweeked here and their to allow for solids, etc).

When he naps, I only wake him if I have to (like, if we have a doctors appointment or something). If he's napping at a mealtime, I leave him to it... I know he'll wake up hungry within 20 minutes anyway.

As someone said above... I try not to let him sleep after about 4pm. He has dinner at 4:30 so is always awake around 4:45 anyway. If it get to after dinner time (5pm onwards), I skip his bath, and just take him to bed.
It makes no difference to him, he still sleeps through. Xx

 

[Emamay]

Ooh, meant to say...

We started bedtime routine at about a month. Since then, we've not changed his nappy overnight, and twice now (die to falling asleep and skipping a bath), he's been in the same nappy for about 14 hours. (Never had a rash/problem at all).

Decide when bedtime is, do bath etc, clean nappy and pjs, then bed, and no new nappy until the morning.
If you find the nappy (that works perfectly through the day) leaks, go up a size.

Each nappy-size change, Cays been in size (2s) for a week at night, and size (1s) through the day to use them up. Then went to 3s at night, etc etc. Each change to a bigger size is accompanied by a pile of nappies in the nappy box, and a handful of "night-nappies" at the side xx

 

[AmyQ]

He's just gone down now which is much more reasonable than 7. I want to do things mostly his way, but he obviously needs a not so terribly frazzled mummy. He's starting to get a better routine during the day as he naps late morning and a little in the afternoon. I can't really go back to 2 wake ups in the night or I won't cope. I know he has his 3 month growth spurt due very soon so it could go tits up then lol! xx

 

[Chezza]

Urgh...not looking forward to this next Leap/growth spurt...I really love sleeping through the night... xx