Routines

[Laura--x]

When did you all start on a routine?

I want to get my baby into a routine asap. I've read so many different things, one saying starting a routine from day 1 should be done in order to achieve a good routine, others saying a newborn needs to be cared for on demand and you should just work around them.

I want to make sure i get her into a good routine asap, feeding time/playing time/me time, and i want her to have a proper time to go to bed so me and oh have time to ourselves of a night.

I think it makes it harder when i see my friend whos baby is now 5 months, for the past 2/3 months shes been in a strict routine and is now put in her cot at 7.30pm and she goes straigh tto sleep and doesnt wake untill 7am the next morning.

What exactly do you have to do to introduce a routine?

Any advice is appreciated x

 

[princess_bump]

well maddi has been sleeping through since 6wks. she goes to bed around 7:30/8pm and wakes up after 8am every morning.

for the first few weeks we just followed her, and let her self get into her own routine. by 4weeks we started putting her to bed, sounds silly - moses basket in the living room. gradually her feeding settled out and she would feed once at night till 5:30, by 6wks we had a routine - bed time bath bottle and down my 8pm, and she's been like that ever since.

i think a few things helped - infacol and anti colic bottles, also putting her in her basket regularly, even just keeping going back to her to settle her, keeping the lights low and no talking during night feeds and showing her the difference between day and night, we always get her bath and dressed for bed and washed and dressed in the morning, also we switched to hungry baby formula when she was a few weeks as she was such a hungry baby.

ok i've rambled on - but i found the best thing that works is trust your instinct and follow your baby

 

[babezone]

to be honest id say its pretty hard to have a routine at the beggining and u shouldnt expect one lol...the first this to happen is for lo to be able to tell the difference between day and night. but also its new to them so they will want feeding on their terms too lol. i personally belive once the feeding settles down it can make it so much easier for a routine as they wont wake for a feed... but yes also be on hand with infacol becuase if your baby gets the dreaded colic my god its awfull...id use it from day one just incase.

really hun jus play it by ear for the first couple of weeks a routine usually happens without even realising its happend and everything just falls into place xx

 

[Leanne&Bump..x]

Karl is still on demand really but we have a bed time routne..

Bath 7pm then we read or play on his playmat or have a cuddle
Bottle 10:30, burp and nappy change,then bed between 11-11:30

Then he sleeps usually til 6:30 an i only change his nappy through the night if he needs it.
Then i change nappy while bottle heats, feed him and he goes back to sleep til around 10ish.

Through the day he is fed every 3-4 hours.

x

 

[Pyrrhic]

We have never done any routine with Niamh, we've just let her get into her own natural routine and done eveything on demand.

It generally goes...

From 5 weeks she's been sleeping 11pm-8am (ish) then feed and awake until 10am, then a nap until 12pm and then awake until 5pm then another nap until about 7pm then awake until 11pm.

 

[Vickie]

In the beginning as the others said it's almost impossible to have a routine. We have always done baths in the evenings before bedtime but that was about all we did the same in the first few months. Honestly we really didn't get into a set routine until Hannah was fully weaned (so within the last few weeks). Now she goes to bed around the same time, eats at approximately the same time, and gets up at the same time. But she's been teething badly lately and gets up a ton throughout the night Best advice is to let your LO guide you, he/she will eventually settle into a routine of their own. And don't be surprised if that routine changes as your LO gets older.

 

[MoonMuffin]

As said, it's pretty much impossible to have a feeding/changing/sleeping routine at first. What you could do is bath time at the same time every day, things like that. Kathryn is almost 5 month and her feeding still aren't at specific times (I think that will get resolved when she starts eating solids for real- she still spits most of it out), but she takes her naps at the same time every day (didn't at first but then did by herself), and we have a bed time routine, bath at 7, bottle, change, story and bed. We just started having this defined bed time routine last week actually and it's working so well, she falls asleep so much faster now!

 

[Chel]

I WAS going to have a routine from day 1, from working in childcare I had all these grand plans about how I was going to do things...

... and nothing went to plan.

If you want to get baby onto a routine from day one, be prepared for lots of crying and fussing, and seriously, a newborn cry has some kind of unholy power over mummy and daddy!

Jasper is now 11 weeks old and his cry has lost that awful desperate squeaking cry and now I feel comfortable to let him cry in this cot for 5-10 minutes while he settles himself to sleep.

I've read HEAPS about letting newborns and under 6month old babies cry for extended periods of time leads to all kinds of problems, physical and emotional. I'm actually planning to see my health nurse tomorrow to ask for a referral to a ped. to ask some questions about Jasper's health, and ONE question will be regarding crying, as many of the opinions I found online were aparently from peds.

GOODLUCK! Its lovely have a baby! Enjoy the first few weeks, they're absolutely magical... and every day gets better and better!

 

[JennTheMomma]

The only think you can really do with a routine is bath time, floor time, things you can control. Feeding should be on demand, a infant knows when they are hungry and should be fed when they are. You can't make a baby go to sleep, they will fall asleep when they are tired, even if they fight it for awhile. In all honesty a baby will find a routine that works for them, and it will change when they have growth spurts, new milestones and age. We all do it.