What sort of routines, if any, do you use?

[Lillylemon]

Hi ladies,

I consider myself to be a 'natural' parent in many ways, such as breastfeeding, co-sleeping sometimes and babywearing. My little boy is 8 weeks old and we've started a bedtime routine for him. I feel quite under pressure by friends and family to get him in to a feeding/daytime routine. I don't know if a routine is right for us as his feeds are so erratic - I can't usually get him to go the full 3 hours between feeds. But part of me thinks I'd like some stability, I am so drained at the moment from thinking about it so I wondered what sort of routines you use?

x

 

[Eala]

I think routines work well for some babies, but not for all. We never had a parent-led routine for our LO, and after a while she fell into one by herself. It changed over time, as she got older, but has settled down again in the last couple of months.

I found that she naturally did what I've seen called the EASY routine - eat, activity, sleep, "you time", but I forget when it was she fell into that. I think she was older than 8 weeks though, but tbh I forget

Sorry, I appreciate I haven't given a whole lot of advice I think what I was getting at is that, if you feel you can, you could try and follow your LO's lead for a while longer, and see if he settles into a routine of his own?

 

[dougie]

louie kinda set his own routine which as eala said, was like the EASY routine
we do just follow louie though 100% but he did settle into a routine at about 3 months - not rigid but a rough feed every 3-4 hours, naps after feed etc
we always had a bedtime routine of bath booby bed in the evening around 7-8pm

 

[pinkclaire]

If you dont feel comfortable then its probably not right for your LO. I would say only ever do something you 100% feel comfortable with.

We never did any routine, but we did start doing a bed time routine around 2 months, but it never made any difference to how he slept!

Its really improtant to on demand feed for the first 4 months at least, as they nurse extra when their ill or going through growth spurts etc, your LO is still so young! He will settle himself into some sort of routine on his own and then when you feel comfortable you can maybe stick to it?