Your baby and routines...

[Tillytots]

Id love a routine but James routine atm = chaos

I just go with the flow, he'll let me know when he is ready to sleep all night. Today he has been asleep since 5pm after a solid 2hour screaming session so he'll prob want to play all night now

 

[Magic Monkey]

We have never bothered with routine as such. But we have always put Ella down in her cot awake and used sleep signs whenever we do this e.g. she has her Pooh bear, her lightshow goes on, lights out etc. She started sleeping though at 9 weeks and other than the odd blip she has slept through ever since. She has also got herself into a routine - but it changes often, due to growth spurts, teething pain etc.

I would be very careful about too strict routines though, as they can lead to you having no life - the idea that baby has to nap at the same time every day in their cot is just ridiculous in my opinion, how would you ever do anything? What if the classes you do on a Mon are at one time and the ones on a Wed at a different time. Also the stricter the routine you have the more unsettled baby will be if you do aomething different e.g. holidays, weddings etc.

Also the some books recommend that you feed at set times, which I understand is very difficult if you are breast feeding due to problems with flow etc (I don't breastfeed so not sure on that one!). I personally could not let Ella cry for an hour when she is hungry because it is not time for a feed, and even now she sometimes demands a feed when not "due".

See how you get on for the first few weeks letting baby take the lead and make a decision from there. As Sherlock says, most babies sort themselves out fairly quickly and aren't still all over the place at 2.

 

[Bagpuss17]

I think your Mum is right, routine is good. Babies and children thrive on routine.

Personally I'd bin that book - sorry

We introduced a bed time routine from 10/11 weeks, this time I intend to do it from around 8 weeks. By bed time routine I mean bathing baby, feeding them quietly and putting them to sleep in the moses basket awake. At that age, they're still going to wake up for a feed 2/3 hours later but that shouldn't stop you from introducing a bed time routine.

We kind of just fell into a routine, by their very nature all they want to do is feed, have a nappy change and then sleep! Gradually the time in between feeds and sleeps gets bigger as they get older. Routine doesn't have to mean baby goes to sleep at specific times, it will change day-day for some babies, others will go at roughly the same time. For us it has meant missing classes at times but I'd rather my baby got his sleep, one missed class now and again never hurt anybody.

The one bit of advice I would say is really important, put baby in the moses basket/cot awake so that they learn to get themselves off to sleep without being rocked etc.....They then learn to go through the various stages of sleep which is really important.

Our son is 26 months and he's thrived on routine. He goes to bed at 7.15 and sleeps for 11-13 hours.

Just follow your own instincts about what is right for you and your baby, you can't go wrong then.

 

[lea m]

All my children fell into their own routines within say 3 months (my second son within 6 weeks) and we just worked with them!
I wouldnt try and force my newborn into a routine personally but things work for some that dont for others kwim!?
When they begin sleeping say from 11pm till morning then try and gradually bring it down! My children have always had good sleeping routines and heres hoping this one will too! (Iam worried about being more soft with her? )

 

[Bexie]

I think we started a bedtime routiene for Phoebe within the first week or so. We would give her some nappy free time on her change mat with the mobile playing overhead, then bath her, after we would put a calm cd on the stereo and get her ready for bed, I would then start breastfeeding her until she fell asleep, by 9 weeks she was sleeping through and I'm sure it's cos we stuck to this routiene. We initially started putting her to bed at 6pm then changed it to 7pm and have stuck with this since.

When she woke at night we would always change her nappy with low lights on so she learnt it was still night time then feed her and then back to bed for her.

I started feeding her on demand and was so anal to start with and wrote down the times that I was feeding her and how long I was feeding her, at around three months I realised she'd fallen into a pattern of being fed every 2 to 3 hours so stuck with this until we started to wean her.

I also read that to help with sleeping through the night you should build up their feed, so 4 hours before putting them to bed give them a half hour feed, then the same 2 hours before bed time, then when you put them to bed feed them for 50 minutes or as long as they need, then when you go to bed give them a dream feed (take them out of their cot, not waking them and breast/bottle feed them) The first time I did this I was expecting Phoebe to wake up, but she she latched on and remained asleep.

Other than feeding during the day I didn't have a set routiene and just let Phoebe sleep when she wanted.

Good luck with everything

 

[loz]

I'm not a mummy yet but I am planning on trying to get my bean into a routine as soon as possible really.

I bought a book from mothercare called 'The contened little baby book' by Gina Ford and it has the routine timings in that ar very very similar to what Becs is doing and it sounds like it's really good (if it works of course)

I like it because even though I plan on breastfeeding she recommends expressing at least one feed a day to be given at about 10:30 ish and preferably by dad so that I can catch some sleep and then just feed normally during the night.

He he wait until your bab arrives!!

TBH I wouldnt bother trying a routine until 3 months. My opinion is that they are far too young to slot into a routine before then unless you are lucky and they naturally take to a routine of sorts themselves. At about 3 months Emms started her own routine.

Please dont put pressure on yourself to do too much too soon - it just makes everything more stressful. Just go with the flow for a while. Every baby is different. I certainly would not advise letting your baby cry and cry to get them in a routine. Newborns have no timetable and mainly cry as they are hungry or tired - you just have to go with it. Gina Ford is v strict and quite hard going to follow . . .

 

[sparky]

routine!!!!!!! no chance!! bubs changes every few days with each feed, on how often, how wakeful they are...when they have their tissy fits..

plus you've got to try and feed yourself, do the washing, tidy up, get out and about etc..

i'm not even going to try for another few weeks yet!

 

[MissSara]

We have no routine at all and it has to be impossible to get a newborn into a routine.
I am not even going to try and get Benjamin into a routine until he is settled properly, at the minute he rules the roost and i don't mind that because i will never get these days back as he gets older. So as tierd as i am, i think i will just enjoy having my newborn control me and my sleep for another couple of months.